Read Online A Perfect Mess by Zoe Dawson - Free Book Online Page B

go to parties in high school, but they think you’re a troll in college if you don’t attend.”
    I nodded. “Don’t tell me you loosened up enough to drink at parties?”
    “Well, I don’t go that far, and I don’t do drugs. They’re bad for your body and mind, but a beer once in a while doesn’t hurt.”
    “No, it doesn’t. That Jax goes down cold and smooth.”
    She’d changed into a white long-sleeved top with—thankfully—not a pink bra strap in sight, along with a pair of tight jeans that cupped her backside as nicely as those shorts had. She slipped off her shoes and stepped into a pair of rubber knee-boots to wade in.
    “So you’ve never been gigging?”
    “Nope, but I’ve eaten my fair share of the legs. So, I bet you and your brothers did this when you were kids?”
    “Yeah, my old man taught us.” I couldn’t believe that came out of my mouth. I didn’t want to talk about my father. The silence lengthened. “This is tame to some of the gigging I’ve done.”
    “Oh, really? Like what?”
    “You’ll love this one. Bayou, middle of the night. Pitch black, and the shore is almost obscured. One of my dumbass brothers picks out frogs with his flashlight. Easy to see their bulging eyes reflecting back the bright beam.”
    “Is this a true story or are you telling me a whopper?”
    “It’s true. I see one and stick it and pop it into my bag. We’re gunning across the water at high speed while trying to lance the little noisy critters. Frogging that way can net you thirty or forty of the suckers in one night, if your aim is true.”
    “It sounds like it.”
    “One of my dumbass brothers is driving the boat, and he’s downed his third beer, handling this tiny little skiff with its big-ass engine and propeller. I realize I can’t see jack, and he’s blasting across the water at sixty miles an hour.”
    “So, the dumbass couldn’t see any better than you could … right?”
    I threw back my head and laughed. “So true. When I go gigging on an airboat, I try not to think of what would happen if we hit a tree root or even the shoreline. It’d flip the airboat and we’d be toast. And then there’s all the wildlife. But I’m thinking of a bigger predator…one with a scaly hide.”
    She gasped and I laughed again. “Yup.”
    “Oh, man.”
    “Bullfrogs are not the only eyes reflecting back at you. ‘Gators like to hang on top of the water at night as well. See where I’m going with this?”
    “Oh, shit. Really?”
    “It’s easy to mistake them in the dark. That’s exactly why my frog-gigging pole is as long as I can make it, because if I spear a ‘gator while shooting across the water faster than the interstate speed limit, I want that sucker to be as far from me as possible as quickly as possible.”
    “Has that ever happened to you?”
    “This one time we’re hauling ass and I go for these eyes. There’s a tremendous jerk and I know, it ain’t no bullfrog. I immediately let it go.” She groaned. “Don’t feel sorry for the ‘gator; Animal Planet wants you to believe they’re endangered, but they’re almost indestructible. A little gigging pole ain’t going to faze ‘em. So imagine that scene. We’ve just ticked off a huge ‘gator that was heavier and longer than the airboat. He came after us, and he was one pissed-off monster. He attacked the side of the airboat. I thought he was going to overturn the fucking thing, leaving us all in the middle of the lake with blood in the water from our gigged frogs.”
    “Geez. What did you do?”
    “One of my retard brothers threw the whole fucking bag of frogs at him and my other fuckwit brother ran him over.”
    When she covered her mouth and laughed, I was enchanted.
    “It only stunned him. They’re pretty hard-headed.”
    “Wait a minute. Who’s hard-headed? The ‘gator or your brothers?”
    I laughed again.
    Suddenly, we heard the deep, heartbreaking sound of a slow melody filtering through the dark night. It spoke