Mahalia Dilemma

2

        True to her words, Sally Anne Osborne had cleaned her late brothers lake house, and even had filled the fridge and pantries with groceries. Her phone chimed it was past six in the evening and the four day road trip from Los Angeles to Chesterfield had left her bones melting and all she wanted to do was shower and sleep.

      And as she walked back to her car parked in the gravel driveway to get her duffel bag filled with some of her clothes and toiletries, she stopped dead in her tracks. On the left side off her grandfather's lake house, there sat a newly built mansion type house, perplexing Mahalia, cause it was a private lake and her grandfather and a few other handful of people had lake houses on it.

       But Mahalia was more shocked to see a familiar Mercedes sitting idly on the driveway. She stifled a groan and marched back into the house, her duffel bag tucked underarm. And as she showered and had peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner,she still muttered begrudgingly and stewed as she got into bed in the guest room that had a king sized bed that had fresh sheets.

      Oh Grant Watterson, knew what he was doing. She saw the look in his eyes earlier that day—the comic look she'd seen in his eyes all those years ago when he tried to be gentle to her girlish schoolgirl crush on him.

      Now she was an adult,a full grown woman who was trying and was going to build her own business, not moon over a married man who was seventeen years older than her. And with that thought in mind she slept off, cuddling her pillow and dreams of her and Grant Watterson flooded her tired sleep.

      His mouth on hers, kissing her senseless in places no one had, gunmetal blue eyes like that of a stormy cloudy night holding her in place, why her mouth and lips arched in sheer pleasure. That hard face with,with those dimples that popped up at the most random times—instantly disarming people—and those lips that was kissing her and kept lowering to point of no return.

     “Nooooo!” She screamed, jumping out of bed and hitting her head against the hand carved wooden headboard.

      Her alarm clock in her phone chimed that it was three in the morning. Falling back against into the bed she wrestled off the covers, staring at the rotating ceiling fan in the eerily dark room that only had the moon light streaming in through the patio doors and wondering why that dream. She was only fifteen when she realized she had a huge crush on Grant Watterson and had done everything to make it go away.

       Realizing that sleep wasn't going to happen again, and that she needed air—not the hot air the ceiling fan kept tossing around—she threw on a hoodie over her tank top opened the patio door that lead to the private walkway to the quiet lake.

       She sat on the deck dipping her feet into the lake, and enjoying the cool lake breeze on her bare thighs with her short shorts and her hand tucked into her hoodie pockets,eyes closed and head calm.

        “No more Grant Watterson” She said calmly to herself. “That dream should be your last and only one of him”

     Her head was so lost in the chanting the new mantra that she didn't hear the silent movement and that someone sat on the pasture at a good two feet away from her.

      “You should know better than to be alone and unprotected at the this ungodly hour” The deep buttery voice said calmly making her jump and land in the ice cold autumn lake.

      The rumbling laughter that followed, only added more to Mahalia's annoyance as she directed a fiery glare at the laughing figure of Grant Watterson who had on a pair of black basketball shorts, slides and a black hoodie on, holding his sides in wretching laughter.