Pistol Whipped - Ashley Bostock Page 0,3

She was the Queen of finding every government subsidy, scholarship, etcetera, to apply for and get for the family. That had been her full-time job. In Gabriella’s mind, the time she had spent scamming the system, she could have used to find an actual job. It wasn’t like her mother was ill or unable to physically hold a job.

Many times Gabriella crawled through Logan’s bedroom window to eat at his house because her family had no food. Big sister that she was, and wonderful people Logan and his family had been to her, she had always brought home something for her sister. Hidden, of course, because if her parents knew she had food they would take it for themselves.

Her mother and father’s off-again and on-again relationship made it easy for Gabriella’s mom to receive government aid because she always checked the ‘single’ box. There were times in her life where her mom was gone for a few weeks and times where her dad was gone for a few weeks.

Moments where Gabriella had no clue if social services was going to come and take her and her sister away. There were plenty of times in her childhood, that she had actually prayed for that to happen. At least then, there would be someone to count on. Gabriella hated her childhood. She was never physically abused by anyone, but she had experienced her fair share of emotional turmoil where her family life was concerned.

Seeking an outlet to avoid home, she had done the only thing she knew to do – she had gone to school and applied herself to her studies, above and beyond the call of duty. She didn’t do anything half-assed. She knew the only way she and her sister would ever be free of that life was to not follow in her parents’ footsteps, and to Gabriella that had meant excelling at school.

She eventually earned an academic scholarship to college and earned a master’s degree in Business with a special emphasis in Marketing and Finance. College had been a breeze for Gabriella and thank God she had Logan to lean on. Without Logan by her side all of these years, who knew what she would have done. There were so many times in her life where having Logan around had changed her life for the better. He had single-handedly pulled her out of the darkest corners of her life—unbeknownst to him in some cases. He had been a true friend. Often times, more often than she had done for him, he went above and beyond the call of friendship. He was, then and now, the best friend she could ever ask for.

She had her girlfriends, too. Her closest friend, aside from Logan, was Brandi Parker. She met Brandi in college, where they had been roommates. Brandi had come from out of state, so it had been Gabriella that introduced her to Amber and Marilyn. Now, the four of them were four peas-in-a-pod. They did all of the things normal girlfriends did together—shop, shoot guns, gossip, and, even though Marilyn was married, and Amber wasn’t too far from being married, they still found time to be together.

Last year, Marilyn and Amber had been lucky enough to fall in love—with Marilyn getting married on Christmas Eve. She and Blake were “due” in August with their first child. Amber and Gage were still in the beginning of their relationship and as far as she knew, Gage hadn’t asked Amber to marry him, or bear his children for that matter…yet.

Gabriella worked her way up the ranks in one of those national lingerie companies and after five years, she had been granted the position of Buyer for the company and she had absolutely loved it. It was her one and only job she had gotten out of college and it was the sole reason she wanted to open her own lingerie store. She had a vision and wanted to market her store in a certain way that she couldn’t do at her previous job.

She unlocked the glass door to Lolita’s and walked inside. The pride in her heart swelled every time she came here. Although she was biased—because she had done it herself—she was always amazed by the beauty of what Lolita’s was on the inside. She had painted the inside of the entire store herself…well, not all by herself. Logan had helped her tremendously.

They both had spent almost two weeks painting all of the walls sea-foam green and then all of the baseboards