Page 114 of Eight Years Gone

She grinned as she gave his shoulder a shove. “You know my dad. He liked to have the best. And this was an investment property for the Evans family’s future.”

He smiled back. “I remember.”

Her smile faded. “Then she died, and everything went to hell.”

He kissed her nose. “Yeah.”

“We spent that summer with Aunt Maggie and Asa. We had no idea he’d sold our house in the suburbs, bought the condo in the city, and planned to bring us out here a year earlier than he’d promised Mom. When he enrolled us in the private middle school for our eighth-grade year, he promised to come home on the weekends, then mostly left us here with Bea.”

Jagger rolled, reversing their positions so she lay on top of him. “That was bullshit—a dick move.”

She nodded. Her dad was gone now, but the truth remained the truth. “We needed him, but I don’t think he knew what to do with us without Mom. Dad grew up as an only child—had a nanny. He’d never been around kids before Logan and me.”

She shrugged. “Sometimes I wonder what our life would have been like if she’d never decided to start back into event planning part-time. Who would Logan be right now if she hadn’t taken on that wedding—if she would have been home safe with us instead of on the road at midnight?”

Jagger tucked her hair behind her ear as he continued to listen. “There’s nothing wrong with wishing that things could be different.”

“I’ll never understand… They were so happy, but it was like he’d forgotten about her. My dad. Her pictures disappeared so quickly after she died, and he never talked about her. That fall, he brought Veronica out to meet us, which was the beginning of the end of his relationship with Logan.”

Jagger fiddled with her fingers. “Thank God you guys had Bea, Aunt Mags, and Asa.”

She nodded again. “And eventually you. I started hearing your name shortly after Logan signed up for taekwondo. You taking him under your wing meant so much to him, Jagger.”

He shrugged. “We were fast friends—had a lot in common: a love of football and a deep appreciation for hot girls.”

She grinned. “Sounds deep.”

He chuckled. “It worked for us.”

“It worked well for me, too, after Hal sent those videos of you running with the ball to my dad.”

He shrugged again. “Logan made it easy to catch anything he threw my way. He made me look good.”

Logan had been an exceptionally talented quarterback, but Jagger’s abilities to read the field, create clutch plays, and run at remarkable speeds had never had anything to do with her brother. Jagger’s love and loyalty to his best friend had made him blind to those facts. “I’m just glad you moved in.”

“Me too. My entire life changed after that.”

She nodded, immediately growing sad that nothing had stayed as simple as the years they’d spent here before Logan’s injury.

His brow furrowed. “What’s wrong? What just happened?”

She shrugged. “Everything changed so quickly after Logan got hurt. Then after his death… Everything’s changing again.”

He rolled them a second time, staring down at her. “What do you mean?”

She blinked as her eyes grew teary. “I can’t stop thinking about the money—about how I don’t want it.”

He pursed his lips as he nodded.

She closed her eyes as she shook her head. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

He stroked her hair away from her forehead. “I want to understand. Talk to me.”

She sighed. “I imagine I sound ungrateful.”

He shook his head this time. “You’ve never been ungrateful a day in your life.”

She kissed him. “Thank you for saying that.”

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