Page 77 of Riding the Sugar High

“Okay, well. I’m happy for you. But we can’t just ignore everything else that’s going on. Like the farm?” He grabs a chair, then sits on the edge, elbows on his knees. “Let me help you. The money I inherited from my dad, you know we planned to invest part of it in the farm?—”

“I’m not taking your money, Aaron,” Logan says, a frustrated edge to his voice. “You can’t fix everything with money, Jesus. I neededyou, and you took everything from me. How can you possibly think...”

“Logan—”

“Look. I’m here for Mom, okay? I have my lunch,” he says as he holds out his beer, “and my girl’s ass on my lap.” My eyes widen, butterflies rushing up my throat. “Just leave me alone.”

Aaron shakes his head, then, with a final look at Logan, stands and walks away.

Though when we got here, he was acting like a total ass, it does look like he’s trying to make up for his mistakes, and watching Logan tear his efforts down is heartbreaking.

Besides, he could use that money.

“Are you okay?” I ask as I gently twist on Logan’s lap.

I hold a hand to his shoulder, and after a long moment, he mumbles, “Know why I wouldn’t date you, Barbie?”

With my lips pursing, I gesture at him to speak. “Let’s hear it.”

His eyes narrow, then he shakes his head. “Sorry, what were we saying? I got distracted picturing your b?—”

When I move to smack him again, he traps my wrist in his hand.

God, how I love the way he laughs.

* * *

“Elliot is having some car troubles,” Logan’s mom says in his ear before ruffling his hair. I set the fork back on my plate and watch him groan from my own chair—turns out there’s enough for everyone after all.

“No, Mom. He’s not.”

“Yes, yes. Thecarbonator. It’s broken—go, he’s waiting for you in the driveway.”

He tosses an apologetic look my way and moves to stand. “I want the record to reflect that a carbonator is a kitchen appliance, not a car part.” Then before walking away, he discreetly mouths at me, ‘Don’t mess it up.’

“You should grab more food,” Lucy immediately starts as she points at the table. “Did you try the zucchini pie? Oh, and that fancy cheese. Paul, Logan’s cousin, has a dairy farm.”

“The perfect family for a vegan to land in, huh?” I ask as I tuck my hair behind my ears.

I swear, with the way my heart is hammering, all this lying will send me to the hospital.

She laughs, nodding hard. “When Logan was a kid, the farm was much smaller. I only had a coup.” Meeting my confused gaze, she chuckles. “With chickens, you know?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Every once in a while, Logan would come downstairs for breakfast, and there’d be a chicken bleeding out in the sink.” Her eyes, the same blue-gray as Logan and Aaron, moisten as she loses herself in the memory. “He would cry and cry—refuse to eat for days. And I couldn’t understand it, because my parents were poor. We dreamed of a chicken dinner, you know?”

I do understand. Though my parents have always been absent from my life, they work harder than anyone else. They too didn’t come from money and wanted a better life for me than what they’d had growing up. “Do you think he resents you for it?”

“Maybe. Wedidhave a few hundred screaming matches about it. Then one day, he came out of his bedroom—I think he was twelve. He looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Mom, I’m a vegan now.’”

I can’t help but grin. “What did you say?”

“I believe I said, ‘What’s that?’ I thought it was a sexual orientation.”

Chuckles burst past my lips, and she pats my knee with a fond look in her eyes. “You have a beautiful laugh. And smile. Are you a vegan, Primrose?”

“I’m not, Mrs?—”