Page 102 of The Moment They Can't Forget

She shrugged.

“Will you sit with me?” JD wasn’t sure why he’d said those words, but suddenly he didn’t want to be alone with the reality of what he’d just done.

She took out another soda and dragged a chair in front of him and sat.

“Do you like Zoe?”

“Yes, very much.”

“Then you need to tell her and Sawyer.”

“It’s not that easy. Sawyer is my friend, and he feels as if I betrayed him.” What the hell was he doing spilling his guts to a teenager? “The Dukes have this pact about never dating a friend of a sibling.”

“Makes things hard when there are so many of them,” Vi said.

He tried to smile, but it hurt, so he nodded instead.

“Friends are important, JD,” she said solemnly. “But so is love.”

“You got a boyfriend, Vi?”

“No, but when you don’t have much love in your life, you want to hold on to what you get.”

Christ, hearing those words coming out of this solemn-faced girl’s mouth was heartbreaking.

“Vi, you need to talk to me. Tell me what’s going on with you. Please,” he said, suddenly wishing he’d pushed her harder before.

“Thank you for letting me work here, JD.” She looked down at her soda. “I should go.”

“I really like Zoe, Vi. I’m just not someone who understands relationships, so I avoid them.”

She looked at him then. “My brothers aren’t bad people. They just drink too much.”

“Do they hit you?”

She shrugged. “They never mean to. It just happens sometimes when they’re fighting, and I try to stop them. They’re sorry when they sober up.”

Fuckers.

“You know that’s not right, Vi. It’s never right to hurt anyone.”

She nodded.

“My brother, Henry, you met him. Like me, he was raised in a wealthy family, and we thought we had it all together. Turns out we were wrong.”

“My parents both died, and suddenly my brothers had to look out for me. It was hard on them,” Vi said.

It was like some odd game of truth, but he kept talking so she would.

“My dad was stealing money from people, even his friends. My mom and brother took his side, and because he has a lot of money and is sneaky, he didn’t go to prison.”

“So you left your family?”

He nodded, unsure why he’d chosen Vi or here when his life had just imploded to come clean. But it felt right, even if she was a teenager. JD had a feeling Vi had grown up fast after her parents passed away.

“How can I help you, Vi?”

She shrugged again. “It’s not so bad. We get along when they aren’t drinking. I think it’s a resentment thing. Jack wants to leave and travel, and he can’t because of me. Seth wanted to study to be an electrician. All that changed when they were left in charge of me. But soon I’ll be old enough, and they can leave.”

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