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enough to not
only foot the bill for your higher education, but also to provide you with the
means to enjoy the next few years so you don’t have to work.” My blood began to
boil with every word I spoke.
    “And I love you for that, but it doesn’t mean you get to
control where I go, Logan!”
    “Never thought I needed that control—I thought you had
more sense than to go to some off-the-map school just because you’ve
romanticized some nonexistent connection with a town. And, by the way, I highly
doubt our father spent much time at any library. Think about this—really give
it some thought. You could go to so many other schools!”
    “I have thought about it. I don’t need some high-priced
university to make me feel like I’m getting an adequate education. I’m—”
    “Oh, save it,” I interrupted. There was more to this. She’d
been planning to go to the university near home since before high school.
Harmony had nothing to offer—that was the reason we moved from there when I was
still a kid. “Tell me the real reason why.”
    “I am!” She held up her hand, ticking off a list on her
fingers. “The classes are smaller, which means I’ll get more attention from
professors. I’m over the city—I’ve lived here my entire life, and a little
country atmosphere sounds like heaven.”
    “Bullshit! It’s a guy, isn’t it?” I shook my head,
releasing a frustrated growl.
    “No! How could you think that? I want to be a journalist,
run a good-old-fashioned-but-uber-successful newspaper someday. No guy is going
to distract me from that.”
    I eyed her skeptically. She seemed so damn sincere, but
my sister could lie better than anyone I knew. Did she really want this? Even
with a seven-year age difference between us, we were as close as she and Jax,
her twin, were—mainly because she’d followed me around ever since she’d started
walking. And now here she was, wanting to move to the middle of nowhere?
    The buzzer rang from the front door. Oliver was home.
    “The answer’s no. You don’t have to stay in the city, but
you will go to a reputable university or I’m not paying.” That was my
final word on the subject, and I left it hanging for her to make the right
decision. I left her in the room, convinced she’d see it my way soon enough. I
only wanted the best for her.

Chapter 2
    Futile
     
    A s the week drew on, I had to admit I found myself
waiting for my sister’s determination to stampede me into relenting. Instead,
it seemed I’d misjudged her stubbornness. There wasn’t so much as a single
text, even unrelated to the school topic, sent my way. I took it upon myself,
however, to e-mail her multiple website links to some of the best universities
in the country. If she wasn’t going to stay in the city, then she sure as hell
was going to a top-notch school.
    I’d pay whatever it took to schmooze her through the
doors. If not for the run-in with Julia at Katherine’s the previous day, I
might have started to grow concerned with her lack of communication. My sister
didn’t do the silent treatment; she preferred loud-mouthed, feet- stomping
tantrums.
    I rocked back in my chair, staring out at the bustling
city below my office window and recalling how Julia’s spine had stiffened and her
gaze had shot in the opposite direction when I entered the living room at
Katherine’s to take Oliver home the previous evening. She’d decided on the
mature game of ‘If I don’t look at you, you’re not really there.’
    I took it for what it was: humorous.
    She’d see my way, in time; of that I was confident. My
sister was a clever girl, and she knew what she stood to lose.
    I glanced out over the mindless afternoon gridlock,
mentally rerouting my usual commute to avoid it. News choppers hovered in the
distance like flies on the latest tragedy.
    The longer I stared at the chaos below, the more I
despised sitting there. Every day, it was a similar picture. I always did
better outside the