James

"You two are going to the same college?" Neil didn't try to hide his agitation at my declaration while we jogged around the island.

"Why are you so surprised? I'm going to one of the best schools in the country, and it also happens to have a kick-ass basketball program."

"You're also toting a serious amount of baggage with you. I don't get it. It's like you can't breathe without her filling your damn lungs with oxygen." He'd picked up the pace, making defending myself more difficult—not that I should have to.

"Why do you care?" My heart pounded like a bass drum at a rock concert. Each beat crashed in my chest more forcefully than the last.

"Just hate seeing you throw your life away on a high school girlfriend."

"Jesus, are you my father or my best friend? You love Cora. Where's this coming from?"

"Forget it, dude. Do what makes you happy."

I stopped and dropped my hands to my knees. We'd taken to a pace that left us nearly sprinting on the sand. I couldn't keep up and focus on the conversation at hand. Surprisingly, Neil remained with me. "Are you jealous?"

"Of a chick? Hell no."

My stare met his, and it was easy to see he wasn't lying. He wasn't jealous, he was hurt. "Then what gives?"

He gave me a half-assed shrug. "I guess I just thought we'd always play college ball together. But ever since you met Cora, basketball has played second string to a female. That was never you. It was never hoes before bros."

"Neil, we aren't ten anymore. I didn't choose for Cora to walk into my life, but I'll be damn sure I don't let her walk out."

"So you're willing to walk away from a friend of eighteen years, instead?"

"I'm not walking away from you. Just because we don't go to the same college doesn't mean we won't be friends." Damn, I needed a tampon and a Hallmark movie. Neil could bring the fucking chocolate.

"I guess we'll see, huh?"

"Georgia Tech and UNC are like four hours apart. It won't be like walking down the street as a kid, but it certainly doesn't require a plane ticket to get there."

He stood with his hands on his hips, watching me pant like a bitch trying to regain normal breathing function. "We've still got two miles. Are you done being a pussy?"

I didn't have anything else to say to my best friend to get him past this mental block he had going on. There weren't words that would erase his trepidation, and I wondered where his sudden need for security came from. He'd never been clingy, and now, he could have given Saran Wrap a run for its money. Our friendship had always been effortless, even after I'd met Cora. Abruptly, in the last couple of weeks, he'd gone from being a carefree playboy to an uptight asshat.

"You're the one who needs some fucking Midol."

He grinned back at me with a cocky smirk and slapped me on the chest. "Let's go."

Something weighed on Neil's mind, and without going all emo on him, I had no idea how to get him to confide in me. It was more than Cora joining me at UNC. Though I didn't have a clue just how much more until I tried one more time when we got back to my house, right before he got into his car.

"Neil, man, you going to tell me what the hell's been up your ass the last couple weeks? I know it doesn't have a damn thing to do with my girlfriend."

He removed his sweaty shirt, tossed it through the open car door, and then leaned against the side of the vehicle. "You don't want to hear me bitch and moan."

"You're right, but I'm doing that anyhow, so it might as well be about what's really bothering you instead of the cheap shots you keep taking at Cora."

He wiped his hand down his face and took a deep breath. "My parents filed for bankruptcy."

My jaw dropped. Like legit, came unhinged and hung open, leaving me completely mortified.

"Apparently, my dad has somewhat of a gambling problem."

"Holy fuck, what the hell was he betting on to have lost millions? And why the fuck didn't your mom put a stop to that shit?"

He rolled his eyes in my direction to glare at me. "Clearly, she wasn't aware his business trips to Vegas were poker tournaments where he lost his ass and kept betting trying to recoup the deficit."

"There's no way he lost everything playing poker." I couldn't hide the shock in my voice.

Neil's parents not only came from a large fortune, they'd also made a vast sum with the invention of some rubber-mesh material used by NASA. There should be money for five generations after Neil.

"Unless they're lying and something else happened, that's the story I was told."

"Is that why your sister came home?"

Natalie was six years older than her brother and married right after she graduated from college. Another trust fund relationship in the books—thank you, Geneva Key. She'd shown up a couple weeks ago, about the same time Neil started whining all the time. I hadn't put the two together. I assumed her marriage hadn't worked, not that she'd come home to bail her parents out.

"Yeah. She's trying to help them determine the best way through of all this. Although, her husband is over my parents' crap and told her she needs to come home. That left them with no other option except to tell me the truth."

"At least their house is paid for, so they don't have to worry about losing that."

He raised his eyebrows as if to say, "Not quite."

"Seriously? This is like the worst game of Monopoly ever played."

"Yep. My sister's husband—the lawyer—advised them to sell it to try to get out from under the debt and the second mortgage. If they're lucky, they'll break even, though that does nothing for their future."

"What about school?" College was probably the last thing on his radar. It seemed to be a huge issue the last few days so I couldn't help but wonder where his head was in regard to his future.

"I didn't get a scholarship. My parents can't pay for it."

"So that's it? You're just going to stay in Geneva Key?" It was hard to imagine my best friend's life was crumbling around him while the world just kept spinning. And if he stayed here, he'd get sucked into the black hole that ate the youth in this town.

"You're kidding, right? My family can't stay here."

"What are they going to do?"

"No clue what they're going to do, but I'm moving to Syracuse after graduation. Natalie and Nathan offered to pay my tuition, as long as I'm far away from Mom and Dad."

"When the hell were you going to tell me?" I didn't have a right to be angry. I sounded like a jilted girlfriend.

Neil had some heavy shit weighing on him, but damn, he'd raked me over the coals about Cora, and all this time, he was hiding a monumental secret.

"I kept thinking something would happen and they'd find a way to send me to Georgia. And then last night, Natalie told me she needed a decision. So I took the only opportunity I had." His expression held nothing other than defeat.

I wanted to be positive and tell him how great it was that his sister had come through, though knowing Natalie, there were strings attached, and Neil would owe her more than he could ever repay…and it wasn't going to be a monetary sum. "What's the catch?"

"Apparently, I'm going to law school."

And there it was. Neil was a bright guy—however, he'd never shown any interest in becoming a lawyer. "And I guess that means you'll owe Nathan's firm several years of service after graduation?"

"Yep. So goodbye, basketball."

There was no point in trying to tell him he could do both. Neil was good, but I wasn't sure he could walk onto Syracuse's team much less do that and maintain the GPA his sister would require to keep footing the bill. She had him by the balls, and that was how she liked to keep the men in her life.

"Have you considered taking out loans for Tech?" No kid should be saddled with that kind of debt, but it beat the alternative.

"I've already tried. I didn't qualify for any type of assistance this year because of my parents' income last year. Funny how that works. The government doesn't care if you're broke now; they only care that your family wasn't broke—at least on paper—twelve months ago. So that would mean figuring out what to do for a year before I could reapply. And then I'd be two semesters behind everyone else."

"I'm getting an apartment. Live with me. Get a job for a year. Dude, your sister doesn't need to own your life for the next decade."

"Your girl won't go for that." He tried to dismiss my offer by sliding into the driver's seat of his sedan. The dumbass didn't realize his window was down.

"Cora and I aren't going to live together, Neil. She's going to be in the dorms. At least think about it before rejecting the idea. Call Natalie and tell her to hold off for a week."

Even though he bobbed his head as if he agreed to what I asked of him, I could tell by the look on his face he'd resigned himself to his fate.

"One week. Seriously, Neil."

"Talk to Cora. If she doesn't have any objections, I'll consider it."

"I'll talk to her, but I can already tell you she won't care. She considers you a friend."

He started the car and put a baseball hat over his sweaty hair. "Let me know what she says." He lifted his head as the only acknowledgment that he was leaving and backed out of my driveway.

An hour later, I hung up the phone with Cora. Her heart was going to get her in trouble one of these days. She not only believed it was a good idea for Neil to come to North Carolina, she also wanted to pay for his tuition out of the money her parents had left her. There was no way he'd ever agree to that, yet I adored her even more for trying to do it. She loved Neil because I loved him, and she couldn't bear to see anyone suffer or go without, so for her, what Neil's parents had done was unforgivable.

When I called Neil, it took less than fifteen minutes to convince him to tell his sister to piss off, and all of three seconds for him to refuse Cora's offer. But I had managed to get him to move to North Carolina, and somehow, I'd help him figure out the rest before the semester started.