Page 10 of Letting Go (Thatch 1)

Jagger laughed and started walking toward the door. “Since when is my life not your business, Grey? You’ve made it your business since we were nine.”

My smile was shaky when I glanced up at him before following him out. “I just realized that you might have someone moving in with you, and that may have been why you didn’t want me to help you unload the truck.”

I turned to look at him when I realized he’d stopped walking and I’d passed him. His lips were forming a tight line and his eyebrows were slanted down over his eyes in that way he had when something was bothering him.

“Like I said, it’s not my business,” I mumbled when he just kept looking at me.

He dropped his head and cocked it to the side, but not before I saw his lips quirk up—giving him a bewildered expression. “No one’s moving in with me. ‘We’ is just me, and the guys who did the remodeling, I guess.”

“Okay.” I blew out a heavy breath, but I couldn’t figure out if it was out of relief or hurt that Jagger had hidden something like this from me. “When did you even start this? I had no idea.” I leaned up against the truck and crossed my arms over my chest as I tried to process that Jagger had been the one to have the building renovated.

“Right after fall semester started.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I had no idea that you even wanted to come back to Thatch until a week ago, and this whole time you’ve been remodeling the warehouse so you could live here?”

Jagger didn’t look up at me when he walked past me and opened up the back of the truck, and for the second time today, I knew there was something he wasn’t telling me. “I just didn’t think it was that big a deal. We had to focus on graduating.”

By that, I could only imagine he meant that he had to keep me focused on graduating. I’d known I would move back to Thatch, so had Jagger, but we never really talked about it because it would unnecessarily bring up the subject of Ben. And it was with that realization that I knew I had my answer. Jagger was always trying to protect me, and that’s all his secretiveness about the building was. Instead of trying to get confirmation, I kept my mouth shut as I helped him move all the furniture out of the truck and into the warehouse. He knew I was grateful for him; that had never been a question.

A FEW HOURS later, we’d successfully moved all of my furniture into the farthest room in the back and set up all of his things in the front room and bedroom. I also had a newfound hatred for the stairs that led up to the loft. I wasn’t built to help carry mattresses and dressers up two flights of stairs.

“Are you alive?” Jagger asked as he came down the stairs.

“No,” I groaned from where I lay sprawled out on the floor.

“Do you regret coming with me now?”

“So much. So much regret in my arms and legs at the moment.” He barked out a laugh, and I ran my palms across the smooth, glossy floor before saying, “I fully approve of your decision to keep the floor like this. It’s really cold and it feels amazing.”

“Well, I’m glad I got your approval now that it’s been done for months.”

He leaned over me, a lopsided smirk on his face. He looked like the past three hours hadn’t happened. Jagger wasn’t skinny by any means; not to say he was ripped either, he’d always just looked naturally well built. But I knew for a fact that working out wasn’t in his vocabulary, and seeing as I spent most of my time running to clear my mind, it bugged me that he was somehow still in good enough shape to make moving two apartments’ worth of furniture look effortless.

“I need to drop off the moving truck, do you want to come with me? We can get lunch after, and then I’ll take you home.”

“I can’t move!” I complained. “How do you expect me to feed myself, let alone climb up into that truck?”

“So dramatic,” he drawled, and reached an arm out toward me.

I grabbed it and groaned as obnoxiously as I could when he pulled me up.

He snorted and pushed me back, laughing when I almost fell back down. “I was gonna go easy on you and let you follow me in my car, but since you apparently can’t function anymore, I guess I’ll just have to hook my car back up to the truck and make fun of you while you try to climb—”

“No! I’ll drive your car,” I offered quickly, cutting him off as we walked to the door. Anything to avoid getting back in that truck.

“That’s what I . . . thought . . .” His words trailed off, his voice dropping so low I barely heard his mumbled curse before I smacked into his back.

; Jagger was holding the door open, but from the way his arm flexed around the handle, I knew he would’ve shut it if we hadn’t been blocking the doorway.

“What—hey, Mrs. Easton,” I said awkwardly, and shot Jagger a look as I moved out from under his arm to give his mom a hug.

“Hi, sweetie! I’m so glad you kids are back in town for good. I hated having you all gone.”

I glanced past her for a second, looking for Jagger’s sister and toddler brother, before asking, “Where are Charlie and Keith?”

“Keith’s napping. Charlie’s at home with him while I run some errands.”