Chapter 124

His parents were with him and his dad picked him up a legal thriller from the hospital gift shop. Jake was having a hard time reading because his mom wanted to talk. He’d already told her three times it wasn’t their fault he got kidnapped but the statement hadn’t stuck.

Now she announced, “We’re buying you a house.”

Jake once again put down his book. “You don’t need to buy me a house out of your misplaced sense of guilt.”

“Actually, we’d already decided to buy you a house last week,” said his dad. “We were just waiting for the money to come through before we told you.”

That was better, at least. “Wow. I wasn’t expecting it, you know.” Jake didn’t feel entitled just because his parents got a nice windfall.

“We know. We can afford it, obviously, and we want to give you something that would be a benefit long term, not just a fancy car or something,” explained his mom. “We’ll get you a nice house, a place where you can raise a family if you want.”