Editor's note: This story originally appeared July 3, 2013.

On a recent summer Sunday in inner-city Boston, Odin Lloyd dreamed about his future. He was at a cookout with Darryl Hodge, a friend he was so close to they called each other the Wolf Pack, a man who, like Lloyd, had boyhood hopes of playing in the NFL. But now here they were, years later, playing semipro football in empty old stadiums with beat-up bodies and paycheck-to-paycheck jobs.

Imagine, Lloyd told his friend, what life would be like if they could wake up every day doing something they loved. If they had the money to take care of everybody -- family, friends -- and fly anywhere they wanted on a vacation.

"I was like, 'Bro, we know it, we've just got to do better overall,'" Hodge recalled. "'Get better jobs. We should be living like that.' That was the mission."

Pallbearers carry the casket of Odin Lloyd following a funeral ceremony in Boston on Saturday. AP Photo/Michael Dwyer

They never really talked like this, Hodge said. But Lloyd was 27 years old and starting to think about these things, most likely because he was hanging out with New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez.

His relationship with Hernandez had given Lloyd a glimpse of the life he'd dreamed of. Not only was Hernandez playing football for money -- for millions -- he was on the team Lloyd loved. Hernandez used to get him tickets to Patriots games. On at least one occasion, Hernandez, according to one of Lloyd's friends, had dropped $10,000 on a night of clubbing with Lloyd, and of course Lloyd couldn't believe it. Hernandez had promised Lloyd he'd fly him to California for a vacation. You've got to see Cali, he told him. Lloyd, who was working at a landscaping company, had never been there, Hodge said.

On the night of June 16, Lloyd was driving a shiny, black Chevy Suburban that Hernandez had rented for him. Hernandez, according to Hodge, told Lloyd he could keep it until Monday. Lloyd seemed always to be smiling, but his grin was even wider that weekend when he was behind the wheel of the SUV. Since he didn't have a car of his own, Lloyd pedaled his bike to work. He put a positive spin on his transportation issues, figuring the extra exercise would give him an edge on the field with the semipro Boston Bandits. But then Lloyd pulled up in the Suburban that Saturday, the night the Bandits had a scrimmage, and the team was impressed. "Nice car," they told him. Bandits assistant coach Mike Branch did a double-take. "I looked at him like, 'Odin' -- excuse my language -- 'but whose f---ing car is that?'" Branch said.

Lloyd was star-struck -- "Who wouldn't be?" Branch said -- but didn't brag about his friendship with Hernandez. They had met sometime in the past two years through Lloyd's girlfriend, Shaneah Jenkins, the sister of Hernandez's fiancée, Shayanna. When someone would ask about the football player with the $40 million contract, Lloyd simply told his friends that Hernandez was a cool guy.

That night of June 16, Lloyd was supposed to watch Game 5 of the NBA Finals with Hodge. Lloyd would not root for the Miami Heat; as a Bostonian, that seemed treasonous. Sometime before the game, Lloyd's old Blackberry jangled with a message from his boss, who said Lloyd had landscape work to do on Monday. So he grabbed some leftover barbecue and took Hodge home in the SUV.

They were about to say goodbye around 9 p.m. when Lloyd got a text. The person on the other end asked if he wanted to hang out. And then Lloyd said he might go out after all, and Hodge went home to watch the basketball game.

Days later, the barbecue Hodge's cousin had packed up for Lloyd still sat in Lloyd's refrigerator. "He was supposed to be at home eating," Hodge said. "Not out and about."

On June 22, police gathered at the home of then-New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez in North Attleborough, Mass. Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe/Getty Images

The future that Odin Lloyd dreamily talked about lasted less than 10 hours. At roughly 3:30 a.m. on June 17, Lloyd was shot five times in the chest and back. Aaron Hernandez is now sitting in the Bristol County (Mass.) House of Corrections, charged with first-degree murder and five gun-related offenses. He is being held without bail.

As the story of two men with similar dreams but completely different lives continues to unfold, all that the people close to Lloyd have are grief and questions. Why would Hernandez, who seemingly had everything, do something that would cause him to lose it all? Why, if he is guilty of killing Lloyd, would he leave the body in an industrial area less than a mile from his mansion? Why would Lloyd get into a Nissan Altima with Hernandez at roughly 2:30 a.m., only hours before he was supposed to work? Did he know he was in danger?

Mike Branch, who coached Lloyd in high school and adulthood, has been tossing and turning over these questions for more than a week.

"Those thoughts are going through my head," Branch said. "'Odin, if you felt fear, why did you get in the car?'

"It had to be trust, man."

On June 24, Massachusetts state troopers search the woods along a street near Hernandez's home. Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

Aaron Hernandez grew up in the hills of Bristol, Conn., on a tidy tree-lined street called Greystone Avenue. His dad, Dennis, was a custodian (he briefly worked at ESPN in the early 1980s as a janitor and in the film library); his mom, Terri, a school secretary. In his younger days, Dennis Hernandez was a sports legend around Bristol. He lettered in football at UConn in 1976, and then decades later, his oldest son D.J., a quarterback, became a Husky, too. But neither of them was as accomplished as Aaron.

Bob Montgomery, a longtime sportswriter for the Bristol Press, said the younger Hernandez was the "pride and joy" of the suburban city of 60,000, the biggest star ever to come out of Bristol. Whenever Aaron would be named athlete of the week -- it happened often -- Dennis would accompany his son to the newspaper for the interview, beaming with love.

The kid was well-mannered and said the right things, at least in those settings. He was a fireball pitcher in baseball and one of the best basketball players in the city. He was always determined. Jordan Carello, an old teammate and friend from Bristol Central High, saw it at an early age. He was pitted against Hernandez in flag football as a kid. One game, Carello's team somehow knew a play Hernandez was about to run. They couldn't stop him anyway, not until he was almost in the end zone. When Carello used to tell him that Hernandez was going to play in the NFL, Hernandez usually shrugged it off. "Nah," he'd tell Carello.

"But I know in his head," Carello said, "that he knew he had the talent and skills. And that's what his father groomed him to be, you know? A football player."

When Aaron was 16, his dad went into the hospital for what was supposed to be a routine hernia surgery. He died from complications resulting from the operation. He was 49. In multiple interviews with people close to Hernandez, all of them have pointed to that day, Jan. 6, 2006, as the moment that changed his life.

Hernandez became quieter, showed less emotion. He would zone out and brood. He had planned to go to UConn, then changed course and committed to Florida. John Hevesy, who became his position coach in Gainesville, said it was one of his toughest recruiting jobs because Hernandez was in the middle of dealing with his father's death. Ultimately, he wonders if Hernandez left his home state because he wanted to escape the memories and grief. He graduated from Bristol Central a semester early, shortly after his 17th birthday, and bolted for college.

Hevesy, who was Florida's offensive line and tight ends coach at the time, became sort of a surrogate father to Hernandez.

Aaron Hernandez was arrested Wednesday morning at his home in North Attleborough, Mass., and charged with first-degree murder later in the day. George Rizer for The Boston Globe/Getty Images

"I think he's still 17 years old at times," said Hevesy, now an assistant at Mississippi State. "You always hear of those people who never really mourned a death; they never cried. I think that's him. I can't remember him breaking down and saying, 'My dad died.' I don't think he ever had his dad help him finish growing up."

But he had mentors just waiting to reach out and help in that first year at Florida. He had Hevesy. He had Tim Tebow. The quarterback was just a sophomore then but had previously served as the young tight end's recruiting host.

But they were way too different. "Tim struggled with [others'] immaturity," Hevesy said, "like, 'Why aren't you doing this the way I do it?' Kids are kids. I think it's not as much Aaron as it was Timmy. Timmy was a very mature 18-year-old. If you take a poll of 10 18-year-olds, 'What are first three things on your mind?' OK, first is going to be women, second's going be this and third's going got be this. Tim's going to be, 'Well, God, God and God.'

"Were they still close? Yes. But I think 18-year-olds want to do what 18-year-olds want to do, and Tim was more of a 22-year-old."

Hernandez's troubles started early in Florida. Freshman year, he was arrested for fighting with a bouncer at a bar and was questioned for a shooting at a club that left two wounded. Hernandez was never charged in the shooting and was a minor during the fight incident. Reports of marijuana use and failed drug tests dogged him, especially when he was suspended for the season-opening game against Hawaii his sophomore season. Then-coach Urban Meyer did not specify the reason for Hernandez's absence.

"To me, he was always a nice guy, but he was an idiot," said a former Florida schoolmate who spoke under the condition of anonymity.

"Let me try to word this -- you know how you talk to people and you can tell they just don't get it as quick as other people? He was one of those."

In those early days in Florida, Hernandez rode around campus on a scooter. He played beer pong and video games and did many of the things that young men in college do. Everyone interviewed for this story who knew Hernandez then or in Bristol said they were having a hard time coming to terms with the idea that the laid-back kid they remember could be capable of murder. One close friend from Gainesville said Hernandez was afraid of spiders and letting his father down.

But he did occasionally show anger. The angriest one friend ever saw him was when Hernandez's mom and a man she was dating visited Gainesville. Someone accidentally called the man Hernandez's father, and Hernandez growled that he wasn't his dad.

In 2010, Hernandez decided to forgo his senior season at Florida and enter the NFL draft. The character issues followed him to 32 war rooms and a podium in New York. Hernandez, a first-round talent, dropped all the way to the fourth round before the Patriots snatched him up. For three seasons, the gamble paid dividends. Hernandez, at 20, was the youngest player on any active NFL roster to start the 2010 campaign. In three seasons, he caught 175 passes for 1,956 yards and 18 touchdowns. He was rewarded with the new contract last year, and told the media that he was a changed man.

On Sunday, June 16, Hernandez texted Hevesy to wish him a happy Father's Day. He talked to Hevesy's son for 45 minutes, because it was the kid's birthday. Hernandez was always doing things like that, Hevesy said.

Hevesy was rushing out the door that day and couldn't talk to Hernandez. He's struggled with that moment since. If he'd talked to him, would Hernandez have been out driving around that night at 2:30 a.m.? Could he have made a difference? Hevesy wants to believe that the man who became a son to him wouldn't be capable of this. His wife and his kids want to believe it.

"They look at him as a big brother," Hevesy said of his kids' friendship with Hernandez. "My youngest daughter got really pissed off about it. She's, like, 'This is wrong. If Aaron did something like this, I'll never talk to him again.'"

Home for Odin Lloyd was a yellow house down a one-way street in a rugged inner-city neighborhood in Dorchester. Young men have been shot to death on Fayston Street, where Lloyd grew up. A 26-year-old died there two summers ago, and it merited four sentences in the local paper. But it's also a place where neighbors sit and laugh on porches on summer nights in the stifling humidity, favoring fresh air and conversation over window air conditioning.