Leo: A More Than Series Spin-Off

by McLean, Jay

  I shake my head.

  “She a deep sleeper,” he says, his boots stomping up the steps. “See?”

  I look over at Mia, and sure enough, she hasn’t stirred.

  With his hand on the doorknob, he asks, “Why are you still working?”

  “I wanted to finish up this part before I leave tomorrow.”

  He nods once, then trails his eyes toward Mia. “It’s been a long time since she’s done this.”

  “Fallen asleep on the porch?” I ask.

  His gaze lowers, and he nods again. “When she was little, and I was working, Tammy—Holden’s mom—would watch them. Sometimes here, sometimes at their house. Some days, Baba and Holden played too much, and when they got tired, Holden would sleep in your room, and she’d sleep there…”

  I glance at Mia, picturing a smaller, younger version of her curled up like she is now.

  “I think…” John says, turning the knob, “I think she was afraid I wouldn’t come back for her.”

  Sometimes there’s a single line in a book, or a sentence, or an entire paragraph that gives you pause, makes you think, makes you open that page over and over just so you see the same few words again and again. Relive them. Rethink them. These are the pages that connect to the part of the spine that has the least amount of ink, the most damage.

  I think she was afraid I wouldn’t come back for her.

  It’s as heartbreaking as it is confusing because all of it is true.

  There are far too many people in this world who have left her, abandoned her, and let her down.

  Her mom.

  Her dad.

  Me.

  That thought knocks all air out of my lungs, replaces the empty spaces with

  shame,

  regret,

  disgust.

  “Goodnight,” John says, not waiting for a reply before closing the door between us.

  It hurts.

  That’s the only way I can describe what it feels like to watch her, to see her dark lashes fan across her cheek, her lips shifting slightly with every inhale, every exhale.

  It hurts.

  That I have to accept the fact that I’ll never know the feeling of those lips against mine. That I’ll never deserve to.

  It hurts.

  That I’ll never be able to look at her like this when she’s awake because she’ll look away too fast, because for her…

  For her, it hurts more.

  I give up on my work, throwing the sanding block to the side, and scoot over to her. On my knees, I reach out, run a finger along her forehead to move a strand of hair away from her face. “Mia,” I whisper, and she doesn’t budge.

  I was so, so wrong. When we stood on the top of the milking parlor and I told her I could ignore how I felt, I lied. Because I couldn’t, and I can’t. And maybe it’s a good thing that I’m leaving tomorrow. Maybe I need the break, the distraction.

  “Mia,” I say again, louder this time, and grasp her shoulder, gently shake her.

  Her eyes flutter open, the lightest brown eyes I’ve ever seen.

  She smiles. It’s lazy and unintentional and not at all meant for me. I think. But then she reaches up, inhaling deeply before sliding the tips of her fingers across my jaw. She runs a thumb across my nose, forcing my eyes to close at her touch. “The freckles are here,” she mumbles.

  When I open my eyes again, hers are half-hooded, tired and weary. “What freckles?”

  “At the start of summers, they weren’t there, but by the end…” Her eyes widen as if she’s just woken from a dream. Or a nightmare. She sits up, her spine straight, but she doesn’t take her eyes off me. “By the end…” she repeats in a daze, her voice hoarse.

  It hurts.

  Watching someone’s eyes as they relive the agonizing moments of torment until you can’t see them clearly anymore because the liquid pain prevents it. The tears come so fast, so prevalent, and then she’s on her feet, wiping them away and running to the door before I can get out two words.

  Two simple words I should’ve said two years ago.

  I’m sorry.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Leo

  When I get back home, the house is empty. Lucas and Logan work with Dad now, and the twins are old enough to do whatever they want within reason. Lachlan, for the most part, has to stay with either Laney or Lucy. It’s strange... that for so much of my life, all I wanted was a moment of quiet, and now that I have it—it feels kind of hollow.

  I drop my bag full of dirty laundry by the front door and climb the stairs two at a time, my entire body aching from fatigue. I didn’t sleep last night. Not a wink. I would’ve left during the night, but I wanted to say goodbye to John before I took off. Shamefully, I split before Mia was up.

  My bedroom is as I left it, and I don’t even bother taking off my shoes. I just fall face-first onto the bed, and a minute later, I’m dreaming about a girl with red plaid pajamas and tears in her eyes.

  * * *

  I shouldn’t have fallen asleep.

  That was my first mistake.

  The second was not locking my door.

  The whole “issuing a buzzcut while someone’s sleeping” prank is so basic and effortless, and I think that’s why it pisses me off the most. It’s Logan with the shaver and Lucas with the baby oil—to make the now-shaved hair stick to my skin, because of course. I don’t know which one of them is laughing the most, and it’s a weird sound—the two of them together. Typically, they’re the ones fighting, and I’m the one in the middle, trying to break shit up.

  I’m still half asleep, and physically fighting them would be pointless because it’s not going to make my hair grow back. So, I grab the bed sheets and start wiping the baby oil/hair mix off my face and neck.

  “Why aren’t you pissed?” Lucas asks, and it sounds like an accusation.

  I shrug. I think my lack of reaction is pissing them off. And that makes me happy.

  “Maybe Dad sent him to, like, some hippy zen ohmmmmm place where they meditate and turn into zombies with no emotions,” Logan offers. They’re both still in their work uniform, so messing with me was probably the first thing they did the second they got home.

  I give another shrug, and they eye each other suspiciously. This isn’t going how they’d planned, and while I’m pissed on the inside, already trying to come up with ideas for payback, I won’t let it show. I’ve mastered the act of not revealing my true emotions. I sit on the edge of the bed and run a hand through the back of my hair. There’s a giant chunk missing. For a second, just one, I wonder how Mia would react to my upcoming buzzcut.

  “He’ll be pissed in a second,” Logan says. He’s smirking. Logan smirking is never, ever good.

  “Why?” Lucas asks.

  Logan busts out a laugh, shouting, “Because I jizzed on those sheets he just wiped all over his face!”

  * * *

  “Your brothers miss you,” Dad tells me, running a hand over my now-shaven head.

  I laugh once. “I highly doubt that.”

  I’m sitting on a stool on the back deck while Dad finishes up with my hair. Luckily for him, he’s had a lot of experience with this form of hair care. If he’d had six girls, he’d be shit out of luck.

  “They may not show it,” he says. “But they do. And Lucas especially. He worries about you.”

  “Luke?” I almost scoff at the thought. “He has more important things to worry about than me.” Like his girlfriend, who’ll probably be in some form of physical therapy for the rest of her life.

  Dad sighs. “He probably does, but that doesn’t stop him. He worries about all of you.”

  I half turn to him. “Luke?” I ask again, incredulous. He doesn’t give a shit about anybody but himself. “As in Lucas Preston?”

  Dad smiles, but it’s sad. “I know you keep your head down, Leo, and you’re quiet, and you like to listen, but maybe… maybe look up now and again and watch.” I stare at him, unblinking. I don’t need to see things to know how
I feel is justified, and while I may not hate Lucas anymore, I don’t have a hell of a lot of respect for him, either.

  Dad sighs again, louder this time, and uses a dish towel to clear the loose hairs off my neck and head. “How’s it going at John’s?” he asks, removing the towel from around me. “Do you think being there is helping?”

  I don’t think either of us really knows what I needed help with, but I nod, give him the truth. “Yeah, it is.” At Mia’s request, I haven’t told him that she’s there, but I’m curious like always. “You never told me that you kept in touch with Mia’s grandpa after she left.” It’s not a question. Not a statement either. I don’t really know what it is. Bait? I’m fishing for information.

  He’s done with my hair, so I stand and run a hand through it as I face him. “During. After.” Dad shrugs. “Does he talk about Mia a lot?”

  Now, I shrug. “Some.”

  “How is she?” he asks.

  “She’s…”

  Beautiful,

  Bold,

  Broken.

  “She’s in New York with her dad now.” Although he probably already knew that.

  “Well,” Dad says, using that tone to suggest he’s done with this particular conversation. “I hope she’s doing better.”

  Better?

  Better than what?

  * * *

  By the time Saturday rolls around, I’m already itching to go back to a town with fewer than 200 people. I’ve become aware that the information given to my brothers about my whereabouts the past few weeks is as vague as “Dad sent him away.” They have questions, lots of them, especially the twins and Lachlan. The youngest three Preston boys come up with the craziest stories and scenarios their imaginations can conjure. Honestly, some of their suggestions would make Ready Player One by Ernest Cline seem realistic. Obviously, I humor them and then leave them hanging—especially Lachlan.

  “So, it’s a farm?” Laney asks, her fingers tangled in a mess of yarn. Or at least that’s how it looks. Mom tried to teach me how to knit once, and I just couldn’t grasp it.

  We’re sitting in the bleachers at the baseball field, and I don’t really know why I’m here. “It was a farm. It hasn’t been one for years.”

  “What kind of farm?”

  “Dairy.”

  “Like milk and butter?”

  I shrug. “I guess.”

  “How many acres?” she asks.

  “Leo!” Lachlan’s waving at me from home plate even though there’s a ball flying right at him, from the pitcher, because they’re mid-game.

  It smacks him on the shoulder, and I hiss at the same time he yells, “Shit, bitch!”

  A whistle’s blown, Lachie gets sent to the bench, and Laney asks again, “How many acres?”

  “I don’t know. A lot.” Has our conversation always been this stagnant? Surely not, because it wouldn’t make sense that I’d considered her my best friend for so many years. Maybe it’s me? Or maybe I’m used to deeper, more satisfying interactions with a girl I can’t seem to get off my mind.

  “Are you okay, Leo?” I pull my gaze away from Lachlan and face Laney. She’s already watching me, her eyebrows drawn.

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You seem… distant.”

  Like, 150-miles-south distant? Yeah, I’m definitely that. “I’m good,” I tell her, seeing my sister from the corner of my eye. She walks up behind her husband, Cameron, and grabs his ass—something I never want to see again. Cam turns to her, a smirk on his face as he bends down, kisses her quickly. I elbow Laney’s arm. “I’ll catch up with you later, okay?”

  Click, click, click, go her knitting needles. “Uh-huh.”

  I make my way down the bleachers and catch Lucy just before she leaves. “Luce!” I call out, and she turns swiftly, her eyes widening with her smile when she sees me.

  “Leelee,” she shouts, and I’m in her arms before I can back away. She’s short, got her height from our mom, so her hugs are the type that squeeze at your waist.

  “Are you about to leave?” I ask, pulling away.

  Lucy shakes her head. “I was just going to read in the car. It’s hotter than Satan’s ass crack out here.”

  I chuckle. “You got a minute to talk?”

  Nodding, she points to the parking lot behind her. “Can we do it in the car?”

  “So what’s up?” Lucy says from behind the steering wheel while she sets the AC to Blow Out Your Eyeballs.

  I adjust my vents so they land on her. I’ve gotten used to the heat. “Do you remember LuLee’s library?”

  Her eyes snap to mine, a slow smile spreading across her lips. “Of course I remember. I’m surprised you do, though.”

  Nodding, I tell her, “The memory just came to me the other day, and it just… I don’t know…” I’m suddenly embarrassed. “It was nice… to think about.”

  She’s sitting in the seat cross-legged, and she turns her entire body to face me. “That’s what you wanted to talk about?”

  “I guess.” I shrug. “I just wanted you to know that I remember it and that I remember you reading to me in that bean bag, and I mean… you basically taught me how to read, so...”

  “A lot of good that did,” she murmurs, glancing down at her fidgeting hands. “You had to repeat a grade.”

  “Not because of you,” I tell her, and she shakes her head. “Luce, look at me.”

  She glances up, her lips tugged down at the corners.

  “Listen,” I start. “I have dyslexia. It’s a learning difference, and it’s something that should’ve been diagnosed way before the last fucking year—when I was sixteen. It wasn’t on you to pick up on that.”

  “Still,” she says. “I should’ve known.”

  “Is that why you stopped reading to me?”

  She shrugs. “I thought I was making it worse.”

  I huff out a breath and stare out the windshield. “You’re the one who introduced me to reading. You’re the one who gave me my love for books, for getting lost in fictional worlds.” I pause a beat. “Do you know how many times picking up a book has saved me from… from my own thoughts, from myself?” I lick the dryness off my lips. “And it’s not just that, Luce; it’s everything. When Mom died, it was all you. Don’t think that we don’t know that—all of us boys. And I don’t think any of us have ever said thank you. So… thank you.” It’s the most amount of words I’ve strung together since I got home, and I’m getting no reaction from her. At least not verbally. When I find the courage to face her, she’s crying. Tears, so many of them, trailing down her cheeks and along her jaw. I sigh. “Why do I keep making girls cry?”

  She laughs at this, a soft, subtle sound. “I don’t know which girl you’re referring to, but maybe because you wait too long to tell them how you feel.”

  My phone goes off with a text just as I let her words sink in.

  Unknown: Hey.

  Leo: Who’s this?

  Unknown: Holden. I got your number from Papa John.

  My eyes narrow.

  Leo: What’s up? Is everything okay?

  Unknown: Yes. No. I don’t know. Is it weird that I’m freaking out about Mia going on a date with that Brent guy tonight?

  Chapter Thirty

  Mia

  Well. It’s official. Dating sucks. Or maybe I suck at dating.

  “I had fun tonight,” Brent Silva says as we near my house. He has his hand on my lap. Not actively touching my bare thigh, more just resting on it. It makes me uncomfortable, which is weird, because I’ve held hands with him most of the night—the first step, according to Holden. The second is letting him kiss me, which he hasn’t tried to do yet. “Mia?” he questions, and I’d momentarily forgotten what he’s said.

  He had fun tonight? Really? I can’t have been too much fun to be around. I barely spoke, so he had to fill in all the silence with mundane conversation. Like what days he works, what times, and what his jobs are during those times. Brent’s nineteen and lives with his parents. His
mom has an in-home daycare, and his dad works all over the country, laying pipes. He doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life or if he’s staying in town, and I admire that about him. Admire is probably the wrong word. Envy? The fact that he even has a choice makes me jealous.

  It occurred to me halfway through the date that Brent knew I’d be going back to New York, and he still wanted to take me out, so I’m not too sure what he’s expecting by the end of it. If it’s sex—a one-night stand—I kind of feel bad that he’s wasted all that time on calls with me and all that money on dinner. I should offer to pay him back. That seems like the right, reasonable thing to do.

  We’re in my driveway now, and he’s got his truck in park, but the engine’s still running. His back’s against the door, and he’s watching me, smiling. “I take it you didn’t have the same experience I did?” Because he had fun, and I… I…

  I spent the entire night thinking about Leo Preston.

  “Look,” he says, and his smile only gets wider. “I know you were nervous. It was your first date, right?”

  I purse my lips, nod.

  “That’s hard to believe.” His eyes momentarily drop to my chest. “But I’ll believe it because it’s coming from you. How did I do?”

  “You did… great.” And it’s not a lie. All things considered, he basically went on a date with himself, but he never made me feel ignored. “I’m sorry,” I add. Because I am. “My head’s just… it’s not in the right place, and I think maybe I forced myself to come because—”

  “Because I wouldn’t stop pushing you?” he interjects.

  “No,” I laugh out. “Because I figured it would be a good experience.” I take his hand in mine. “And it was. I just don’t really know where to go from here.”

  “Well, normally,” he says, and then he’s lifting my hand, kissing the back of it. “I walk you to your door, we say goodnight, and then I call you tomorrow and see if you want to do it again.”