Finding Home

by Garrett Leigh

  ’Cause, yeah . . . just the thought of hearing Charlie’s voice was still enough to make Leo’s heart skip. And damn if Reg’s knowing smile didn’t say that he saw right through Leo’s attempts to play it cool.

  It made Leo wonder how he and Charlie had ever kept the fledgling relationship a secret in the first place. Kate and Reg had taken Charlie’s coming out with little surprise, and had only seemed mildly more shocked by Leo’s. Predictably, their immediate concern had been for the family, and Leo’s feet had barely touched the ground before he found himself firmly ensconced in the attic, a laminated sheet with new rules about closed bedroom doors taped to the wall.

  Six months down the line and it was funny. At the time? Not so much. And he couldn’t deny that despite the skylights above his bed, he missed the comfort of knowing Charlie was just a few feet away. Sleepless nights—of which there were still many—were so much harder when he faced them alone.

  “Leo?” Charlie’s breathless voice broke into Leo’s reverie.

  “It’s me. Why are you out of breath?”

  “I was in the art room. I’m only allowed to answer the phone in reception, remember?”

  Leo didn’t remember. Part of the curse of his PTSD was apparently that his brain retained every memory that hurt and left no room for the little things that made life special. It wasn’t a symptom that Leo had noticed until he’d begun to emerge from the haze of his Darren Stroud–induced meltdown, but it was one he could live with, even if it did mean asking Charlie the same questions a hundred times a day. “How’s school?”

  “Who cares about school? How was court? Did it go okay?”

  Leo glanced at Reg, and then turned away from him slightly, shoving his cap back so he could rest his head on the window. “It was fine. Not as bad as I expected. They asked me a bunch of questions and I answered them.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “The ones we talked about, you know—the drinking, how long he’d been hitting Mum for, how often he hit me. Some other shit too.”

  “Like what?”

  “If he ever did any weird sexual stuff. I told them he didn’t, but I don’t know if they believed me.”

  There was rustling at Charlie’s end, and then the sound of a teacher talking sternly, though it didn’t seem to be directed at Charlie.

  “Why wouldn’t they believe you?” Charlie asked after a protracted pause.

  Leo shrugged, even though Charlie couldn’t see him. “It felt like they wanted me to make it worse than it was. Like what happened wasn’t bad enough on its own.”

  “Did that upset you?”

  “No. Damn. You sound like Reg.” Beside Leo, Reg chuckled. Leo spared him a glance before he returned his attention to Charlie, who remained silent. “I didn’t mean to be dickish.”

  Charlie sighed. “I know. I just worried about you today. It’s not fair that you had to go through it all again. Why couldn’t they just use your statement?”

  Leo smiled, because despite the heavy content of the conversation, the fierceness with which Charlie often protected him warmed his slowly healing heart. “It had to be done. And now it is.”

  “Will you know when the trial is over?”

  “Yeah. Carol is going to call Reg.”

  More silence, and Leo knew that Charlie was considering whether Dennis might get off—that he’d be found not guilty and come back to haunt Leo and Lila—but Leo wasn’t worried about that. The evidence against Dennis was bulletproof. The bastard was going down, and with any luck, he’d stay down until he was too old to bother anyone but the nurses wiping his arse in a care home.

  The negative train of thought took him to the doorway of the dark place his therapist had taught him to avoid. Leo closed his eyes and counted Charlie’s breaths, pictured him at home, sitting at the kitchen table with Lila, sketching flowers and ponies, and sighing with mock exasperation when Lila made him colour everything pink. Watching them like that was Leo’s happy place—one of them, at least.

  How lucky you are to have so many.

  Leo opened his eyes. “I’m fine, Charlie. Honest. Please don’t worry about me.”

  “I do try not to. Are you going home now?”

  Leo glanced at Reg and repeated the question. Reg nodded. “We just need to stop at B&Q.”

  “What for?”

  “Screws. Then we can finish the goalposts this afternoon.”

  Leo couldn’t hide his glee. While he’d recovered at home—and been suspended from Heyton High—Reg had taken a leave of absence from his teaching job to homeschool Leo so he didn’t get behind. For three months, the boring lessons had taken over most mornings, but after lunch, Reg had often taken Leo out to the garage and let him play around with the huge array of tools stored in there, and Leo remained surprised at how much he enjoyed it.

  And though he’d been back at school awhile now, the best part was still to come. Their latest project—a set of goalposts for the garden—was nearly finished, and suddenly, Leo couldn’t wait to be home. He said good-bye to Charlie and settled back into his seat, unable to contain his excited grin. In return, Reg smiled and turned on Radio Two.

  “Kate and I are taking Lila to her first speech therapy session tonight. If we finish the goalposts, perhaps you can convince Charlie to have a kick around in the garden?”

  Leo snorted. His own passion for football was slowly returning, but he’d yet to persuade Charlie that it was an activity they could share. “Give them a ball each,” he’d said, much to Leo’s disgust. “I think he’d rather go to the woods.”

  “Then do that instead. Either way, get out in the sun. Kate worries about you both being cooped up with the Xbox.”

  “Kate worries too much.”

  “I know, but we wouldn’t change her, eh?”

  Leo could only smile. He’d become closer to Reg than Kate, but he couldn’t deny that he loved them both. A new family hadn’t been something he’d ever imagined that he’d want. Now?

  He couldn’t imagine life without them.

  Charlie paced Andy and Fliss’s small front garden, all the while keeping an ear out for Leo’s bike, knowing that he’d come careening down the road with a screech of brakes, like he always did.

  It sometimes seemed that Charlie spent every free moment waiting on Leo, but as Leo appeared in the distance, his grin visible and vibrant even from so far away, he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  Leo skidded to a halt at Charlie’s feet, expertly missing him by mere inches. “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself. How was football practice?”

  “Awesome. I made the team.”

  “You did? Wow. That’s great.” Charlie tried not to roll his eyes. Most of the kids on the football team were idiots, but since Leo had returned to school, playing football had done him the world of good, often brightening his mood to the point where his addictive grin was almost constant. “Did Wayne make the team too?”

  “Yup. Giving up the fags did the trick. I can hardly catch him now.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” But Charlie said it with a humour that he meant. Wayne had made Leo’s return to Heyton High easier in ways that Charlie couldn’t, because Charlie couldn’t be everything for Leo, even if he tried. And he certainly didn’t want to play football.

  “Are you two coming in or what?” Fliss stuck her head out of the open kitchen window. “I promised Mum I’d feed you as soon as you got back. Can’t have her precious boys going hungry, can I?”

  Charlie treated Fliss to his middle finger, but headed inside anyway. Wednesday night dinners at Fliss’s had fast become his favourite time of the week, and it had nothing to do with the food.

  Later, after two plates of Fliss’s special sausage pie, Charlie and Leo snuck off to the bottom of the huge garden, safe in the knowledge that she wouldn’t come looking for them until it was time for her to drive them home. It was the best thing about coming to Fliss’s house when Andy was at work, apart from the food . . .
that she allowed them a precious few hours of time to themselves, trusting them to be alone, on the condition that they kept their “bloody shirts on.”

  And it was a deal they kept—mostly, because this time really was precious. How could it be anything else when, like now, Leo lay down in the fading sun and gazed up at Charlie like he was the best thing Leo had ever seen?

  “Sit down,” Leo said impatiently. “I’ve got something to tell you.”

  “Something good?”

  “Yup.”

  “Better than making the football team?”

  “Yup.”

  Intrigued, Charlie sat beside Leo, giggling as Leo dragged him down to lie with him. “Stop it. You know Fliss gets all pissy if we come home covered in grass.”

  “Don’t care.” Leo tackled Charlie until he had Charlie where he wanted him—beneath him, their legs entangled. He kissed Charlie once . . . twice, before he relented and rolled to one side. “Dennis’s verdict was today.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t look so shocked. We knew it was coming, right?”

  “Um.” Charlie opened his mouth. Shut it again. Because it was true that the verdict in Dennis’s trial had been due any day for weeks now, but for some reason, he hadn’t expected it today. And its arrival didn’t meld with the uncharacteristic lightness in Leo’s eyes.

  Or did it? Charlie sat up abruptly and leaned over Leo, reversing their positions of just a moment ago. “Guilty?”

  “Yup. On all counts—murder and attempted murder. Some other shit too.”

  Other shit. Charlie suppressed a shudder, glad he’d never been fully briefed on all the things Leo’s father had inflicted on his family. “Sentence?”

  “Not yet, but the judge told him to expect life. Reg says that means at least fifteen years, probably a lot more.”

  Charlie was still getting used to Leo’s ever-growing faith in Reg. It was so far away from the distrust he’d worn like a second skin when he’d shuffled into Charlie’s life—and his heart—last winter. “How do you feel about it? Happy?”

  “Would you think me a monster if I said yes?”

  “No. Your dad is a bastard.”

  “He’s not my dad, Charlie. Wasn’t long before he killed Mum.”

  Mum. It was the first time Leo had ever referred to his mother like that in front of Charlie. On the rare occasions he’d mentioned her, it had always been my mum or Wendy. Charlie wanted to stop a moment and consider what that meant, but with the shadows still absent from Leo’s clear gaze, he let it go. And with that release came an epiphany: the light in Leo was that of freedom. Justice had been served, and Leo and Lila could finally move on.

  Charlie fiddled with the frayed edges of the bandage around Leo’s elbow. It was much smaller than the one Leo had arrived with so long ago, even with the minor surgery he’d endured a few weeks ago to repair the failed skin graft, and its shrinking size was yet another reminder of how far Leo had come in the last few months.

  Leo sat up, mirroring Charlie’s pose, and gently reclaimed his arm, the wooden beads around his wrist rattling with the movement. “You seem different.”

  “Different? Since when?”

  Leo shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “What does?”

  Leo had Charlie there. “Maybe it’s my hair. I had it cut after school.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that. It’s shorter at the sides and longer on top. Like the dudes you’ve been drawing, right?”

  Leo had little interest in art, but he seemed to like watching Charlie draw, like the stroke of the pens on the paper soothed him somehow. “Yes, it’s kind of manga style, but not as big. I’ve wanted it like this for ages, but—” Charlie broke off and fingered his hair that now rivalled Leo’s in length, though it was nothing like Leo’s wild curls. “I thought people would laugh at me, but I don’t care anymore.”

  “I didn’t know you ever did.”

  Charlie shrugged. “Neither did I really, but I suppose I must have done.”

  “Now you’re not making sense.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Nah, Charlie . . . don’t be sorry. Not with me.” Leo was suddenly in Charlie’s face, his forehead finding its groove in Charlie’s, like they’d been made to be pressed together this way. “I wouldn’t be here without you. You know that, don’t you?”

  Charlie gulped at the lump in his throat. He didn’t like to think about the rough months they’d lived through before Leo’s undiagnosed PTSD had finally broken him down. Leo’s crying in the night. The emptiness in his eyes. “What did I do?”

  “You reminded me to be happy.”

  “Are you happy, Leo?”

  “I’m learning.”

  It was a phrase Charlie had heard a lot recently, but it had never sounded as good as it did right now. Charlie grinned so hard his face hurt, and he lunged at Leo, but before their lips met in a kiss that Charlie needed as much as air, Fliss’s voice reached them, summoning them inside.

  They both knew better than to ignore her. It was only last week that she’d turned the hose on them. With rueful groans, they hauled themselves up from the grass and jogged up the long garden.

  Fliss waited for them at the back door. At first nothing seemed amiss, and then Charlie saw him—the tall, dark-haired man who hovered behind her. Charlie slowed to a stop, apprehension creeping into the persistent happy bubble in his belly. He’d heard rumours of Fliss having a new boyfriend, and had even expected to meet him sometime soon, but the unease in his gut wasn’t for him. Leo’s reactions to new people—new men—were still unpredictable.

  The obvious caution in Fliss’s face didn’t help. Her smile was forced as she stepped outside and beckoned the tall dude to follow. “This is Steve,” she said. “Steve, these two goons are my brothers.”

  She stared hard at Charlie, clearly hoping that he could act normally enough to make up for whatever Leo was doing behind him. But as he opened his mouth to grind out a mechanical greeting, Leo breezed past him, stepping in front of him and extending his hand.

  “Hi, Steve. I’m Leo.”

  Charlie blinked, and the surprise in Fliss’s face mirrored his own, but as Leo glanced over his shoulder and spared him a playful wink, he mouthed three little words that meant the whole world.

  I am Leo.

  Charlie smiled and lifted his hand to sign back, “Yes, you are.”

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for reading Garrett Leigh’s Finding Home!

  We know your time is precious and you have many, many entertainment options, so it means a lot that you’ve chosen to spend your time reading. We really hope you enjoyed it.

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  Thanks as always to my wonderful editors, Caz and Alex, and to the sensitivity readers who helped so much with the BSL. Also to Jem Roche, who offered insight to the English foster care system very early on in the writing of Finding Home.

  I wrote this book for my daughter, Darcey. Darlin’, if you made it to the end, I love you, and am more proud of you than I could ever say. Now tidy your bloody room.

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  Garrett Leigh is an award-winning British writer and book designer, currently working for Dreamspinner Press, Loose Id, Riptide Publishing, and Fox Love Press.

  Garrett's debut novel, Slide, won Best Bisexual Debut at the 2014 Rainbow Book Awards, and her polyamorous novel, Misfits was a finalist in the 2016 LAMBDA awards.

  When not writing, Garrett can generally be found procrastinating on Twitter, cooking up a storm, or sitting on her behind doing as little as possible, all the while shouting at her menagerie of children and animals and attempting to tame her unruly and wonderful FOX.

  Garrett is also an award-winning cover artist, taking the silver medal at the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards in 2016. She designs for various publishing houses and independent authors at blackjazzdesign.com, and co-owns the specialist stock site moonstockphotography.com with photographer Dan Burgess.

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