pre-drilled hole on the decking board and says, “I was going to work through anyway. I wanted to get past the front door so your grandpa can at least come out and sit on the porch. I know he’s been missing it.” He drills the screw in as if he’s done it a thousand times. He probably has. When he’s done, he looks up at me. “You okay?”
I fake a smile. “Yeah, why?”
He says, stretching out his back and shoulders, “You seem like you checked out for a little bit.”
We’ve managed to lay out enough of the porch to kneel on it while we work, so I scoot over to the next set of holes and take the drill he’s offering me. “I’m fine.”
Holden’s truck pulls into the driveway, and I’m grateful for his presence. “What’s good?” he calls out, making his way toward us.
“Just working,” Leo responds while I drill in a screw. When I look back up, Holden’s sitting on the same beam he was on yesterday. He doesn’t bother to help. He won’t.
“Hi, Holden!” Papa calls from somewhere in the house.
“Hi, Papa John!” Holden yells.
I put another screw in.
Holden asks, his voice low, “Mia, how many of those screws have you done?”
I look back at the boards already in place. “Like half of them.” I turn to him, notice the smirk on his lips. Hesitantly, I ask, “Why?”
He points to me, my chest specifically. “Every time you bend over to use the drill, I can see down your top.”
I gasp, scrunch the collar of my top and hold it to my chest.
Holden chuckles as he shakes his head. “I’d have never picked you as a black-bra kind of girl.”
I glare at Leo, and he’s looking anywhere but at me. He’s chewing his lip, trying to fight a smile, his face reddening from the force of his withheld laugh. I stand. “I hate you!” I stomp my foot, ignoring their joined laughter. “Both of you!”
Leo speaks up. “I thought you didn’t hate anybody.”
My eyes narrow. “First time for everything.” I spin toward the door and push it open. “I’m going to change,” I tell them.
Before I can slam the door shut behind me, I hear Holden say, “Sorry, man.”
And then Leo laughing. “All good.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
MIA
“Can you put it on the Preston Construction account?” Leo says into the phone as I step out onto the almost finished deck of the porch the next day. “Yeah, you can call Dad to confirm.” He rolls his eyes as he takes the glass of iced water from me. “I’ll be picking it up on Friday.” … “Okay, see you then.” He hangs up, thanking me for the drink and then devouring it in two gulps.
“Are you ordering material?” I ask.
Leo nods as he marks something off in a notebook I’ve seen lying around. “Yeah, just the timber for the railings. It’s cheaper to get them from our supplier back home, so I figure I’ll pick it up while I’m there.” He’s sitting on the deck, legs out in front of him as he leans back on his outstretched arms. I try not to look at the way the muscles in his forearms and biceps shift with every movement.
I sit opposite him, cross-legged, while Papa sits in his rocking chair behind me. “Philip’s here,” Papa says, standing up when a truck pulls into the driveway.
Turning to him, I ask, “Where are you going again?”
“He wants my help to buy some calves.”
Leo laughs under his breath. “That’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear.”
“Long drive,” Papa says. “I’ll be back late.”
I get up and walk with him to Philip’s truck. “Be safe,” I tell him, kissing his cheek. Then, to his friend Philip, “You bring him back in one piece, okay?”
Philip winks at me. “You got it, Miss Mia.”
I wait in the driveway until the truck is long gone, then make my way back to the porch. “You and your grandpa say the same thing when either of you leaves,” Leo says.
“The ‘back in one piece’ thing?” I ask, and he nods. “I don’t even know how it started.”
Leo’s quiet a moment before saying, his voice soft, “He loves you a lot, you know?”
Sitting back down, I start lining up the screws. “Well, it goes both ways,” I tell him, shrugging.
He doesn’t respond, and when I glance up at him, he’s watching me. And when Leo looks at you, really looks at you, it feels as though every muscle, every cell, every single part