I ask, subconsciously crossing my arms to shield myself, “So… you think we’ll be done with the deck today?”
He doesn’t take his eyes off me. “What’s your grandmother’s name?”
I swallow the knot in my throat, ignoring the thumping of my heart as it fills the silence between spoken words. “Mackenzie. Why?”
“Like your middle name?”
“How’d you know?”
The muscles in his jaw tick, but his words are expressionless. “Your mom said it once. I figure that’s why people call you Mia Mac.”
I nod, pretend to focus on the screws again. “Why do you want to know?”
A beat passes.
Two.
And then he exhales, so loud and so harsh, it’s as if he was just coming up for air after almost drowning. With a single headshake, he picks up the notebook beside him, puts pen to paper, and starts writing something down, saying, “I wanted to do something on the railings for your grandpa. I thought I might etch some names into it. Something sentimental…”
Now I’m the one staring at him, wondering how it is he can be so sweet, so everything I mistakenly thought he was…
“Your dad?” he asks, glancing up at me with a slight grimace. “Yes or no?”
“Yeah,” I breathe out.
“His name?”
“Joseph.”
“P H or…?”
I blink, try to clear my mind of teenage boys and the false promises they come with. “Um. Yeah. That’s the English spelling.”
Leo nods, licks his lips as he writes. “And your grandpa? Should I use his English name or…?”
“English is fine.”
Leo sets the notebook beside him and tucks the pencil between his cap and temple. “It’s kind of cool that János Kovács translates to the most common English name.” My eyes widen in shock, and he must pick up on my surprise because he says, “You mentioned it at the hardware store, and I got curious, looked it up.”
He gets curious a lot, I’ve realized.
“What about your mom? Should I put Virginia on there?”
I snort, which is super attractive. Not that I’m trying to be. “Not unless you want to put ördög nő on there.” Papa says Leo asks a lot of questions, but he doesn’t ask them to me or of me, and I’m not quite sure how to feel about it. Leo watches me, waits for me to elaborate. “Papa calls her the Devil Woman.”
His quiet laughter sends a jolt to my chest. And now it’s my turn to watch. To wait. Minutes pass. Nothing. He lowers his head between his shoulders, looks down at his lap. My impatience, and maybe my own curiosity, get the better of me. “How come you’ve never asked about my parents?” I blurt out.
He doesn’t seem phased by my question, just does that lazy shrug of his that he seems to have mastered. “I figure if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me.”
Huh. I stare him down. “No one at the diner has mentioned it?”
He glances up, then right back down again. “Miss Sandra may have mentioned a scandal involving you that happened sixteen years ago, then again thirteen years ago, but she caught herself quickly and didn’t say anything else.” He looks up, fixes his eyes on mine. “I didn’t ask for more, and she felt bad about saying anything at all, so please don’t be mad at her.”
The boy is an enigma, and this soft spot he’s showing for Miss Sandra only amplifies that notion. “Did you know that my dad and Holden’s mom dated all through their teen years?”
His eyes widen, just slightly, and he shakes his head. “No.”
“Yep.” I get comfortable—as comfortable as one can be sitting on a wooden deck with tools all around them. “They started dating when they were twelve and were completely inseparable. If you ask any of the older folk around here, they’d tell you that they believed the two of them to be destined, as if God put them in the same place at the same time for reasons far greater than anyone could know.” Leo’s all ears, and I clear my throat, adding, “Even when they went off to high school, the townsfolk were scared that something might break them up, you know? But high school isn’t what broke them, at least not really. My dad—he got this internship working for a tech startup in New York the summer before his senior year. He was there two weeks when he called Tammy and ended it. He’s never spoken a word of this to me, so I only know what Papa and Tammy have