“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.”