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Prologue
“Well now, lass. What are you doing up here by yourself?” Patrick Collins had watched his granddaughter Yvonne break away from her parents, Ewan and Natalie, who were eating dinner down at the pub and escape to his old apartment above. He followed her, concerned.
“Nothing.”
He had to hand it to her. At fourteen years old, she had perfected the teenage sulk. Her tone of voice and expression made it perfectly clear that she was stewing over something.
Patrick sat down next to her on the couch. “You wouldn’t lie to your old Pop Pop now, would you? Come on, my dearest heart, what’s got you feeling so low?”
Yvonne sighed loudly, dramatically, and Patrick fought to hide his amusement as she said, “Next weekend is the Homecoming dance at school.”
Ah. He hadn’t expected to get his answer so quickly. Typically, Yvonne liked to draw out her theatrics. “And am I to assume no one has asked you?”
Yvonne shot him an impatient look that told him he’d missed by a mile. “I’ve been asked. By three boys.”
“I see. So your problem lies in that you have too many options and you’re struggling to decide who to go with. That doesn’t sound like such a bad thing.”
Yvonne shook her head, exasperated. Patrick loved his grandchildren—adored them actually—but he’d always found it much easier to talk to them when they were younger. The moment each of them hit twelve and hormones kicked in, he found himself adrift.
His late wife, Sunday, had always been much better with their children as they’d advanced from youngsters to tweens. After she passed, it was the older siblings who helped him navigate the tricky waters with their younger brothers and sisters.
No doubt Sunday would have been able to deduce whatever was upsetting Yvonne by now.
He, on the other hand, was completely lost. “I give up,” he said, prompting the briefest grin from the young girl.
“Leo Watson didn’t ask me.”
Patrick considered that. “Leo? Isn’t he the young man who just recently started attending your school, whose father delivers vegetables to Sunday’s Side each week? And he’s been here a time or two hanging out with Lochlan and Colm, yes?”
Leo’s parents had homeschooled him until this year, along with his older brother and sister.
She nodded, clearly pleased he’d recalled who Leo was. “He’s the hottest boy in the whole sophomore class. And the coolest. And the funniest. And—”
“I think I get the picture. So you were hoping Leo would ask you?”
“Yeah. But he doesn’t even know I exist. He invited Denise Flynn instead.” Yvonne rolled her eyes as if the mere thought of that was too preposterous to believe.
“Who is Denise Flynn?” he asked.
“She’s a cheerleader, and she thinks her shi—” Yvonne stopped mid-curse when Patrick narrowed his eyes. His young granddaughter shared Riley’s love of cooking, spending countless hours in the kitchen of the pub with her aunt. Along the way, she’d picked up more from Riley than a knack for whipping up delicious meals.
“Language,” he murmured, something he’d said to Riley pretty much ever since the girl learned to talk. Not that his daughter had ever managed to curb her tendency to cuss like a sailor.
“Sorry. Denise thinks her poop doesn’t stink.”
Patrick resisted the urge to chuckle. The expression admittedly lacked something with the cleaner translation.
“I see,” he said.
“She’s super popular and nowhere near nice enough for Leo. I don’t know what he sees in her when there are lots of other girls in the school who would be better for him to date. Girls who see how cool he is. Denise just said yes so she could rub it in everyone else’s faces. Not because she likes him.”
It appeared this young Leo still possessed that new-car smell and was benefiting from being the mysterious—and therefore, instantly fascinating—boy in a school where most of the students had known each other since kindergarten.
“And you thought Leo would ask you?”
Yvonne didn’t reply immediately. An answer in itself.
“So no?”
She grimaced. “I just don’t understand what he sees in her. What’s wrong with me, Pop Pop?”
The tears welling in her eyes were his undoing. “Ah, lass. Now don’t go feeling bad about yourself. His asking this other girl could be based on a thousand different reasons.”
“Like what?” she asked, not bothering to stem the tears streaming down her freckled cheeks.
Patrick reached over and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He was a strong man and there was very little he couldn’t handle. The exception to that rule, his undoing, was and always would be his grandchildren’s tears.
“Well,” he said, trying to come up with any reason why a fifteen-year-old boy might overlook a lovely lass such as Yvonne. “Maybe he only likes girls in his own grade. You’re a year younger than the boy.”
