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Riley rolled her eyes. “Seriously? I need to explain this to you? After all the years you’ve spent in this kitchen with me while you were growing up? Something I figure your poor mom regrets allowing.”
Yvonne laughed. Her mom adored Aunt Riley, she honestly and truly did. But the women were as dissimilar as salt and sugar. Riley was loud, flamboyant, opinionated and had a tendency to pepper her sentences liberally with the “F” word. The first time Yvonne let that whopper slip, her mom had pointed at her dad and said, “I blame Riley for this.”
Dad had promised to ask Riley to clean up the language around Yvonne and she could attest to her aunt’s efforts to do so. Riley’s cursing turning to flavorful “near misses” as she turned fuck to fudge, shit to sugar and bitch to biscuit. However, she abandoned that game when Yvonne turned fifteen because “it was too fucking exhausting.” After that, she’d let the language fly, then followed every curse word with “Don’t say that in front of Natalie or she’ll kick my ass.”
And Yvonne had managed to follow that rule…mostly. At least until after high school.
“Meaning,” Riley said, shaking her head in disbelief over having to explain herself, “you know better than to listen when people feed you a line of bullshit. Listen with your eyes, not your ears. He says he’s fine, which is a bold-faced lie. You saw him. I’m pretty sure he was wearing that same shirt the last time he was here—and it hasn’t been washed. The damn thing is filthy. His hair is shaggy, which is unusual for him. He’s long overdue for a haircut…and a shave. He never comes in here looking all scruffy-faced like that. There are darker circles under the dark circles under his eyes, and if he’s slept more than five hours a night this past week, I’ll eat my bra.”
“You’re wearing one today?” Yvonne joked.
“Smartass,” Riley said, chuckling. “That boy needs an intervention.”
Yvonne considered that as Riley walked over to begin mixing the dough for the homemade bread they planned to serve with the special tonight.
Yvonne began to unpack the box of produce, putting the vegetables away as she recalled the first time she’d seen Leo look so done in.
It had been the night of graduation. Lochlan’s parents had planned a blowout celebration for him and several of his closest friends, and Yvonne had been headed to her car, planning to drive to the party, when she’d noticed Leo sitting alone in the school parking lot…
* * *
Yvonne glanced around the quickly emptying parking lot. Most of the graduates and their families had already shared the hugs, taken the requisite seventy-two million cap and gown pictures, and headed out.
She tucked her keys back in her skirt pocket and walked over to him. “Leo?”
Though the window was rolled down, Leo didn’t look up at the sound of her voice. He didn’t even seem to see her approaching his truck.
She thought he looked far too depressed for someone who had just graduated from high school. If it was her who’d just busted out of this joint, she’d be dancing naked in the streets right about now. She walked right up to the driver’s side window of his pickup and said his name again.
He raised his eyes, meeting hers slowly. There was utter devastation on his face.
Something that wasn’t a complete surprise. He’d been subdued and…well, sad, for the past few weeks. She and Lochlan had both asked him if he was okay, had tried to cajole him out of his misery, but nothing had worked. Leo would simply tell them he was fine or offer some lame excuse for his melancholy—blaming it on nerves over graduation or stress over end-of-the-year exams.
Neither she nor her cousin truly believed his reasons, but Leo wasn’t ready to tell them what was really wrong, so they’d given him space and time.
“What happened?” Yvonne asked.
He blinked a couple of times, and she wondered if he’d heard her. He was looking at her with a faraway expression.
“Leo?”
This time, her voice penetrated. He leaned back against the driver’s seat, his shoulders slumped. “Oh. Hey, Yvonne.”
“Everyone else is heading over to Uncle Will and Aunt Keira’s house for the party. Are you coming?”
He shrugged, then shook his head. “I don’t feel much like celebrating.”
Yvonne hated seeing him like this, and she was tired of tiptoeing around him. Avoiding problems wasn’t her style, so she crossed in front of the truck, opened the passenger door and slid in.
“Yvonne,” he started, clearly intent on feeding her the same line of bullshit he had the past few weeks in an attempt to get rid of her.
“I’m not getting out of this truck until you tell me what’s wrong,” she insisted.
He scowled. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Liar.”
Leo crossed his arms, stubbornness setting in. She smirked. She could out-stubborn a mule. If he wanted to go a round or two, she was game.
