“I know, but we wouldn’t change her, eh?”
Leo could only smile. He’d become closer to Reg than Kate, but he couldn’t deny that he loved them both. A new family hadn’t been something he’d ever imagined that he’d want. Now?
He couldn’t imagine life without them.
Charlie paced Andy and Fliss’s small front garden, all the while keeping an ear out for Leo’s bike, knowing that he’d come careening down the road with a screech of brakes, like he always did.
It sometimes seemed that Charlie spent every free moment waiting on Leo, but as Leo appeared in the distance, his grin visible and vibrant even from so far away, he wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Leo skidded to a halt at Charlie’s feet, expertly missing him by mere inches. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself. How was football practice?”
“Awesome. I made the team.”
“You did? Wow. That’s great.” Charlie tried not to roll his eyes. Most of the kids on the football team were idiots, but since Leo had returned to school, playing football had done him the world of good, often brightening his mood to the point where his addictive grin was almost constant. “Did Wayne make the team too?”
“Yup. Giving up the fags did the trick. I can hardly catch him now.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” But Charlie said it with a humour that he meant. Wayne had made Leo’s return to Heyton High easier in ways that Charlie couldn’t, because Charlie couldn’t be everything for Leo, even if he tried. And he certainly didn’t want to play football.
“Are you two coming in or what?” Fliss stuck her head out of the open kitchen window. “I promised Mum I’d feed you as soon as you got back. Can’t have her precious boys going hungry, can I?”
Charlie treated Fliss to his middle finger, but headed inside anyway. Wednesday night dinners at Fliss’s had fast become his favourite time of the week, and it had nothing to do with the food.
Later, after two plates of Fliss’s special sausage pie, Charlie and Leo snuck off to the bottom of the huge garden, safe in the knowledge that she wouldn’t come looking for them until it was time for her to drive them home. It was the best thing about coming to Fliss’s house when Andy was at work, apart from the food . . . that she allowed them a precious few hours of time to themselves, trusting them to be alone, on the condition that they kept their“bloody shirts on.”
And it was a deal they kept—mostly, because this time really was precious. How could it be anything else when, like now, Leo lay down in the fading sun and gazed up at Charlie like he was the best thing Leo had ever seen?
“Sit down,” Leo said impatiently. “I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Something good?”
“Yup.”
“Better than making the football team?”
“Yup.”
Intrigued, Charlie sat beside Leo, giggling as Leo dragged him down to lie with him. “Stop it. You know Fliss gets all pissy if we come home covered in grass.”
“Don’t care.” Leo tackled Charlie until he had Charlie where he wanted him—beneath him, their legs entangled. He kissed Charlie once . . . twice, before he relented and rolled to one side. “Dennis’s verdict was today.”
“What?”
“Don’t look so shocked. We knew it was coming, right?”
“Um.” Charlie opened his mouth. Shut it again. Because it was true that the verdict in Dennis’s trial had been due any day for weeks now, but for some reason, he hadn’t expected it today. And its arrival didn’t meld with the uncharacteristic lightness in Leo’s eyes.
Or did it? Charlie sat up abruptly and leaned over Leo, reversing their positions of just a moment ago. “Guilty?”
“Yup. On all counts—murder and attempted murder. Some other shit too.”
Other shit. Charlie suppressed a shudder, glad he’d never been fully briefed on all the things Leo’s father had inflicted on his family. “Sentence?”
“Not yet, but the judge told him to expect life. Reg says that means at least fifteen years, probably a lot more.”
Charlie was still getting used to Leo’s ever-growing faith in Reg. It was so far away from the distrust he’d worn like a second skin when he’d shuffled into Charlie’s life—and his heart—last winter. “How do you feel about it? Happy?”
