Coming Home(32)

Leah laughed, combing through her hair with her fingers. “It really wasn’t as sloppy as you’re making it out to be. I was trying to text my father. Dad and Danny are right next to each other in my contacts, and it was almost four in the morning. Cut me some slack.”

“Ah, so that text was for your father?”

“Mm-hm,” she hummed, wondering if she imagined in the hint of relief in his voice. There was a stretch of silence, and Leah began to chew on her lower lip again.

“So you should probably erase it,” she blurted out suddenly.

“Why?”

“I…I don’t know. I don’t want to, like…get you in trouble or anything.”

“Get me in trouble?” he asked. “How would you get me in trouble?”

“I mean, some random girl, texting you that she loves you…” She trailed off.

“I don’t have a girlfriend, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

She could hear the amusement in his voice, picture the smirk he was probably wearing.

The one that brought out his dimples.

Heat flooded her cheeks again. He was right; that had been what she was getting at, and she couldn’t believe she’d gone about it in such a childish way. Why didn’t you just write him a note? she thought. Do you have a girlfriend? Circle yes or no.

Leah heard a muted banging through the phone before Danny called out, “Come in, it’s open!”

“Company?” she asked.

“Just a couple of the guys from the shop. We have money on today’s game, which means we all have to watch it in the same place so we can humiliate and degrade each other over it.”

“Sounds fun,” she said with a laugh, reaching over to grab the water bottle off her nightstand. “Well, I’ll let you go then.”

“Alright. Oh hey, Leah?”

She froze with the bottle at her lips. “Yeah?”

“Maybe you should erase that text from your sent messages. You know. So you don’t get in trouble or anything.”

She lowered the bottle from her lips as a smile curved her mouth. “I don’t have a boyfriend, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

He laughed lightly into the phone. “Talk to you later.”

“Bye,” she said.

She dropped the phone to the bed and brought the bottle back to her mouth, nibbling on the rim.

He said he’d talk to her later.

She pressed her lips together, fighting the squeal she could feel building in the back of her throat.

Oh, Leah, she thought. You are so screwed.





“Hey, Gram, can you hand me that flashlight?”

Danny shifted as the ledge of the cabinet dug into his lower back. He was three seconds away from ripping the goddamn sink out of the wall and throwing it across the room.

“Here you go, love,” she said, holding it out for him.

“Thanks,” he said absently, placing the wrench on his chest to free his hand for the light.

“I don’t know why you won’t just let me call a plumber.”

“Gram, you’re bruising my ego,” he said, although he was seriously beginning to wonder the same thing.

She leaned down and swatted his knee. “Oh, stop it with your ego. I know you’re capable of doing it. I’d just rather you didn’t.”

“Why?” he grunted as he worked the wrench to loosen a nut.

“Because there are better ways for you to spend your afternoon.”