Lies Like Love

SEPTEMBER: LEO

‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’

Leo thought about a discreet eye-roll but you couldn’t get much past Sue. He might, if pressed, describe the encounter as excruciating.

‘The kids are sweet. Nice family,’ his aunt continued, and he felt what was coming next and didn’t want it. For a woman who’d lived on her own for years, she was the opposite of hermit. Which was a shame.

‘Just tell me we don’t have to go over there again. It was pretty obvious they didn’t want us intruding, Sue. Plus the place gives me the creeps.’

‘Don’t be so daft. And you know I like to be friendly. So, no harm done. And you offered to show them around a bit, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, so now will you get off my back?’

‘I will.’ Leo knew his aunt meant well, that she wanted him to have a social life, but this business about friends was a pain. Well, he’d reached out, as Graham would put it, and made himself look like an idiot. He groaned and rubbed his face with his hands. Sue looked at him, grinning.

‘What was her name again?’ Leo asked Sue, thinking of the girl and her long pale hair straggling down her back, the heavy fringe disguising eyes that blinked behind her glasses, like she had some sort of tic. Not that it bothered him. He’d met plenty of people like that in the past couple of years. She had long fingers, he remembered now, delicate hands, graceful. And she was tall. He’d noticed that first, her long neck, legs, arms. Her arms. He wiped the memory, crossing the image out.

‘Audrey. Funny name, old fashioned these days,’ Sue said, breaking his line of thought.

‘Mmm.’ If he was honest with himself, he liked the look of her. Leo laughed, remembering how almost rude she’d been and then looked so shocked at herself, as if she wasn’t used to saying what she thought. It had been his fault; he hadn’t exactly sounded enthusiastic. Sue drove towards the farm and Leo smudged his finger into the mist on the window, leant his head back and thought. There was something tough about that girl; something that said, Don’t touch, don’t you dare. Don’t hurt me or my brother or you’ll pay. He wondered what made her so suspicious. He had to be kind. Lose the negativity; that was what Graham would recommend. Graham was right about a lot of stuff, but then that was his job. Making fucked-up teenagers better.

‘Shall I invite them over for supper?’ Sue looked straight ahead but he could see the smirk at the corners of her lips. Playing Pandarus, or something.

‘You just can’t stop yourself, can you?’ he teased, and his aunt laughed, she never took offence.

‘Nope. And you be sensible, all right?’

‘I’m always sensible.’ And it would be good to be nice to Audrey, to show her around, make her smile. He liked a challenge.

‘Good boy.’ They pulled up in the drive, he jumped out to shut the gate, swung on it as it closed. It was good here, all this space, all this air. No one getting inside his head and fussing. Leo grabbed his aunt, gave her a kiss. She’d sort of saved his life when she’d agreed he could come and live here, and if that meant he owed her, then he’d pay up.