Page 66 of To Have and to Scold

I wait a long while and finally, Leo speaks again.

“Ella says she just doesn’t want to go to Prom with me now. She says we don’t click anymore. What does that even mean?” Leo says, his eyes rimmed with red.

Oh rejection. Something I’m all too familiar with myself. I ask a couple of questions about Ella and discover that he’s liked her all year and felt like he’d won the lottery when she started hanging out with him. When she’d accepted his invitation to Prom, he was on cloud nine.

Beck’s listening to me intently, his eyes boring into me. I flash a smile and then look away. It’s not my idea of fun to talk so vulnerably with a teen, but Leo needs to know I can empathize.

“Only a few weeks ago, my boyfriend broke up with me,” I say. “He said we didn’t have enough in common. It hurt a lot. But what hurt way more was finding out, from my aunt, that my cousin and my ex started dating soon after he and I broke up and that things had gotten serious between them very quickly.”

Leo looks up. He’s watching me intently as I take a deep breath and continue on. “It hurt me to be dumped. It hurt to have been wrong to date him in the first place—and trust me, he was wrong for me. And it hurts that he’s dating my cousin. But the worst part about it is that McKenna didn’t tell me. She lied about it and hid it from me. I understand it’s hard to tell me, but I would have thought she could have. It really sucks that she didn’t treat me the way I deserve to be treated: with respect.”

“That does really suck,” Leo says sadly.

“Even if Ella was nice to you before, it sounds like the way she’s handled things lately is a red flag. Sounds like she’s not treating you kindly or with respect.”

Beck raises his brows at this.

“Anyway, my point is, no matter how attractive someone is, it’s what’s inside that’s important, how they treat others.”

Beck nods, and I think of him, how he’s genuinely kind and good. And bonus, he’s not bad to look at, either!

“Yeah,” Leo says. “But I still wish she’d say, ‘Never mind, I do want to go to Prom with you.’ It feels like she’s playing games with me.”

“That makes sense. I can tell you really wanted to go with her. Is there someone else you could ask? Someone who you know you’d have fun with? Maybe not someone you’d like as much as Ella, but someone you could relax and be yourself with?”

“I don’t want to think about that right now. But maybe.”

I stand and go sit on the same couch as Leo. Oh, I can feel the sadness oozing from him.

Leo glances at me and then at Beck. “Can you believe that last set today?” he asks, after which he and Beck launch into a twenty-minute discussion about the match and all the ins and outs of the plays and calls. Beck’s intense. Maybe he really does think he’s coaching the Olympics?

A ringtone sounds and Leo yanks his phone out of the pocket of his shorts. “My mom’s calling me again. I should go home.”

Beck stands. “Hey, Leo. If you decide you want to ask someone else to Prom, I know the perfect place you could have the meal.”

“Really?” The firstlings of a smile appear on Leo’s face as he stares at Beck. “You’d actually let us do it?”

Beck twists his mouth to one side and shakes his head, like he can’t believe what he’s about to say. “Uh huh. But you have to bring the food in. No cooking in there. And I won’t charge you a penny. Except for a $50 deposit that I’ll refund after you and your friends have cleaned the heck out of it the next day, okay?”

Leo sticks out his hand and Beck shakes it. “Done. If I decide to ask someone else.”

“Alright.” Beck’s smile is gentle. “Now get home before your mom starts calling me.”

“Hey,” I say to Leo as he’s heading to the kitchen and the back door. “Just so you know, I think you’ve got a lot to offer any girl out there, Leo.”

He breathes out a gust of breath and gives one resigned nod before disappearing into the kitchen. I see Beck just in time to see a look cross his face, a gentle, loving look.

Right at me.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Beck

“Come here,” Dallas says softly after sitting back down on the sofa across from me. She’s in a light pink T-shirt, jeans, white Keds, and a thin white belt through the belt loops around her waist. Her voice, combined with the ‘come hither’ tone she’s casting is enough to make me float through the air Looney-Tunes style. Like when Bugs Bunny sails across the room following the scent of delicious food.

But I don’t. Not quite yet. I take a moment to remind myself why I have to be careful in this situation, why I can’t get ahead of myself.

First things first.

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