The Longest Holiday by Paige Toon Page A

me.
    ‘Max, enough!’ Eric shouts, but Leo is on his feet and jogging over to me. I freeze as Max crouches and growls at my feet. Leo tugs him away with a few sharp words. The dog runs off with his tail between his legs.
    I glance up to see Leo giving me a guarded look. He’s wondering what I’m doing here.
    ‘Sorry, I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t really get to say goodbye before,’ I tell him quickly.
    He nods his head towards the house and I follow him.
    ‘Hey, Laura,’ Jorge says as we pass the chairs. He looks relaxed, like he’s been drinking for a while.
    ‘Hi,’ I respond, adding, ‘Hello,’ out of politeness to Carmen and Eric. He replies with a lazy, ‘Hey,’ but she just gives me a hard stare.
    ‘Laura.’ Leo’s voice sounds from behind me. He motions for me to follow him into the house. I would so rather be inside with him than out here with her, so it’s a relief to go with him.
    ‘Ignore Carmen,’ he tells me roughly as he leads me into the kitchen. ‘You want a beer?’
    I look up at him. I think he’s had a few, like Jorge. ‘Sure.’
    He grabs two bottles from the fridge, cracking them open and passing over one.
    ‘Thanks.’
    He takes a swig, leaning back against the counter and staring at me. He’s wearing a navy-blue T-shirt and well-worn denim jeans, and looks sexy as hell. I tear my eyes away to study the kitchen. It doesn’t look like it’s been touched since the seventies: yellow and grey lino on the floor, pale orange cupboards with melamine peeling off them. Dishes are stacked in the sink, and the counters are covered, too. It’s a mess. I meet Leo’s eyes and I think something akin to embarrassment passes through them before he puts his guard back up.
    ‘Come through.’ He leads me into the living room. It’s still a mess, with old battered sofas and armchairs, and a huge box-shaped TV that looks like it left a factory in the eighties and surely can’t still be functioning. I take in a few more details, like the picture frames hanging on the browned walls and the antique chests of drawers and matching wardrobe. The odd thought comes to me that someone used to love this place, but it’s been unloved for far too long.
    ‘Whose house is this?’ I find myself asking.
    Leo glances at me sharply. For a moment he seems a little bit lost. He collapses onto one of the armchairs.
    ‘It’s complicated.’ I’m familiar with this answer – I used it on him only yesterday – but it’s not one I was expecting.
    I sit down on the sofa and tuck my knees up. He shifts awkwardly and looks out through the door. I follow his gaze, but there’s no one there and I can hear the others outside on the chairs.
    ‘This was my mother’s house,’ he says quietly. ‘I grew up here.’
    ‘Where is …’
    ‘She passed away a long time ago.’ He glances down at his hands, then takes a swig of his beer. He runs his hand through his black hair and rests his elbow on one of the armrests.
    I try to prompt him. ‘But now Carmen and Eric live here?’
    He half rolls his eyes and leans forward to plonk his beer down on the stain-spotted coffee table. ‘Yes, they do.’
    Bloody hell, he wasn’t joking when he said it was complicated. ‘Spit it out.’
    He laughs. ‘Oh, Laura. I hate talking about this.’
    Warmth floods me at the familiarity of the way he just addressed me. ‘I didn’t want to tell you about my crap, either,’ I shrewdly remind him. ‘But I did.’
    He holds my stare. ‘Yes, you did.’ He sighs. ‘When my mother died, she left this house to me. My brother Alejandro was very angry.’ He says Alejandro with a Spanish accent, and it’s sexy as hell. ‘He was my older brother.’
    ‘Sorry, how old are you?’ I interrupt.
    ‘Thirty-three,’ he replies. Four years older than me. I nod for him to continue. ‘In the end, I went to Miami, and Alejandro, Carmen and Javier came to live here. Javier is my nephew.’ He gives me a knowing look, and I gather he’s