When Stars Collide

Chapter 4

"Leo is a mechanic." Rhia creased her brows in confusion at Cheyenne's statement, "By mechanic, you mean-" Jade eye-rolled in impatience and replied, "Yes mechanic that tinkers with cars, pay attention."
Rhiannon blew her hair up and stared at the rest of the people in the car and said, "None of you are going to explain to me what is special about some mechanic. In fact what is special about any mechanic."
"Leo isn't just any mechanic." Logan said, Rhiannon was surprised that the British bodybuilder had decided to speak, he hadn't struck her as someone who engaged in this type of conversations.
   "He has some special resources."
   "Yes, something else that is just special about this 'Leo'."
Jasper ruffles Cheyenne's hair and leans toward her, "Do you want to explain, little Pendulum." Rhia ignored her cousin's grumbles about the amount of time spent to curl her hair.
"Well before Leo thought he was too good for us peasants-" Cheyenne's sentence was cut off by a loud number of protests supporting Leo's case, Cheyenne simply raised an eyebrow and stated,
"Am I allowed to continue?" When no one bothered to interrupt this time Cheyenne continued,
"Leo's family background has always been sketchy, but Leo had a good idea of who is father was, he never told us who it was, because he wanted it to be a surprise. So every month since he became ten, he would send letters, homemade cookies, greeting cards and whatnots to his father, they were constantly ignored on a good day, on a bad day they were sent back with warnings for him to stop, unless the authorities would be involved. He continued this habit for two or three years, until bodyguards came sent from his father and-"
Cheyenne's sniffling interrupted her statement, she saw Rhia staring at her and made a small noise of apology and continued,
"The bruises all over his body were horrible, most people didn't even know what was happening but it was obvious he was not alright. His mother lost it, went to his father and gave her a piece of his mind. Apparently he thought Leo was a fraud, and though I'm extremely skeptical about this info, he claimed Leo's mom was the only woman he ever loved. He became desperate to be a father to Leo from gifts, bodyguards, even some houses, but it never worked. Leo avoided his bodyguards each time and even refused to change his last name from Hart."
"Well that's that, what movie are we watching at your house, Chi." Jade's enthusiastic attempt at smalltalk was almost enough to forget about what Cheyenne had spoke about, but Rhiannon had always been known for ignoring almosts.

"Ok, I get he had some sob story, but nothing really explained his specialness."
Jasper raised his arms in the air, though it knocked his glasses askew. Rhia wasn't even sure how he managed to wear the glasses without her realizing it.
"Since Little P has said most of the story, let me just say the rest, Leo wasn't the most privileged child, but once he realized he had access to millions of dollars as pocket money, he became different, He always wanted to be a mechanic, but with that much money at his fingertips he could even get his own workshop, the slight problem was that he didn't have the skill, so he learnt everyday for weeks, months. Then one day he offered car washes, next paint-jobs, then before you know it actual engine fixing, and then Daisy came."
"Who's Daisy."
"Not who, what. Daisy was a car that no one had ever seen before, maybe obviously inspired by combining makes or features of different cars, but still unique. That's how it started he came with cars with so many varying qualities from bulletproof, high-speed, hefty, self-driving and so many more. Leo's cars are personal, he doesn't really make his masterpieces for others, but he does sells his scrap designs to car companies for millions."
"Like that wasn't enough. He robs students blind by fixing wrecked cars." Cheyenne muttered before leaning against Jasper's shoulder, he immediately stiffened followed by a huge goofy grin that Cheyenne seemed oblivious to.
"So how bad was the accident that damaged was Logan's car."

   Jade made a snarling noise in her throat, which was probably the most threatening
sound any of them had ever heard from the petite girl.
"His car wasn't involved in an accident it was sabotaged." Jade looked fierce at the thought of anybody sabotaging her boyfriend's car, "We still don't know who did it, but Leo obviously did us a favor by helping Logan."
"He isn't doing Melissa any favors." Cheyenne's blue eyes glared at Jade, but Jade glared right back with her jade green ones.
"Let Rhia hear the story before deciding who's doing who any favors." Logan chastised the both of them and continued speaking,
"Melissa is like a sister to Cheyenne, her BFF. The thing is that she's not quite good at understanding emotions, and Cheyenne is extremely protective towards her. Well Melissa really likes Leo, and through a misunderstanding in which he told her that he loved her, she is convinced that they're a couple."
"Why can't Leo just explain."
"Cheyenne doesn't want her to experience heartbreak that's why she dislikes Leo now, because she needs Melissa to snap out of it and she also doesn't want to hurt her."
"You must have been learning psychology from your girlfriend, because I really don't like when people treat me like a psychology case."
Rhia pretended to not hear Jade's soft mutterings, "Treat a spade like a spade, treat a nut job a nut job."
~^~
"Where is the casserole." Rhia winced at her aunt's shrill screaming, her antics had been going on since last night when she found out Uncle Tom would be returning back home.

"Rhia, do you know where the casserole is?" Aunt Barbara panickedly asked Rhia, though she was extremely aware that Rhia couldn't even tell salt from sugar, nevertheless be aware of where some casserole was.

"Mom, deep breaths, deep breaths." Cheyenne stroked the back of her mom's back to stop her from panicking even more, "Deep slow breaths." Cheyenne continued soothingly,
"I can't calm down, I don't know where Tommy's casserole is."
Cheyenne let a hint of a smile tease the corner of her lips, "It's right there on the table, exactly where you told me to keep it."

Aunt Barbara finally decided to follow her daughter's instructions and took deep, calming breaths, after the exercise and let out a relaxed sigh, "Thank you my favorite daughter."
Cheyenne finally let out a full smile and replied, "I'm your only daughter. Just calm down, you know Dad isn't going to complain no matter what you cook him, though please don't take that as an invitation to poison him."
"Don't worry, your father isn't going to be poisoned," she added in a conspirational whisper, "Unless we allow Rhia to cook."

Aunt Barbara left the kitchen looking more calm and composed than before, "It was one time, I'm a way better cook now."
"I wasn't even aware eggs could go that color."
"So it was a little on the crispy side."
"It was as black as night, on both sides of the egg."
"My skills have improved a lot since then."
"It was two weeks ago."

Rhia was annoyed that both her aunt and cousin weren't letting the incident go. After a few days she had arrived, she wanted to show gratitude to her aunt by making them breakfast, and maybe it was a disaster involving a lot of smoke, fire drills, fire extinguishers and burnt eggs, but it was the thought that had to count, right.
"Why don't you just go make juice for Dad or something like that."
"Your mom made some already."
Cheyenne let out an exasperated breath, "She really needs to stop working so much."
"What about the chicken, is it in the microwave."
"Yep, I kept it there."
Rhia disliked the grimace that came on Cheyenne's face and huffed,
"I know how to use a microwave."
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Rhia froze up at the sound of the microwave, while Cheyenne simply rolled her eyes and gestured towards the microwave,
"Get the chicken."
Rhia ran toward the appliance that was making the noise and tried her best to turn it off, Cheyenne watched all this with an amused look and said,
"That girl is going to burn the house someday."
"I heard that."
"I never meant for you not to."