The Best Thing

by Zapata, Mariana

  His fucking throat started to go pink, and I almost felt guilty. Almost.

  But Jonah kept going, his throat bobbing as he owned my borderline bitchy comment. “If that’s what you want, I won’t say anything, but know I want to.” One bright brown eye focused on me. “We can talk about our girl, then?”

  We passed by one of my favorite historic houses in the Heights. A massive white and purple home that reminded me of my best friend’s much smaller house, but I had my mind on other things. Our girl. He’d gone with that, huh? Fine.

  “Sure,” I told him, training my eyes on the house as we walked by.

  “I’m going to contact my lawyer—”

  I stopped moving at the same time as a car honked from behind where we were walking. Clenching my fist and holding my breath, I glanced over my shoulder just as a familiar voice hollered, “Hey, Lenny! Hi, Mo!”

  What were the fucking chances? I wondered as I faced the minivan that pulled up beside me. “Hi, Mrs. Polanski,” I said to the graying blonde woman in the driver’s seat who was waving.

  “I’m heading to church, but drop by the house this week so I can get my hands on that baby,” the woman who was about the closest thing to a mother figure I’d ever had called out with another wave. “Love you!”

  “I will. Love you too!” I yelled back at her with another wave that was only partially half-assed while I processed what the fuck had just come out of this asshole’s mouth before Mrs. Polanski of all people had rolled up.

  Contact his lawyer?

  Jonah had stopped too at the honk, and he instantly held up a hand the second I turned back to him. “Not like that. Listen to me. I’d like to be put on Mo’s birth certificate. She would have dual citizenship, I think, as well. And I owe you—”

  Was he trying to give me a heart attack? Fuck me. “You don’t owe me anything.”

  The Asswipe frowned. “I owe you. Children are expensive. I don’t know much about them, but I know that,” he kept going. “You don’t have to look at me in that way. I don’t want to fight you for rights, but I think she should know where I come from. I want her to know me.”

  I could feel my lip curling up like it wanted to snarl, and I tamped it down, keeping my face even.

  “I suppose we’ll have to do a paternity test, but I’ll find out, see what needs to be done.” He blinked, as if something finally hit him. But just as quickly as he stopped to do that, he refocused, like he was on top of the situation all over again. “Once I talk to my agent and lawyer.”

  He didn’t look away from me, and all those features got even more determined, and I didn’t know what to think about it. “I meant what I said about wanting to be around. I want to do right by her.” I didn’t want to see the earnestness that moved over his face. “I need to do right by her.”

  I swallowed and watched him gesture toward the stroller he was pushing around.

  “If I would have known….” He lifted up a brawny shoulder. “I want to do the right thing. I want to do what I should have from the beginning. If I could go back in time and do things differently, I would, but I can’t, Len. You don’t owe me anything, and I know that. I appreciate you being willing to let me see her and be a part of her life.”

  His hands flexed around the handle, and he continued. “I know you don’t care for me much now, and it must not be easy, but I appreciate what you’re doing. You’re right about how saying something is different than actually doing it, but I’m not going to leave like that again. I’m going to be a part of her life… of your life.”

  Did he have to look at me like that as he said those words? What game was he on? And did his eyes have to be so shiny and direct?

  “I want to earn your trust again. Want to raise her with you.”

  I wished right then I had my stress ball in my pocket.

  “You’ll have to help me, I’m sure, but I can promise I’ll try my best to not mess it up heaps,” he said in that calm, collected voice that shouldn’t have ever gotten under my skin, but it did every single time. Maybe it was because I’d been raised around so many loudmouths, but that was one of the things I had liked the most about Jonah as I’d gotten to know him. He was just himself.

  I had thought for a long time that his quiet confidence had been his most attractive trait. More than his body. More than his smile. More than his face and how cheery he’d been.

  But I’d learned the hard way that he hadn’t been as confident as I had expected. Otherwise he wouldn’t have just… fallen off the face of the earth after his injury. I’d been injured countless times and didn’t wallow in my own bullshit for long.

  But, to be fair, at least he was here now. I could give him that. For Mo.

  “We can do this together, yeah? Be on… the Mo League, if you want to call it,” he asked. “I can do better, Lenny, if you give me the chance. I can promise you that. I will do better.”

  I still said nothing.

  The Mo League?

  I fucking hated how much I liked it. Hated how reasonable and even sweet he was attempting to be. Hated that I was even in this position in the first place. Not having a kid, but not having her with someone who I could fully trust. Someone I loved, even. That would have been nice.

  But this was what I had so….

  A hand with short, trimmed nails wrapped itself around my wrist, and I looked up into those honey-colored eyes that popped so much on his tanned skin and held my breath. “There’s so much we have to work out, but I’m more than willing to. I won’t give you a reason to regret it.”

  Regret was a weird thing. It was the one topic that Grandpa Gus had drilled into my head over and over and over again when I’d gotten nervous while I’d been growing up. You did something and you could regret it, or you could not do something and regret it. You never knew which way it would go. Everything in life is a gamble.

  But I knew what I would regret the most. I knew it deep inside my bones, deep inside my soul, deep inside everywhere.

  I looked at the man standing with me on a quiet residential street at ten-thirty in the morning on a Sunday and thought of the words he had already used both in my presence and out of it.

  He claimed he wanted to be around for Mo. He’d said it without thinking about it too much, which I wasn’t completely sure was a good thing. But… he couldn’t fuck up if I didn’t give him a chance to.

  Jonah couldn’t be a dad if I didn’t give him the opportunity.

  I didn’t need to look at the sweet little booger with big honey-colored eyes to know there was nothing I wouldn’t do for her, and spending time with a man who’d hurt my feelings… being obligated to be in contact with that man for the rest of her life—of my life—well, I could do it. I would do it. The way Mo had come to exist was in the past already. But her future was up to us.

  I could only hope this might be the easiest thing I ever had to suck up to do.

  Being a mom wasn’t for weak asses, that was for sure.

  So, I flashed him a grimace that I hoped was at least part of a smile. “Fine. Welcome to the Mo League. You can be the vice president if you’re willing to fight Grandpa Gus for the spot, but he fights dirty, so you’re probably better off being the secretary, I guess.”

  Chapter 9

  9:08 p.m

  Your voicemail is full.

  In case you deleted my number,

  this is Lenny.

  Call or text me. Please.

  When I walked into Maio House on Tuesday morning and felt the awkwardness in the air, I knew something was up.

  And I had a feeling it was because of a bubblehead from New Zealand.

  He had come over multiple times by that point. Of course they’d seen him, he was massive and an unknown. They hadn’t been aware of why he was coming in. It wasn’t unheard of for people to drop by the office to talk about training or marketing stuff or different programs. Managers for the athletes came into the office to talk about one thing or another from time to time. Some of the guys dropped
by for advice or to talk… a lot less now than before, but it still happened. Sometimes. Rarely, really. And that kind of made me sad.

  Most of my real friends had stopped training MMA over the last few years for one reason or another, mostly from injuries and some because of relationships and families. Priorities changed, and I was the last person to not understand that, especially now. During the last big hurricane, a lot of them had moved away when our old facility had been destroyed by floodwater and mold. And they hadn’t come back.

  But whatever.

  Where I’d gone from knowing everyone and being friends with them all, now… at most I was someone they kind of knew. I didn’t work with them on the floor much, and if I did, it wasn’t for hours on end like before. Hell, even with Luna, we had to work a lot more at our friendship than we’d had to in the past. We had to schedule lunches every other week to see each other.

  Anyway, thinking about that felt like an enormous bummer on my soul, and I focused back on the important stuff.

  Men had come into the office when Grandpa Gus had worked there, and they came in now with me. For business purposes. But it wasn’t every day that a six-foot-five-inch man built like a tank came into Maio House and headed straight into the office. It was something worth noticing. Especially when there were so many nosey eyes and ears.

  I knew these people, and they wouldn’t avoid looking at me directly unless they were talking about me.

  It wouldn’t be the first time it happened.

  Fuck it. I had nothing to hide or any explanations I needed to make to anyone.

  The old me would have asked them you got something to say? But now… now I just walked into my office and waited until no one could see me to turn around and give the floor in general the middle finger. Both middle fingers. Fuckers.

  Half an hour later, I had my computer on and a cup of matcha tea sitting on my desk. I had side-eyed the guys and girls once more on my walk to and from the break room in the other building. I had settled in to go through the voice mails that had the red light on my office phone blinking. There were five new ones.

  The first one was nothing special. One of the fighter’s managers wanted to schedule a time for a photographer to come in and take pictures of him while he trained. No big deal.

  The second one though had me hitting the delete button like I wanted to break it. “It’s Noah. Call me.” The fact he had called the work phone instead of my cell phone said enough. I had to open my mouth to stretch my jaw after that.

  The third call was from a blogger who wanted to talk to Peter, the fourth was some vague message from a woman who just said, “This is Rafaela Smith. I’m looking for Gus DeMaio. I’d appreciate it if—” That name didn’t ring a bell, and she didn’t say what she wanted, so no thanks on that return phone call, and the fifth was from the repairman who came in to fix the gym equipment. He was the first one I called back.

  We had just barely hung up when the phone rang.

  “Maio House,” I answered, moving the mouse so I could access my email. “This is Lenny.”

  All it took was a simple “Hey” to piss me off.

  If I could kick half the members out, I would. I really would. I’d kick all of them out if their dues didn’t pay the bills. Fucking bigmouths.

  I knew it was petty, but I didn’t give a shit. “Who is this?” I asked, even though I knew exactly who it was.

  Noah sighed. “Noah, Lenny.”

  “Oh.”

  He had to know how lucky he was I had gone with that instead of what do you want, person who I’ve known since I was three, who left me when I needed him.

  “How you doing?” he had the nerve to ask like it hadn’t been months since the last time we had talked.

  “I’m fine, you?” I asked him like I was petty and held grudges, because I did. But Noah knew that, yet he’d still decided to call me twice within twenty-four hours.

  And, apparently, he did know that because he didn’t even bother sighing or getting his feelings hurt by how detached I was speaking to him. “I’ve been better,” Noah responded like I genuinely cared.

  I didn’t want to waste my time rolling my eyes, but I did anyway because was he fucking for real? “Do you need something? Peter’s busy right now, but I can get him to call you back when he’s done in an hour.” Not that he actually would.

  “I don’t need to talk to Peter,” my childhood best friend said, his tone weird and annoying as hell. “I heard something interesting.”

  I closed both my eyes, grabbed my stress ball from the drawer, and squeezed the fucking shit out of it as he kept talking.

  “Who’s the guy that’s been showing up to the gym?” he asked casually in the time it took me to do that.

  Noah had been my best friend. We’d grown up together. We’d studied judo together at the same club for fifteen years.

  And for a couple months, I had thought I’d been more than half in love with someone who couldn’t see me as more than what I had been to him: the girl who he’d grown up with. His kind-of sister. His friend.

  Then one random day, I had taken a look at him and decided yeah, no.

  It might have been the day after I overheard him bragging about having sex with one of my friends, but it happened. Just, nope. Nah. And as I’d gotten older, I had realized that I hadn’t loved him. Not like that. It had just been… a lapse of judgment. Hormones maybe.

  But I had stuck around after I’d come to my senses. Because maybe he could be a douchebag, but he’d been my friend. He’d known me back then better than just about anyone other than Peter and my gramps. He’d been my friend.

  Or so I thought.

  Then, many years later, after we had both grown up, I got pregnant, and he suddenly lost his shit and left.

  And now he was here. Calling me, asking about something that had nothing to do with him. Not anymore.

  I “hmmed” into the receiver, forcing my index finger to click the mouse so I could open the most recent email I had gotten. “Pretty sure that’s none of your business. Was there something else you needed or...?” Can you fuck off now? I wanted to ask but barely managed not to.

  “Lenny.”

  I blinked and moved my tongue across my upper teeth, telling myself again that I wasn’t going to let this bullshit-ass call bother me.

  “Who is he?”

  I squeezed my stress ball. “I don’t feel like talking to you anymore, Noah, but if there’s something else you need, or if this new gym that you’re at has questions about anything, they can give me a call,” I told him, hearing the sarcasm dripping from my voice.

  “Don’t be like that.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Have fun in Albuquerque.” Then I hung up.

  All righty, I could have done without that.

  Shoving my chair back, the fucking hint of a tension headache creeping up on me right between the eyebrows, I got up and headed to the doorway. I stopped there, clapping my hands as obnoxiously loud as I physically could. Under normal circumstances, I would never, ever interrupt anyone training.

  But I wasn’t fucking playing around.

  The trainers could get mad at me if they wanted, but I didn’t care.

  Just as I expected, just about every head in the gym turned toward me as everyone stopped what they were doing.

  “I don’t know which one of you snitched, but whoever comes in and out of here is none of your business. It isn’t anyone else’s either,” I said in a voice just slightly louder than my speaking voice. The room projected everything perfectly like I knew it would. “Got it?”

  Silence replied to me at first.

  And there was only one person who vocally replied. “Wasn’t me. I can’t stand Noah.”

  The fact he even knew I was referring to Noah confirmed what I had expected.

  No one else had anything to say. I did see one guy turn to look at the man next to him—Carlos, it was Carlos— and I knew what his kind of body language meant. My gut said that fucker was the one who
had told Noah. It didn’t surprise me. Before he’d left, he’d spent a lot of time with Carlos.

  I sent that guy a long, deadeye stare, the kind I’d perfected over the years.

  The kind that said he better watch his tires because having to be a role model now wouldn’t stop me from doing certain things.

  I almost slammed the door shut behind me on the way back in, but I just barely managed to close it softly. I didn’t want me slamming it to come across as me being pissed off that Noah knew because I was hung up over him leaving. Everyone knew why he’d bounced.

  God, I hoped someone kicked his ass again sooner than later. I was glad he’d lost his last fight. He’d deserved to lose.

  I had barely closed the door when the work phone started ringing again.

  “Maio House,” I answered, mentally preparing myself for the possibility it might be Noah again but being pretty sure it wasn’t. He wasn’t the kind of person who would call back after getting hung up on.

  “Good morning, Lenny.”

  Jonah. I wasn’t sure if it was slightly better than it being Noah or the same. ”Hi.”

  There was a pause. “Is this a bad time?”

  I blew out a breath and reached for my stress ball again. “No,” I told him, hearing the aggravation in my tone. I let out another breath, attempting to relax. I tried again. “Do you need something?”

  There was another brief pause. “Oi. I can give you a ring at a better time.”

  Oi.

  I shouldn’t have started smiling at it, but I did because it was just that kind of day where he’d be the lesser shithead. I squeezed my stress ball and sighed. “No. Now is fine. Did you want to go see Mo? She’s at daycare right now. My grandpa dropped her off this morning.”

  “She doesn’t have a nanny?”

  I squeezed the ball in my hand tight, the smile he’d started to cause melting off. Did this bitch have any idea how much a nanny cost? “Grandpa Gus is her nanny. No one can or will take better care of her than he will,” I explained, choking the nonexistent life out of my small gift.