The Best Thing

by Zapata, Mariana

  Jonah nodded.

  Huh.

  I gave him a little smile and pulled it toward me, taking a sip. It was my favorite, Orange Sunshine. “Thanks.”

  He just smiled.

  I eyed him one more time then hit play. “Someone stole Bianca’s cell—that’s the girl at the front desk, the one who signed you up. I’m looking through the footage right now to find out who I’m going to have to kill for being an asshole.”

  One day, years from then, I’d look back and think about how easily he’d replied with, “Oh, is that what you’re going to do?”

  “Uh-huh,” I replied, staring at the screen. “Ooh, wait, wait, wait….”

  I skipped forward a few seconds and squinted, watching a figure hovering by the desk before Bianca had even moved away from it. Then it happened, she ran around it, disappearing from the view of the camera I was watching on and into the view of the one I’d seen right before. I waited, four seconds went by, five, six, seven—

  Warm breath hit my ear, and I held my breath as I glanced out of the corner of my eye to find Jonah’s face directly next to mine, his cheek moving into place right there….

  Did his skin have to be so clear? I could tell that he’d shaved that morning, but hair had already started growing back in with a vengeance, the stubble thick and full. His lips were slightly parted.

  I flicked my gaze back to the screen.

  I kept my eyes on it and then leaned back two seconds later and shook my head.

  “Bingo, ho,” I whispered to myself as I wrote down the shirt and hair color of the asshole. Not that I totally needed it, I had a clear view of his face. Dumbass.

  Now all I needed to do was fast forward through the camera facing the doors and find out when he walked through so I could time it with when he scanned his card. Or better yet, it might be faster to just show Bianca the footage and see if she recognized him off the top of her head. Yeah, that would be better. Might as well try that first. I took a screenshot of the dumbass’s face and couldn’t help but cackle to myself. Busted.

  The snort beside my ear had me glancing over to find Jonah with a big dumb grin on his face.

  “What?”

  His big dumb grin got even bigger. “I like it when you laugh evilly to yourself.”

  I blinked. Well, that wasn’t anywhere near what I’d expected, and I couldn’t stop the way my cheek went up in a half-grin. Grandpa Gus had told me the same thing more than once before.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  I spun the chair around to face him fully. “I’m going to show her his picture and see if she recognizes him. If she doesn’t, I’ll look through more footage and figure out what his name is before I call the cops.”

  “You’re going to call the police?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Cell phones are expensive, and it wasn’t an accident. Unless Bianca decides she doesn’t want me to, but I hope she does.” I sighed. “Are you done for the morning?”

  “I am,” he answered. “I wanted to bring you a snack and see if you wanted to have lunch.”

  That wasn’t disappointment I felt. Jonah was just here for Mo, I reminded myself. That was all that mattered. Plus, he’d brought me a smoothie. “I need to stay here and deal with this.”

  “Dinner then?”

  Alone? Or… with Mo? Uh….

  “Actually, I have something I need to do tonight.”

  His eyes bounced from one of mine to the other, mouth going flat and pressed. “Oh.”

  “I was thinking about taking Mo with me too, sorry.”

  Well, that instantly changed his expression. He even let out an exhale I didn’t totally get what to think of. All he said was another “Oh.”

  For the first time, I thought about how he was here, alone, with no one else. As far as I knew, he woke up early, had breakfast, squeezed in a long run of cardio, had a second breakfast. Then he went to the gym and trained for three or four hours, had lunch, played patty cake at his hotel for hours and then came over every night. I hadn’t seen him even talk to another person other than my family, except for his weird little whispering sessions I forced him into.

  What was he going to do tonight by himself?

  And why did I care and feel guilty?

  And why the hell did I invite him? “Do you want… to come with us?”

  The fact he instantly said “Sure” was a spear straight into my stupid-ass heart.

  “It isn’t anything fun,” I warned him, watching that handsome face.

  This big, beautiful man ticked his head to the side. “It’s all good. I’m not particular about what we do.” One of his dimples popped. “I’d do anything with you.”

  That fucking spear went in just a little deeper.

  And I left it there as I eyed him. “It’s my old sensei’s sixtieth birthday today, and they’re throwing him a little party thing. He asked if I could come by and help with the white belts—today it’s the little kids—before.” Something I wasn’t going to consider to be anxiety poked at my stomach for a second as I thought about the request again. And how I couldn’t say no.

  “All right,” he agreed just as easily.

  I pasted a smile on my face. “Okay. You’d just have to sit there with Mo. It shouldn’t take more than an hour or two. The class is an hour long, and his cake is right after that. We don’t have to stay long.”

  Yeah, that wasn’t nerves or dread I was feeling.

  That was a lie. It was. I forced another smile on my face, hoping he couldn’t see through it.

  If he did or he didn’t, Jonah didn’t comment on it. He just said, “Whatever you need.”

  Chapter 14

  6:21 a.m

  You are a fuck face,

  but I really do need to

  speak with you.

  I don’t need anything from you

  but that. Promise.

  “Lenny, have you seen my yellow—where are you going?”

  I paused for a second in the middle of tying my tennis shoes before finishing the knot and saying over my shoulder, “It’s Sensei Kenji’s birthday, and he asked me to come by tonight and help with the white belts.” I switched feet and started tying the other shoe. “And I washed your Hawaiian print shirt yesterday. I hung it on the rack in the laundry room so it wouldn’t wrinkle.”

  Grandpa Gus didn’t let me down as he leaned against the doorway and watched me tie my other shoe. “What? I didn’t get an invitation.”

  “Maybe because you called him a lazy knucklehead the last time you were in a room together?” I stood up and flashed him a grin. “Or because you gave him a bad review on Google just to be petty after I quit?”

  He scrunched up his nose, but his mouth stretched into a flat line before becoming a smile. “He is a knucklehead, and he deserved that review.”

  I shook my head. “Come with us if you want. It’s not like not being invited has ever stopped you before.”

  “I’ve got better things to do.”

  “I’m taking Jonah and Mo with me.”

  That got me a blink. “Emmett is going with you?”

  I knew I shouldn’t egg him on by groaning, but I did anyway. I hoped this never got old. “Would you quit calling him the wrong name?” I definitely shouldn’t have laughed either, but apparently, I was going to be that mom one day who laughed when her kids did bad things and then struggled to be serious. I really was.

  And it didn’t help that he laughed too.

  What I didn’t miss was that he didn’t agree he was going to stop, and I knew better than to assume he would. At least until he was ready, and knowing him—and I did fucking know him—it wasn’t going to be anytime soon. It was a good thing Jonah was patient.

  “Yes, he’s coming with me. We’re going to eat dinner first and then head over.”

  What wasn’t a good thing was how well my grandfather knew me, especially when the next question he asked was “Are you nervous?”

  I totally knew snorting was the worst physi
cal reaction I could have, but I did it anyway. Because we both knew I was… not necessarily nervous, but maybe something close to it. Very close to it.

  He slid me a look that was way too knowing. “You know you don’t have anything to worry about, demon child. It’s past time you went, and you know it.”

  I did know it, but that didn’t make it any easier to collect my things and kid, and head over to pick up Jonah.

  * * *

  Jonah had only been in the passenger seat for maybe five minutes when I asked, “Are you sure you don’t mind coming?”

  “Yeh. I’m sure,” he agreed, fingertips bouncing on his thigh. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you in action.”

  In action. With the little kids. At the club I had spent so much of my life at.

  Before I’d told them bye and never gone back.

  There were very few things I regretted, but how I’d handled leaving was one of them.

  “About that—” I started to say before I forced my mouth closed. The smell came out of fucking nowhere, stealing the words out of my mouth.

  Pungent. Rabid. Fucking disgusting.

  What the fuck?

  I coughed and looked to my right at the man who hadn’t moved an inch and was still looking out the window with a tight jaw. Even the veins along his forearms were popping more than usual, but I let that thought go in one ear and right back out the other. I had more pressing matters. “Jonah, please tell me you pooted.”

  He was still looking out the windshield when he answered. “Are you asking if I passed gas?”

  I took another tentative sniff and coughed, shooting his profile a horrified face at the fucking awful smell. What was wrong with him? What the hell had he eaten for dinner? “Yes,” I gasped. Good God, I rolled down the window and leaned over to the side like that would make the smell any better.

  It didn’t.

  “Is there something dying in you?” I wheezed, trying to hold my breath in as much as possible and failing. “I don’t care if you do, but roll down the window if there’s some Agent Orange type shit coming out of you. Whoa. God. I can taste it.”

  That had him glancing over at me, a remote expression on his face that I might have sucked up in any other circumstances. His forehead furrowed, his mouth a line as his nostrils flared. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t do anything,” he defended himself. “I can’t smell a thing.”

  How could he not smell that?

  I coughed and sucked in the exhaust smell from the surrounding cars instead of the goddamn bomb that had gone off in the car. “It wasn’t me.”

  Jonah clearly tried to take a whiff, but all he did was shake his head. “No, Lenny, I don’t smell anything.”

  I slid him another horrified glance, but that damn smell didn’t go anywhere.

  And then it hit me.

  Like a cold finger along my spine, the knowledge—and the heavy feeling of dread—ran down me.

  Fuck.

  I glanced in the rearview mirror as I got to a stoplight and looked at the car seat holding a quiet little body I couldn’t see.

  “Oh no,” I whispered more to myself than Jonah, my mind already racing with what needed to be done.

  “What’s happened?” he asked, finally sounding worried. “Was it you?”

  “No.” I eyed the car seat warily. “Mo just shit herself.”

  He took another sniff, and I could see him shake his head. “I don’t smell anything.”

  I sucked in another little breath through the opened window and rushed out, “Your septum’s deviated then because she shit herself.” Which meant I needed to pull over because there was no way I was going to survive the thirty-minute drive, and neither was my kid if she had a loaded diaper.

  Because her diapers were one thing when she pooped herself, but I knew that damn smell when it got that bad. I guess my brain had just blocked it out in a sense of self-preservation from the last time she’d done the same thing. How the hell could I ever forget retching as I cleaned her butt from how awful it had smelled?

  Worse: I knew exactly what color was going to be in her diaper.

  What the fuck had Grandpa fed her? Fucking fuck.

  I accidentally sucked in a breath and gagged.

  How the hell did something so small smell so goddamn awful?

  I retched and heard Jonah laugh like an asshole. “I can’t smell a thing.”

  I held my breath as I turned the wheel into the first parking lot on the right-hand side, pulling into a small strip mall with a pharmacy and gas station. I barely managed to throw the door open, leaving the car running when I sucked in another big breath through my mouth. Where the hell was a respirator when I needed one?

  “Are you all right?” my girl’s dad asked a moment before a hand landed on my upper back and he slapped me lightly three times, sounding totally back to himself, thankfully, even though I wasn’t worried about that anymore.

  “Mm-hmm,” I groaned, shaking my head and trying to clear my nostrils.

  What had to be his hand stroked up and down the center of my back slowly. “All right, take a breath. I’ll see what’s going on, yeah?”

  Did he expect me to plead with him not to?

  And what the fuck was going on with his nose that he couldn’t smell death in the air?

  When he opened the door, I took a step away and watched as he gave me a brave little smile before ducking inside the back seat.

  I held my breath as I watched through the window as he unbuckled Mo from her seat, whispering who the hell knew what to her—probably how smart she was and how she was never going to need a man other than her daddy—and still Jonah didn’t flinch or slow down as those big fingers worked at her straps. Those big hands then went under her armpits, and he was talking away at her, making happy faces like that wasn’t radiation in the air as he lifted her up.

  And I sucked in another breath, planning on holding it and letting this boss handle Poopy Pants since he had no olfactory senses. How many times exactly had he had his nose broken? Fuck.

  I watched as Jonah took a step back and began to straighten, bringing a wide-eyed squirming and babbling Mo to that wide chest. “I don’t know what you—”

  His mouth shut. Those lips of his pressed down into a firm line that made the corners of it go white. He shot up to a complete standing position, and I watched his own honey-colored eyes go wide.

  His lips parted, and then they parted some more until they were open half an inch.

  Mostly, there was no way to miss the way he gulped and asked very, very cautiously, “Lenny?”

  “Yeah?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as his arms began to extend outward, moving Mo slowly away from him as he asked in the most hesitant voice he’d yet to use with me, “What is that?”

  I knew it! “I told you she smelled!”

  He shook his head quickly, blinking rapidly all of a sudden. “No.” Those big feet moved so that his whole body did too in a counterclockwise motion, stopping only when Mo’s back was facing me.

  My eyes went wide and my own mouth parted before I managed to whisper, “Oh fuck.”

  His voice was just slightly higher than normal. “Oh fuck what?”

  One of my feet slid back on the concrete. “Oh dear God.”

  Mo’s body went two inches higher, two inches farther away from her dad; his voice even sharper than a second ago as he asked, “Oh dear God what?”

  I blew out my cheeks, slapped my hand over my mouth, and gagged. It was honestly a fucking miracle I didn’t throw up, and I knew it. I could handle feet on my face. I could handle touching them. Sweaty armpits on my cheek or forehead were nothing. Blood? No big deal. Pee? Whatever.

  But….

  Jonah held her even higher up and asked in a voice that was definitely fucking higher, “What is on her back?”

  I gagged again.

  “What is on her back?” he demanded in that Jonah with a capital J voice.

  I pinched my nose, closed my eyes,
and shook my head, hoping, fucking willing myself not to actually fucking throw up... and not totally sure I could pull it off when my stomach did a damn somersault.

  “Lenny, what is on her back?” he asked breathlessly, holding his daughter—our daughter—about as far away from his body as he could get. “Why is her back wet? What is all over my fingers?”

  The only thing I could do was press my eyes closed, shake my head, and dry heave with a balled-up hand over my mouth.

  “Why is her back so warm?” Jonah gasped. “What am I touching?”

  Shit.

  Literally.

  “Lenny.”

  My hand was still over my mouth when I whispered one word and one word only.

  “Diarrhea.”

  The breath he let out was a whisper. “Tell me it doesn’t go all the way up to her neck.”

  I couldn’t lie.

  So I didn’t say a word.

  It went all the way up to her neck.

  And into her hair.

  From what I could see, the poop went all the way closer to her tiny, little ears.

  It was slow motion as Jonah gulped, and those hands holding that baby started raising her even higher… and higher… and higher… until her butt was straight over his head and he was looking up at that pants, onesie, and diaper-covered bottom… eyes widening by the millisecond as the rest of his face joined together to make a horrified expression. I could only guess he wanted to confirm with his own eyes what was going on.

  And that was when it happened.

  When that butt was up high… two or three feet over his head… eyes up and wide… mouth open too in a frozen mask of terror…

  And at least for me, I’d remember that shit—literally—for the rest of my life.

  I’d remember something that looked like a teaspoon of mustard-colored blob fall like a gruesome, mutated drop of oatmeal rain… on Jonah’s fucking cheek.

  We both gasped at the same time.

  Mo laughed a second before she said, “Ba, da!”

  The moment hung in the air in the time it took me to let my mouth drop totally wide open in shock and disbelief.

  “Lenny, what was that?” Jonah whispered.