“It’s you who will be tied together to me forever, Lenny,” he went on. “You will always be in my life. It’s my responsibility to worry about you, even though I know you have experience with criticism and opinions. I know you can handle yourself, and more than likely anything, but I want you to know you have a choice. It’s up to you how much that is. If you want others to know that we… made Mo together. If you want your name connected to mine. But I know what I want.”
It was his responsibility to worry about me.
I could handle anything.
I had him.
Was he trying to tell me all the things my subconscious wanted to hear? It fucking seemed like it. And that made me itchy.
This was my decision.
In it or not in it.
There was no middle ground.
I was scared of being a bad mom. I was scared of spiders crawling into my ears while I was sleeping. I was scared of fucking birds. But I wasn’t scared of screwing up. I’d fallen a lot of times in my life. You might get bruised and it might hurt for a while, but you didn’t die.
And what? He was worried I would get turned off by people talking shit about him? Ha.
So I told him what he hadn’t yet figured out about me. “You’re stupid handsome and you’re a good person too. You can tell whoever you want. I’m not ashamed of you.” I went up to my tippy toes and gave him the most direct look I could muster. “I could’ve had Mo with worse. Actually, I can’t think of anyone else I would rather have had her with, and I will never repeat that out loud again. If anyone wants to talk shit to you with me around, they’re going to regret it, and that’s what they’ll deserve. The only person who gets to call you a dumbass is me… and your siblings… and maybe Grandpa Gus.”
The silence between us, ignoring the sounds in the background, was deafening.
And that was why I wasn’t expecting Jonah to throw a hand up and cover his mouth with it before he turned around and walked out of the room as he started fucking chuckling.
All right.
That went well.
No one in this country would ever care about who Mo’s dad was, but in other places, they would. And none of those people mattered. The only thing that mattered was what we knew.
Why the fuck would Jonah think I’d be turned off by people criticizing him? I wasn’t joking when I told him that anyone who talked shit to him would end up regretting it, if they got me involved. They could all shut the hell up.
Too afraid to wake up Mo, I turned her baby monitor on even though I wouldn’t need it, turned down the white noise machine just a little, and headed downstairs.
On the way, I stopped in the kitchen and filled up a glass of water while I talked to a couple of the guys from the gym who had showed up while I’d been upstairs, and then eventually made my way toward the living room, which was packed with at least twenty male and female bodies wedged on the couch, on the floor, and on chairs that had been dragged from the dining room we only used on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“Len!” and “Lenny!” all came out from half the people in the room.
“Where’s Madeline?” one of the guy’s girlfriends asked. I couldn’t remember her name.
I pointed upstairs as I looked around the room to find somewhere to sit. “Sleeping.”
“Aww,” one of the other girls groaned. Amanda? Mandy? She was a new-ish girlfriend I had met twice, and I liked her. “That’s why I came. I wanted to see her.”
Her boyfriend made a comment about how he thought she’d tagged along to spend time with him, while I went back to looking around the room for a spot.
Grandpa Gus and Peter were both hogging the love seat that everyone knew was theirs, but it was when I glanced toward the couch that I found one big body taking up a whole lot of it, a beer wedged in between two enormous thighs.
Jonah smiled at me, one of the only people in the room who wasn’t totally focused on the television, and I smiled back at him, just as one of the guys who had been training with Peter on and off for years called out, “Len, you can come sit with me if you want.”
Jonah’s smile fell off.
What he didn’t see was one of the other guys from the gym hitting the guy who’d piped up in the thigh and whispering something in his ear that had him leaning forward and looking across the room at the man sitting on the couch.
“I’m good,” I replied, still watching the biggest man in the room.
Clutching the baby monitor under one arm and my water in my other hand, I waited until the end of a round to hop across the floor, stepping on someone’s toes before I made it to the far end of the room.
“Lenny,” Jonah called out, sitting up straight on the couch, scooting forward enough so that he was perched on the end of it, one hand on the armrest. “Sit here.”
I shook my head as I took another step closer, so close I was directly beside him and the couch. “If you pass me that pillow, I’ll be fine on the floor,” I said just as the commentators on the television started talking about what needed to happen in the final round of the fight that was on.
The father of my child shot me a look.
I shot him one back, already slowly lowering myself to the floor to his right. “I’m serious,” I promised him. “If I wanted to sit on the couch, I would. Cushion, please.”
That serious-ass expression didn’t go anywhere as he pulled out the toss pillow that was wedged in between his side and the couch before handing it to me. I set it on the floor, and then parked my ass on top of it, my back against the front of the armrest part of the couch. I scooted over an inch to the left to bring the long length of Jonah’s lower leg closer to me, so I could lean against it slightly.
He didn’t move away as I scooted in, setting the baby monitor down on my other side along with my glass of water.
The last thing I remembered was yawning as I focused in on the television and tried to recall any information I could about the two men fighting in the cage.
I passed out.
At least, I didn’t realize I had passed out until sometime later when I woke up because something was hurting from the general vicinity of my neck.
I opened both eyes slowly, not surprised at all I’d fallen asleep and licked my lips as I focused in on a few things.
One: apparently I’d started hugging and leaning against Jonah’s leg because I had an arm around it, and there was a wet spot over his jeans right by his knee that had to belong to me.
Two: The main fight was over because what was playing on the television wasn’t anything that involved two highly trained fighters trying to win a lot of money. Instead, on our eighty-inch TV, there were a lot of sweaty men running fast across a field, passing a ball from one person to another. Some of them were wearing red jerseys, others were wearing blue jerseys. But it was the short shorts on the screen that confirmed they were watching rugby.
Three: At least half the room had emptied, but Grandpa Gus was still there, so was Peter, and I didn’t know who else to my left.
But most importantly, Jonah was talking quietly. Not in his Mighty Mouse voice, but in a very, very soft one.
And it had to be Jonah who had his fingers loose and heavy over my head as he murmured to someone, “The scrum only happens when there’s been a minor infringement and play has to be restarted.”
“But how do you know when play has to be restarted?” a voice I faintly recognized asked.
“You’re a dumbass. How do you know when any play in any game has to be restarted? When somebody fucks up. Like a foul. What do you think an infringement is?” another voice I also recognized answered.
I yawned as Grandpa Gus’s voice piped in with, “The big one right there is bleeding, and he’s getting into that… what’d you call it? Scum?”
“Scrum,” Jonah corrected.
That word reminded me of how he’d told me so long ago that he had started wearing a scrum cap to protect his ears at his grandmother’s insistence.
“But
they aren’t taking him out of the game?” Grandpa asked.
The fingers on the top of my head stirred over my hair. “Yeh. Rugby isn’t… like that. Unless there’s a head injury and an HIA is needed—”
“What’s an HIA?” that was Peter who asked.
“Head injury assessment. Concussion protocol, you’d call it,” the man whose lower leg was giving me all the warmth in the world answered.
“That guy’s nose is still bleeding though.”
Jonah’s laugh was soft. “Yeah, he doesn’t need staples. He’ll play the rest of the match, you’ll see.”
“What the fuck?” another voice echoed. “I still can’t get over that none of y’all wear pads or helmets, and you still tackle the shit out of each other.”
“Yeh,” Jonah said, and those fingers on my head sifted over my hair some more, moving so that the pads grazed my temple. “It’s like what you do with the MMA. They don’t take you out if you bleed a bit, do they?”
I could see Grandpa Gus stirring on the couch, his eyes glued to the game on the screen. “Yeah, but fights happen two, maybe three times a year. You play, what? Once a week for four months?”
“Eh… once a week for eight months sometimes, depending on the schedule and the league. Depending, too, on if you play on the national team or not, then you’re in it for most the year.”
“Eight months?” Grandpa Gus spit out.
Did he sound… impressed? Was that the sound of my grandfather being impressed?
I might have almost felt jealous. Almost.
Jonah’s soft puff of laugh had me lifting my chin so I could peek at him. His eyes were down on me like he’d felt me moving around, and the next thing I knew, a finger was grazing my temple, and that was nice… but confusing. And he looked right at me as he answered back, “Eight months with a two-week break in there.”
“How old are you?” Grandpa asked.
His gaze went nowhere, his thumb still on me, brushing up and down a half inch or so as he said, “Thirty-one in June.”
A little younger than me.
“It’s a young man’s sport,” he went on, still doing that thing with his thumb that was pretty much the equivalent of a snake charmer to me because I wasn’t moving away and had no freaking plans to. “If I’m very lucky, I’ve got another four, five years at best. Maybe less, maybe more. Depends what my body decides.”
Four years left playing?
But what I really heard was… four years left of him living wherever the hell else his career might take him?
And, realistically, wasn’t it a reminder that he had the rest of his life to live somewhere else? I wasn’t expecting him to move here, to Houston, just because of Mo. A person couldn’t just pick up their entire lives and move to another country where they had no one. Especially not someone like Jonah who, as I’d just learned, was close to his family.
What were we going to do?
I turned my head, taking my cheek out of the reach of his thumb and facing forward again, forcing a yawn out of my body to play off the fact that the idea of him being gone for four years, five years, the rest of his life… sucked.
Of course I wouldn’t have a baby… maybe be even a little in love… with a man who was simple. Of course it wouldn’t have been with someone who trained at the gym. Someone who did MMA. Someone who lived in the same city, much less the same fucking country. Someone who didn’t love what he did as much as I had probably loved judo when that had been all my life revolved around.
But I had barely thought that when something that felt an awful lot like a finger grazed the top of my ear.
“And you play where?” a familiar voice asked.
“I finished my season in Paris not long ago,” he answered, without really answering, which made me wonder.
The same voice huffed. “Wasn’t that where Lenny was last year when she—hold up. That’s where y’all met, huh?”
“Yeh. On a tour together. She translated for me while we were waiting on the bus,” he said to them for no reason at all. “Best decision I’ve ever made was buying that sammy that day.”
I held back my sigh because I knew Grandpa Gus could hear me do that in a crowded room with the television blaring and sagged against the leg at my side, my arm still wrapped around it.
I stayed right there, listening to the voice of the man on the couch go on for the next forty minutes of the remainder of the rugby game, and tried my best not to think about how I felt about him or about the time we had left or about how buying my own sandwich that day might be the best decision I’d ever made too.
Chapter 17
11:11 p.m
I can’t believe you’re this much
of an asshole.
All I need is to talk to you for
two minutes.
That’s it.
It’s important.
11:13 p.m.
It’s really fucking important
I was so tired the next morning that I could barely keep my eyes open as I headed down the stairs holding a wide-awake Mo in one arm. I’d jinxed her the night before and ended up waking up twice to her little kitten cries, once because she’d pooped—super soft poop that reminded me of what she’d done to Jonah, which had made me laugh despite being exhausted—and the other because she’d been hungry after crapping out everything she’d eaten and wanted more calories right the fuck then. I had ended up telling myself I’d nap after the second time she’d woken me up, and that “nap” had ended up being a three-hour mini coma, and my back, shoulders, and hips were hating me for putting them through that.
At least the little booger had let me sleep in until nine, but even then, it wasn’t the same.
“You’re lucky you’re a cute little monster,” I told her with a side-eye.
Mo rattled off some animated babble that had me raising my eyebrows at her.
“I didn’t give you a sloppy butt; don’t blame me,” I replied to her, giving her a smile.
“What do you think about going to the park later and giving the swing a try? Maybe we can ask Grandpa to go with us and talk him into getting on one, and we can push him so hard he falls off,” I told her, taking another two steps down the staircase.
Mo just kept on grinning, pulling my hair hard enough to make me wince.
I snuck a quick kiss to her neck that had her squealing and pulling on my roots some more. “You’re right, that’s probably not the best idea. Then we’d have to listen to him whine, and nobody likes that, huh?”
I swore she lifted her chin so I could give her another kiss to the neck, so I did it again, getting another squeal and hair tug, as my feet took another two steps down, finally hitting the bottom of the landing just as I heard a female voice coming from inside the door that led into the kitchen. And that was a split second before a voice said, “Aren’t you two a sight?”
I stopped, instantly looking up to find Jonah standing there in the hallway in black sweatpants that shouldn’t have been fitted but were because he was just that muscular, a clean and crisp long-sleeved white T-shirt with a logo over the chest, and white quarter-length socks, looking totally and completely awake and with a smile on his face, like he didn’t know what being tired was like.
God, I missed those days when I had no problem sleeping nine to ten hours a night because I had to. Because of judo and because sleep was so important for your body to reenergize and heal, and I had needed every advantage I could take because the sport was so hard on everything. I could remember the times I’d groaned at Grandpa Gus when he’d ordered me to head upstairs even though it had felt too early.
It’s the little things you take for granted. Like sleep. And bladder control.
I gave him a sleepy smile. “Beauty and the Beast,” I yawned. “Mo’s the beauty in case you’re wondering. She woke me up twice in the middle of the night.”
The pleased expression on that handsome face fell away, replaced with a concerned one. “Is she all good?”
“Yeah
. Her poop was pretty loose, and she took her time going back to sleep. Then she woke up hangry and took her sweet-ass time going back to sleep that time too. Look, she wants you.” Because she did. Mo had already started leaning forward, even her little arms going up in a reaching gesture for him. “What a bandwagoner.”
His worried face didn’t go anywhere, but his hands did, coming up and toward the daughter who was straining even more to get out of my hold and into his. Little traitor. Once he had her and had placed a kiss on each of her cheeks, he glanced back at me and asked, “Are you all right?”
I blinked, eyeing his clothes—and him—again. “Yeah. Just tired and my back and hips hurt from sleeping on the floor in her room. It’ll pass.” I scratched my throat and eyed my girl who stared dreamily up at the man holding her like wow, who is this? She was such a double-crosser, but her little face made me so happy. “Why are you here so early?”
He smiled at my blunt-ass question, hiking Mo up a little higher on his chest as her hand smacked at the corner of his lips, even as his attention remained on me. “Peter invited me for breakfast.”
He had?
“I like your pajamas.”
I didn’t have time to think about the tiny shorts and loose shirt hanging off my shoulder, because I was too busy trying to think about what had happened the night before. The last thing I remembered after basically crawling up the stairs from how sleepy I was was waving at the remaining five people who were still there after another forty minutes of Jonah trying to explain rugby to people who knew absolutely nothing about it and kept comparing it to football and soccer, when it wasn’t either. Those five people had included Grandpa, Peter, Jonah, and two other guys. It had been midnight, which was hours after my bedtime when I could help it.
And now… it was nine. And he was here.
“Did you get any sleep?” I found myself asking him with another yawn, taking in again how bright and alert he was. Lucky bitch.
“Some,” he answered, finally focusing down at the baby in his arm who had grabbed his T-shirt with two bossy hands to more than likely get his attention.
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