Jonah, who had been sitting on the edge of the bed, slowly melted off the edge, sliding down and down and down until he sat directly in front of me, his long legs crossed, his knees bracketing my own. But it was his facial expression that made me swallow and blink. Noah hadn’t hurt my feelings in a long time, but the look on Jonah’s face had something churning inside of me.
It was a scowl for sure, and it was sad for sure, but it was mad and something else I couldn’t completely understand, and those honey-colored eyes were totally and completely focused on me.
Then, then, it was then that those big, rough, tan hands came to my face, cupping one cheek in each, and he leaned forward, and I leaned forward too for some reason, until our foreheads touched, and I could smell Mo from how close she was. And Jonah kept us like that. Foreheads touching. His breath and mine mixing together. His hands on my face, gentle and comforting and sweet. And his voice was a low wave as he asked, “And what happened after that?”
I stared at the freckles on his cheeks as I answered. “He called me a few days later and tried to apologize. I answered because I told myself that I wasn’t him. That I hadn’t done anything wrong and I wasn’t going to hide from his hypocritical ass. He said that he loved me, that he had always supposedly loved me, but he was full of shit—you don’t have to squeeze my cheeks so tight, hey—and he tried to claim that he thought he would be the one who would give me kids one day and that he was hurt and confused and a bunch of other bullshit.
“Stop holding your breath, Dimples. I’m telling you the truth. He was jealous, and for some reason, he had the impression that my dumb ass was sitting around and waiting for him to decide he wanted to settle down. But now he couldn’t, and it was my fault because I hadn’t loved him enough in return. For the record, I’d never given him a single impression that I cared about him like that. He didn’t know about what I’d felt in high school, so that even more so didn’t make sense.
“Anyway, he got mad when I called him out on why that was stupid. You know, like there hadn’t been a thousand girls over the years and like our friendship hadn’t devolved to the point we only spoke to each other if he wanted or needed my help once he’d started doing MMA at Maio House. Then he hung up, and I didn’t hear from him again until you showed up.
“Grandpa Gus refuses to speak to him, and after knowing and training with Peter for most of his life, all he gets out of him is distant politeness. And I know that chafes his ass big-time. I know it. It’s easy for people to love you when you’re doing things for them, when they get something out of it. But it isn’t so easy to find people who will still love you when you’re down and need help getting up. That’s when you really find out who’s with you for the right reasons.
“My best friend, Luna, told me once that everyone has a threshold for what they’re willing to forgive. That you can forgive someone but never forget what they said, and you shouldn’t. A real friend wouldn’t have said and done the things he did. So if you are getting jealous”—I looked right into those bright eyes and smiled at him because he was still looking sick and pissed and jealous, and I was eating that shit up—“there’s no reason for you to do that.”
All I could manage to do was feel the soft puff of his breaths on my lips as he breathed long and deep, and I couldn’t begin to imagine what was going on in his head. So when he spoke next, the last thing I expected was to hear strain in his tone. “I left you too, Lenny. I never said those ugly words, but I wasn’t there when you needed me either. I reckon that might be worse.”
Honesty is a funny thing. It’s brutal and wonderful at the same time, somehow. And it was the best response he could have ever given me, and that was how I knew how totally and completely different Jonah was from Noah. They weren’t even in the same country together.
“Yeah, you did, and you’re a dipshit for that, but you didn’t know I needed you,” I replied carefully. “That’s the difference. He knew and he didn’t give a shit. You were an idiot, but you left because you were worried that your own life was basically over. Yet, you came back, even if it took you almost two years, you asshole.”
He made a noise in his nose that might have been in amusement or pain. Both, knowing him. Definitely both.
“I thought my life was over when I found out I was pregnant, and if I could have run away, I would have. So I get it. But you wouldn’t have disappeared if you’d known, right?” I made myself ask, and I got my answer by him shaking his forehead against mine.
“Not for anything.” One of the hands on my cheeks moved to rest on the nape of my neck, cupping it, his breathing getting even deeper. “I’d like to have a word or two with this arsehole, if it’s possible.”
Fourteen words were all it took to change my fucking life.
To tip my face up. To say fuck it and press my lips against his for the first time in so long. It was just a second, then two, of my mouth pressed against his like it was my first kiss before I pulled back.
But he followed my retreat. Jonah’s mouth dipped back to mine, his warm lips against my own, so soft, so lingering. I’d look back on that moment and think that it was the most intimate kiss of my entire fucking life. No tongue. No sexual shit at all. Just long, endless touches of our lips meeting in lingering pecks. Kisses on the corners of my mouth, over the bow of it, just below my bottom lip, and more and more and more and more across them.
Jonah Hema Collins was kissing me like he handled most things in his life, I was coming to see: seriously and deeply and carefully.
But it was the touch of what I knew was a hand on my ankle that had me pulling back and glancing down at the body trying to scoot over onto my lap that broke our mouths apart.
It was then as I looked down at my chunky monkey that I felt the tear slide down my cheek and off my chin.
I watched with my own two eyes as a big hand, that was becoming more and more memorable to me by the day, reached up and wiped the trail off. It was after that that his other hand came up and cupped my other cheek, and Jonah said in that voice that I had tried to exorcise from my life, in that voice that felt like a warm, heavy blanket, “I missed you.”
Oh hell.
Oh, fucking, fucking hell.
He had no idea that someone could come and scrub my memories clean, and I doubted I could ever forget that moment, even if they tried to do the same a hundred times. I really did.
I pulled back at his comment, wanting to stay where I was but not wanting to stay there either because… I liked it too much. And no fucking sooner had that thought entered my head than I asked myself what the hell I was doing. Running away? Ending this sweet-ass moment because I was scared of what it might mean? Really? Me?
God, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so disappointed in myself.
I didn’t do shit like that. That wasn’t me.
Then again, it was one thing to do something risky that only caused physical pain. Physical pain you could manage with ice, rest, and anti-inflammatories. It was the other kind of pain, the one that snuck under your skin and settled up in quiet places you didn’t go visit that often, that wasn’t so easy to get over. That was the difference, wasn’t it?
“What are you thinking?”
I glanced up at the intent face focusing on me, and just went for it because why not? Because I was scared of what he’d say? That should make me want to do it more often.
Life was short. You either took what you wanted or you didn’t. You either regretted not doing something or you regretted failing. Not doing something would keep me up at night. But it was failing that I could laugh at eventually and get over.
So I told him, because that was who I was. Who I had always wanted to be. “That I had wished you had liked me more before—”
He groaned. “I did, Lenny. I liked you heaps. I never forgot about you.”
“You didn’t let me finish,” I said. “And that I also really like you, and I was thinking that maybe I shouldn’t, but maybe I should because you might
end up breaking my heart, but you might not. What do you think?”
His slow blink had me smiling at him.
“Too blunt, huh?”
His own small smile crept across that handsome, happy face. “Nah, just perfect.” He shook his head, that smile growing. “I won’t be breaking any hearts. You can take my word for it.” He held his hand out toward me. “You ready to go?”
I took it, but I didn’t stop looking at him.
Jonah’s big grin didn’t go anywhere as he picked his daughter up, dodging out of the way of a stray hand aiming straight at his beard to grab it and pull. “Let’s go, yeh? Before my mum comes up?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
He kept me company as I grabbed a pair of ankle socks and put them on, getting a pair of tennis shoes from the rack in my closet before all three of us headed downstairs. Sarah was still in the kitchen with only Peter that time, and it didn’t take me too long to pack Mo’s backpack with formula, fresh diapers, wipes, and a premade snack because I wasn’t about to lug Grandpa’s homemade food around with me since they were in glass containers.
If Sarah watched me the entire time I got Mo’s stuff together, I ignored her. The person who watched me the closest was Jonah, who looked into the bag, took out his phone, and I bet wrote notes about what was already inside, adding in what else I put in there afterward.
And if my little heart fawned all over him being so… aware… I wasn’t going to fault that bitch either. Meticulousness, giving a shit, that was attractive. Paired up with that body….
I’d swear he had been made to ring every single one of my bells.
This guy who had to fucking leave.
* * *
An hour later, after spending all of five minutes pushing Mo on the toddler swing before she started hanging over the edge like she was measuring the distance to the ground for a dive, we loaded her up into her stroller and decided to make a walk out of it.
I’d spotted Jonah and Sarah both taking pictures of Mo on the swing, happy and excited, talking nonstop, and acting like she didn’t have a care in the world.
Because she didn’t.
Because she had people who loved her and would shoulder every burden so she didn’t have to until it was necessary.
I couldn’t help but glance at the person walking right beside me, a big man whose size alone caught the attention of most people we passed by.
That was when he decided to glance down at me, as his mom pushed Mo in the stroller a few feet ahead of us. “What’s that look for?”
“Just admiring the weather,” I lied.
He knew because he made a face.
“You haven’t been here long enough, but this is pretty nice.” Mid-sixties and blue skies? It was.
His hand went to his head, but he didn’t exactly look like he believed me. “What’s it like during the summer?”
Shit. “Hot and a little humid.”
He didn’t even try to keep himself from wrinkling his nose.
“What? New Zealand doesn’t give out pleasant doses of humid air and heat so bad that you can burn bare thighs on leather seats?”
He was still wrinkling his nose, still being just fucking adorable, when he replied, “Ah, no. It’s not too hot or too humid compared to here, sounds like.”
“And the winter?”
I didn’t miss the pause he took, but I didn’t think much of it either because he hadn’t lived there in years, maybe he’d forgotten. “It’s pretty great in the winter too.”
All I could do was “huh” him. “Better than France in the winter?”
He flashed me a funky smile as he nodded. Then he kept going, not letting me linger. “It’s summer back home now.”
Home. That was a fucking word. I fisted my hand at my side and asked, “Do you miss it?”
He didn’t instantly nod, but when he did, it was heavy. Direct. “Yeah, I do. When I think of home that’s where it is. I’ve moved quite a bit, but that’s where my family is. Mum, Dad. Natia. Two of my brothers; the oldest lives in Aussie. My sister’s in Melbourne too. My nan, granddad, aunties, and uncles… they’re all home. I was planning on seeing them, but….” He trailed off.
He wasn’t sure what his plan was now.
Because of Mo. Me too technically.
And I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. Just a little when I thought about how long his season was. How short his time to relax and refresh himself was. And he was staying with us now.
If it was me who didn’t get to see Grandpa Gus and Peter on the regular and only had three months to spend with them when I loved them so much, and then I didn’t get to see them when I more than likely had looked forward to doing so all year….
Family was responsibility. Family was family. At least when you had a good one. And mine might be small, but it was the best. His might be a lot bigger than mine, and I might be on the fence with how I felt about his mom, but it was clear he loved them.
And he was sacrificing his only time with them to be here.
Fuck.
But most importantly, I knew we had to have this conversation, finally. We had put it off long enough. I had put it off long enough.
But I had to go one topic at a time first.
“Jonah….” I forced a smile onto my face as I nudged his hand with the back of mine. “You should probably go see them before your vacation is over.”
The lids on his light brown eyes slowly lowered. “You want me to go?”
“I don’t want you to go, but I’d understand if you did. You said it yourself that you had plans to see them, didn’t you?”
He didn’t respond, which confirmed that yeah, he’d had plans.
Of course he would. More guilt stirred up my chest.
“They’re your family. My soul would probably die if I didn’t get to see Grandpa or Peter every once in a while. And you’ve been in France, what? At least since you were cleared to play again? So what’s that been? At least five months?” I forced another smile onto my face. “You should go. I get it. Mo will understand.”
Jonah gave me a long look over his shoulder before nudging my hand back with his. “I was planning on going home to help at my granddad’s farm,” he finally said. “It’s what I do for a few weeks every holiday, Lenny. And you’re right, family is important. Family is the most important.” He glanced at me again, the edge of his mouth tilting up as he made a noise that sounded a hell of a lot like a sigh. “But you and Mo are my family too.”
Should the f-word out of his mouth have felt the way it did? Like a sharp, thin knife sliding straight into my gut in a good way? Was that normal?
“I’ve told you. I’ve missed too much time.” His hand nudged mine again a moment before his fingers wrapped around mine loosely. “Too much, love. I’ll make it up to them for missing out on this holiday, but they would want me here. They would understand why this is where I need to be.”
This is where he needed to be.
Here.
I hated him as much as I didn’t hate him. That was the truth. The annoying truth.
All right, I didn’t hate him at all.
And because I would never admit that, I reached forward, trying my best to ignore the ache in my chest, and tapped the knuckle of my index finger against his forehead.
One corner of his mouth went up. “What was that?”
I dropped my hand. “I’m making sure it sounds like you have a human skull in there and you aren’t some kind of perfect fucking cyborg that killed off the original Jonah and now you’re here to take his place and planning to kill me in my sleep in twenty years.”
Those long lashes fell again, and he asked very slowly, “What are you talking about?”
I didn’t even bother not groaning. I groaned. “You’re too perfect, numbnuts. You’re too good of a person, and you’re too good with your words, and it annoys me.”
That earned me another blink and the slowest, creeping smile I’d ever seen in my life. So slow that I was m
ostly prepared for the huge, blinding one he aimed right at me. His eyebrows had crept up too, lighting up his face that much more. “Is that what you think? That I would wait twenty years to kill you if that was my plan?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, probably. But I know there has to be something wrong with you. I bet you’re totally tone deaf and can’t sing to save your life.”
This asshole cocked his head to the side, dimple popping, and said, “Nah. I’ve been told I have a lovely voice.”
“If your mom said it, it doesn’t count.”
He laughed. “More than just my mum, love.”
It was my turn to blink before I nodded slowly. “Yeah? That’s where you want to go with that?” I socked him in the stomach with the back of my hand.
But in true fucking Jonah style, all he did was laugh as he caught my hand in both of his, holding it lightly. “Oi! I was talking about the other members of my family!”
“Sure you were.”
“I was!” He laughed some more, still blasting that full-watt smile. “I don’t have much experience with these types of things, but even I know not to bring up past girlfriends with your partner.”
I was his partner. In crime. I liked it.
Jonah brought my hand up in his, tucking it against his wide chest as we kept on following his mom up ahead of us. “I wanted to tell you, since we’re on the topic of families….”
Where the hell was this going?
“I called my brothers yesterday before I came over.”
I left my hand where it was. “That’s… nice.”
“They both remember you messaging them on Picturegram. I spoke to one, and the other left me a voice mail. Would you like to hear it?”
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