The Best Thing

by Zapata, Mariana

  I was sitting on his thigh. Again.

  My butt was high on his lap, one of his arms loose around my back and the other on my hip. And I didn’t make a joke about being too heavy for him. I didn’t make a joke about how we weren’t in high school anymore and people didn’t sit like this. I just sat there, on this man who I knew could handle my weight and, apparently, maybe even all the other little sharp pieces too.

  I had sat on my friends’ thighs before but not like this. Not even close. Not by a mile.

  So when the office phone rang, I didn’t answer it. I was too busy listening to the measured breaths that came out of him. And when my office phone stopped ringing and started up again, I still didn’t pry myself away.

  I soaked in that nice smell of him deep into my senses… the steadiness and sturdiness of his body…

  And that was when my cell phone rang.

  Five years ago… three years ago… I would have let it keep ringing. But I had Mo now and that changed everything.

  The thing was, Jonah must have thought the same thing, because he leaned forward, the heavy arm around my back keeping me in place, and grabbed it off the counter, handing it over.

  “MAIO HOUSE” was across the screen.

  I answered, my voice more hoarse than normal, at least to my own ears, “Hello?”

  “Lenny,” Bianca’s whisper came over the line. “I tried calling you on your office line.”

  I sat up straight, leaving the warmth of Jonah’s wide chest. “Everything okay?”

  “Um, this guy just walked in without scanning his pass. I’ve never seen him before, but one of the girls just said he used to train at the old Maio House.”

  I groaned. I hated it when old members just randomly showed up. Well, it depended on the person and why. Most of the time they were just around to come and kill time and distract people even though they didn’t train here anymore.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Bianca was five foot two and had the kind of petite body most women would never cry over. She was literally one of the least intimidating people I knew. She was friendly, I had never seen her in a bad mood, and worked hard. And she seemed to me to be all marshmallow fluff on the inside. Basically: Bianca was the last person I would ever expect to tell someone to get the fuck out, and she wasn’t paid enough to do that either. I would never ask it of her, period.

  “Give me a second, and I’ll go over there and deal with it. Just keep an eye on him,” I told her. “Thanks for telling me.”

  She hung up after thanking me, and with a sigh, I slid off the thigh under me, stood up, and turned to smile down at Jonah.

  But he was already beating me to it.

  Lord, I loved this man.

  My insides froze as I processed that thought.

  I flipped it one way and the other and let it settle right under my throat.

  I did love this dumbass, didn’t I?

  The surprising part was, it wasn’t a horrifying thought or even close to it. I looked at this grinning idiot and… it felt good. Right.

  My blood pressure didn’t go up. My eye didn’t start twitching. I didn’t feel itchy or uncomfortable or anything like that. It was like… putting on my favorite pair of sweatpants.

  How about that? I was going to have to process this some more later.

  “Thank you for that,” I told him, unable to keep from smiling as I held the l-word real close to me. I was going to have to think on it some more.

  “I’m always here when you need a cuddle,” he said, totally serious, watching me as his right hand went to wrap around the back of my thigh. “Or more.”

  I flashed him a small smile. “I need to go deal with someone walking around here that shouldn’t be. Are you done for the day or—”

  The knock at my door came a second before a voice I hadn’t heard in person in months came from the direction. “Lenny, you in there?”

  Before I could get another word out, the figure appeared, hands already on his hips, eyes aimed in the direction of the chair I had just gotten off of.

  His blond hair was cut shorter than in the past. Those blue eyes were still the color of the navy shirt I’d worn yesterday, and he still had the same body I had seen expand and grow throughout my life: trim and muscular.

  The hand on the back of my thigh slid an inch higher, the fingers curling around it even more than they had before, and it was that, that snapped me out of it. Not the numbness that came over my spine, replacing the joy and happiness that had been there moments ago. Or at least in the context of the man standing there, years ago. The vision of him had once brought me comfort. Trust. I had hugged this person more times than I could ever count.

  I had loved Noah. As a friend. Like a brother. For a tiny amount of time I had thought as more than that.

  But it was Jonah’s hand on my leg that grounded me then.

  And the fact that it didn’t go anywhere.

  The only part of my body that moved as those navy-colored eyes flicked to the man touching me was my mouth. “Hi, Noah,” I said pretty fucking calmly.

  That had his gaze moving up to my face. I watched his nostrils flare and his hands—hands that had touched me ten thousand times—form fists.

  I stayed right where I was. Like I always would. And if a small amount of grief slid along my back, it shouldn’t have been surprising.

  “Hey,” the man who had once been my best friend said, his gaze moving back toward Jonah for a moment and lingering there in a way I didn’t like.

  I didn’t touch Jonah’s shoulder to be an asshole, but I did because he was special to me. Because I would never pretend not to feel something for him just to make someone else feel better. Especially not when that someone else didn’t deserve anything from me anymore. “Jonah, this is Noah. I told you about him, remember?” I moved my gaze back toward the blond, sliding my hand to Jonah’s upper arm, his biceps bunching under me. Then I said the words that I hoped would mold the direction of whatever was going to happen. “We grew up together.”

  That was the sum of us now, and that made my chest hurt, just for a second; the tinge of pain flaring with intensity. He looked exactly the same. Handsome. Buff. So sure of himself.

  “Noah, this is Jonah,” I kept going, the muscles under my fingers flexing some more.

  I put the pieces together that made up Bianca’s call about a former Maio House member coming in like he owned the place. Of course Noah would do that. If anyone had a right to feel like they would always belong here, it would be him.

  Even if that wasn’t the case anymore and never would be again for the shit he’d said and done.

  “Her partner,” Jonah threw out suddenly, so quickly I didn’t get a chance to step back before he was up on his big feet, towering over me with all of an inch of a space between us as he thrust a hand toward Noah.

  There he went calling me his partner again. How was a man this big so adorable?

  Noah took in the hand being held out in his direction, and I watched him look up at the face that stood a couple inches taller, then back at the hand… and not do anything. Really? Really?

  I went to fucking seven, or maybe eight, instantly.

  “You’re not going to shake his hand?” I asked, anger settling right at the base of my fucking neck, making the skin on my arms prickle as this fucker still didn’t shake Jonah’s hand. He wasn’t my grandpa. He didn’t have a right to be this way, or any way, really.

  “Why should I?” the man I hadn’t seen in almost a year asked, that face that was so handsome it had gotten one endorsement deal after another screwed up into an expression that was pretty much outraged. Outraged at what, I had no idea. What the hell did he have to be mad about? “This is him?”

  Jonah’s hand, still in the air, curled into a fist and dropped.

  And that only made my anger spike up even more.

  “Is this who?”

  “You know who.”

  I stared into the face I had thought of
as my friend for half my life. More than half my life. Into the face of the person I had been teenage-in-crush with, who hadn’t cared about me the same way.

  I tried my best to grip onto that memory, onto that rope of love and vines and lifetime, and not lose my shit at the completely uncalled for aggravation on Noah’s face and in his voice. I only partially succeeded, not able to keep my tone civil. “You mean Mo’s dad?” I asked him, taking the words and owning them officially.

  Noah’s cheeks puffed. They always did that when he was upset or angry. Or both.

  “Then yeah, Jonah is Mo’s dad,” I confirmed, hanging onto those memories of this being someone I had loved, someone I still loved in a way, at least enough to try to do that. I didn’t want to go apeshit. I didn’t want to make this ugly. There was no reason for it. “You should have told someone you were coming to visit.”

  He knew that wasn’t what I was implying and didn’t try to hide it as he tipped his chin up in Jonah’s direction. “They told me he was here.”

  “He’s been here.”

  “Now,” he tried to throw out like that would mean something.

  I nodded because yeah. Now he was.

  That was when Noah’s eyes flicked to Jonah once more, and his face went ruddy as he said, “Two years later. Or did you forget that?” He gestured with his chin toward me that time.

  “I haven’t forgotten anything,” I said, losing hold of my temper just a little, just enough for the sharpness to come out. “None of this is any of your business anyway.”

  I was going to kill someone, and that someone was either going to be Noah or it was going to be another member of the gym for having a big-ass mouth.

  “Why are you playing stupid, Len? Since when do you forgive someone who let you have a baby by your fucking self?” He shook his head, his face getting redder and redder. “The girl I knew would’ve had his ass ten feet in the ground, not—”

  Before I could ask if that was the same girl he’d been friends with ten years ago, another voice in the room spoke up.

  “You and I have enough issues to talk about, mate,” Jonah said in a voice even more rough than I’d heard before. It was cold. Hard. And I liked it even more. “But you imply she’s stupid again, or you raise your voice that way one more time, and we’re going to have bigger issues to deal with. Understand?”

  Noah said something, but I was too busy taking in the man standing beside me, firing off a glare that gave every other glare I had ever seen in my life a run for its money, and trying to comprehend that my sweet, sweet Jonah technically laid people out for a living too. I remembered reading once that he usually led his team in tackles, or something like that. Back in my brief stalker days.

  “I don’t care who you are,” Jonah with a capital J said, responding to whatever it was that Noah had just spilled out. “That means nothing to me.”

  “Who the fuck are you anyway?” Noah demanded.

  I was over this.

  “Stop.”

  He glanced at me for a second, the words out of his mouth and into the air before maybe he even realized it. “I’m not talking to you right now.”

  Was this fucker for real?

  My shoulders went back, and if I’d had earrings on, I would have taken them off because I was about to beat the shit out of Noah. No one knew his weaknesses better than I did.

  I’m not talking to you right now.

  Mother. Fucker.

  “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” I snapped, as beside me, Jonah said in that deadly, crazy voice, “Meet me outside, bro.”

  That snapped me out of it.

  Shock could do that to a person, I guess. How the hell had we gotten to the point where one of the two calmest males I’d ever met was telling people to meet them outside? Jonah? My shy Jonah who could barely speak to strangers? Whaaaaa?

  I didn’t know what the fuck was wrong with me that I all of a sudden wanted to laugh. That comment alone had put this whole shit into perspective. What the hell was going on? What were we doing?

  “You want to meet up outside? Let’s go,” Noah responded like the hotheaded dumbass he was.

  I rolled my eyes that time because get the fuck out. I wanted to laugh. Noah would go straight to jail if he got into an unsanctioned fight. He would be suspended. Was he that dumb?

  And Jonah had to be fifty pounds heavier than him right then, and maybe he had no official training, but he had amazing reflexes and he was strong in a way that wasn’t just for glamour muscles. His whole body was a machine. An expensive, well-maintained machine.

  And I wanted to kiss the shit out of him for being one of the best things ever.

  After I dealt with this dipshit.

  “Stop being stupid, Noah,” I said, taking him in with what I was sure was disgust. “I don’t know what you’re doing. I don’t know why you’re doing it.” He choked like he knew the answer to those questions and didn’t like it. “But you need to stop. Don’t talk to him like that. Don’t even look at him either. And don’t you dare use that tone of voice on me. You have zero right to be over here being a fucking jackass, and I will call your mom and tell her what the hell you’re doing if you don’t quit making that face right now.”

  His eyelid twitched as the words penetrated his brain.

  Noah’s mom was no one’s quiet, tender mom. She’d still beat his ass if it came down to it. I’d watched it happen more than a few times myself. Plus, Grandpa Gus had gotten the scoop on how his mom had reacted after she’d found out how Noah had treated me that one day before he’d left. I wished I could have seen it.

  I loved that woman. Admired the hell out of her. But that was beside the point.

  “You need to go,” I finished, staring straight at him.

  It was that sentence that dug in the deepest. I’d shocked him. “You’re telling me to leave?”

  “He’s a member. You aren’t anymore.”

  Those dark blue eyes focused in, surprise still all over his eyes and features. “I need to talk to you.”

  “No, I don’t think you do,” I replied at the same time Jonah said, “Too late for that.”

  I glanced over at him and had to fight the urge to smile again.

  “I need to talk to you,” Noah repeated himself, frowning, finally ignoring the other man. “It’s important.”

  “About what?”

  His shoulders rolled backward, and his chin went up in defiance. “It’s private.”

  He was full of shit.

  If I could go back in time and slap the shit out of myself for all those times I’d clung onto our friendship for the sake of being loyal to someone who had once meant a lot to me, I would. How many times had he been a stubborn dumbass and I’d been left to help him or deal with his shit once Peter and Grandpa were fed up with him and his bullshit? How many times had I been the person who tried to talk some sense into him when he’d forced everyone else to exhaustion?

  A hand that wasn’t so familiar anymore reached out and wrapped around my forearm, distracting me so much, I didn’t process quickly enough. “Let’s talk over dinner.”

  Was this happening to me? All I could do was stare at him like he’d lost his fucking shit. Because he had. The last time we had been in the same room together he’d called me a slut.

  He was lucky he was still alive.

  So it wasn’t hard to look at him like he was fucking nuts and give him the only answer possible. “No.”

  Noah swallowed as his eyes moved toward Jonah and back, shoulders bunched tightly. “I really need to talk to you.”

  I repeated myself, genuinely asking myself how the hell my life had gotten to this point.

  “For old time’s sake. You owe me that much,” he tried to insist.

  The ‘I don’t owe you shit’ was right on my tongue.

  “Please.”

  Jonah tensed up beside me, and I couldn’t help but think about how he felt.

  But… this was Noah. He’d put Band-Aids on me. H
e’d gotten a unicorn painted on his face by my side on my fifth birthday. He had carried me on his shoulder when we had been fifteen and I’d won my first Pan-American game. Before he’d turned into such a dipshit, he had been my closest friend.

  But….

  Then again, he’d also pushed me down a few times and caused me to need the damn Band-Aids in the first place.

  Unfortunately, I knew him. At least I had known the person he’d been before becoming this. And if he was feeling entitled and genuinely thought he felt a certain way about me, there was only going to be one way that he’d stop all this shit and just let me move on.

  “I’m not going to dinner with you. But if you want to talk, we can do it at the juice bar later. I have to work, and I’ve got Mo at home, and I want to spend time with her.”

  His nostrils flared at the mention of her.

  And it made me sad.

  It made me real sad.

  Friends were supposed to support each other. They were supposed to be there for one another even if you thought they were being dumbasses. Even when things weren’t perfect and easy.

  I realized then better than I ever had before, that things between Noah and I would never be the same. Not even close. Not when he flinched when I brought up the joy waiting for me at home. The kid that was as much a part of me as my own hand was. Even more important than my stupid-ass hand.

  And he was never going to be okay with where I was in my life now. Jonah or no Jonah. It didn’t take a genius to see that either.

  It made me really sad, and I’d have to save that up for later.

  The arm right next to my own went hard again, but I wasn’t going to think twice about it. Not right then.

  “You don’t have time for me?” Noah asked, going there like I owed him something.

  He should have known better. “No, I don’t. I barely have time to take a poop in peace. Are you good with five thirty or not?”