He really was a handsome asshole.
But a lame one.
Grandpa huffed a second before he backstabbed me. “Lenny has always liked her… Europeans.”
I didn’t think twice about flinging Mo’s spoon right at my grandfather, and it was his good luck he had reflexes like a retired cat because he lunged out of the way at the last minute, avoiding getting hit in the shoulder.
“It’s your eyeball next time. You don’t really need both,” I warned him, shaking my head at his betrayal. Always liked her Europeans. I didn’t even know how the hell he still managed to surprise me.
Grandpa, though, fucking laughed for the first time.
I slid him a look as I got up and grabbed another baby spoon from the drawer. Fortunately none of us said much the rest of the breakfast besides Peter bringing up comments about a couple of the guys he was training, with me and Grandpa Gus commenting on it. After we all finished, Peter stood up and headed straight toward the coffeemaker. “Jonah, would you like some coffee?”
I was in the middle of trying to spoon the last of Mo’s oatmeal into her mouth when he answered.
“I’d take a cup of tea if you have any.”
I forgot about how much he liked tea, I thought randomly, annoyed I remembered that detail.
“We don’t have any,” I answered, sounding bitchy, even though it was the truth.
“It’s all good,” Jonah responded, not sounding at all put-out.
Peter glanced at me over his shoulder after refilling two mugs. As he and my gramps grudgingly left the kitchen, he mouthed go do something.
Shit.
I guess we could skip lunch and go straight into our talk to avoid spending more time with Salty Britches in the house and on edge.
“Would you like to go for a walk around the neighborhood with Mo and me?” I made myself ask as I licked the rest of what she didn’t eat off the spoon.
His “yeh” was so instant I had to glance at him.
Did he have to sound so excited? Suck-up. I nodded more to myself than anything before I turned around, setting the towel aside. “Okay. If you don’t mind watching her for a second, I’ll go get dressed.”
His eyes widened, but he nodded, his gaze immediately straying to our supreme leader who was sitting in her high chair, chewing on a teething ring.
I forgot that according to what I’d overheard, he hadn’t seemed to have a whole lot of experience with babies.
Well, it wasn’t like I had either. He’d learn. If he wanted to.
If he knew what was good for him.
“She’s not going to try and swan dive off the seat or blow anything up,” I tried to assure him, suddenly remembering how Grandpa had told me the same thing at least twenty times after she had been born. It had been one thing when Luna had shoved her baby at me the first time, like I had known what the fuck I was doing. But it was a totally different thing to have my best friend, who did have experience with babies, standing three feet away making sure I didn’t do anything wrong.
It was a totally different thing when the tiny thing in my arms was my responsibility to keep alive.
My responsibility for the rest of my life. Because with my luck, she would end up the way I’d ended up with Grandpa Gus: a life clinger.
Plus, according to Grandpa Gus, it was really hard to break a baby. At least that’s what he’d said over and over again when he smelled the terror coming off me. I had stared at him for a long time after he said that, wondering what the hell kind of shenanigans he had gotten us into before my memories became solid. It was probably better that I couldn’t remember.
“I’ll be right back. You’ll be fine,” I told him.
What I got was a mostly determined nod in return.
Well, maybe he was nervous, but he wasn’t a total chickenshit. I’d give him that. I’d brought Mo around enough of the guys at the gym, and plenty of them hadn’t even wanted to hold her in the first place. Not even now.
And I had been the same way when someone had tried to get me to hold their baby. No, thank you. So… good for him. I guess.
It didn’t take me long at all to put on real clothes and brush my teeth. It might have only been ten minutes later that I opened the door to the kitchen with my palm and called out, “You ready to go?”
Jonah turned from where he was sitting beside Mo’s chair, that muscular body facing her, and nodded.
I kept my mouth shut as I watched him figure out how to take her out. I didn’t miss how steady his hands were then, the same as when he was running full speed clutching a white ball to his side while dodging men trying to tackle him. Like those times when he was fully concentrated and completely in control.
Instead, in this case, here he was. With calm hands, a determined glint in his eye as he cradled an eight-month-old to his chest like she was a bomb ready to go off.
Holding the door open, they passed into the hallway ahead of me, with Mo babbling in the process, totally fucking fine. The jogging stroller we used to take her out was already right by the door, and it only took a moment to get it all set up. I showed him how to set Mo down and then strapped her in. Wordlessly, we carried the stroller down the steps of the house between the two of us, and I asked, sounding just the tiniest bit grumpy, “Do you want to push it?”
If he said no….
Those honey-colored eyes flicked down to the stroller, his hands going to the front of his jeans to wipe down the material that was almost clinging to his thighs because those things were so big—not that I was paying that much attention.
But he dipped his chin a moment before saying, “I’ll push the pram,” as he got behind the handle and started doing just that.
I couldn’t help but eye him as we passed one house and then another on our walk. In the low seventies, it was a rare warm day at the end of January, thankfully. It had been eighty-four degrees on Christmas Day; two days later, it had dropped into the forties. Texas weather had a mind of its own. The sky was a grayish shade of blue, and luckily, the neighborhood was an old one, with massive trees that lined the streets, the weeping branches giving plenty of shade.
It was just a nice Sunday out on a walk with my girl and… her dad.
I eyed the tall brown-haired man again and wondered if he was being honest about not knowing.
Fucker.
“Your granddad hates me,” Jonah said out of nowhere.
He was sweeping one side of the street to the other with his eyes, his knuckles pale over the handle of the stroller, like he was gripping the hell out of it in case it suddenly decided to run off on its own.
If he was looking at me to lie to him, he was shit out of luck. “Yeah, he does,” I agreed, because it was the truth. Grandpa Gus did hate him.
What surprised the hell out of me was the snort that ripped through Jonah’s nose at my response. It triggered, for one second, memories of him doing the same thing when we’d known each other. What I didn’t let myself remember was how much I’d liked it.
“Can’t say I blame him much,” the fucker accepted, while I made myself stop thinking about his snort.
All I could manage to do was grunt out a “humph.” I got a side-eye in return. A tight expression came over Jonah’s face as we briefly made eye contact.
“Lenny—” he started almost immediately before I cut him off.