I saw the big brown-haired man the second I pulled into the parking lot. Jonah was leaning against the wall beside the two glass doors, arms crossed over his chest, taking advantage of the shade from the building. He must have recognized my car from his visit to Grandpa’s house because he stood straight up just as I pulled into a spot.
By the time I was slamming the driver’s side door shut, he was only a few feet away.
He smiled at me.
I didn’t smile back.
And I wasn’t going to overthink what it said about him that my nonreaction didn’t do anything to his. “Glad you could come,” he said, sounding genuinely pleased.
In the time we had known each other, I hadn’t seen him in a bad mood. I wondered what got the job done. Maybe it was just injuries that made him lose his shit and turn into a dick.
Or maybe he had used his injury as an excuse for not coming back.
Okay, that was far-fetched, and I could admit it. I hated reasoning that out. He really had gone a year without posting anything on his social media accounts. From the moment he had been injured, he literally had wiped himself off the face of the planet like a missing person. There had been articles written about him just removing himself from any and every kind of spotlight, and if it hadn’t been for his agent claiming that he had heard from him, everyone might have thought he was dead. That article with his quote had hurt, but I hadn’t believed for a second after that first month that something bad had happened to him. He’d left of his own free will.
I’d stopped looking him up by the time he’d rejoined his team. I’d only known he had because of the article that had come up under news on my homepage. Like he’d been reborn out of the ashes or something.
“It’s one of the benefits of working for my grandpa,” I told him after a second, hearing my grumpiness, as I beat him to opening up the rear passenger door and ducked inside. Mo was wide awake as I unfastened all the little straps holding her in her car seat, giving her cheek and forehead a couple quick kisses in the process as she babbled away.
I smiled at her. “I don’t want to do this either, Mo Peep, but we kind of have to, okay?”
Based on what she replied with, I don’t think she believed me.
Thankfully, I managed not to bang my head as I backed out, holding her to me as I snagged her bag with my free hand. I was pretty much a fucking magician as I moved out of the way just enough to hip check the door and close it, holding a heavy baby in one arm, a backpack in another, and holding my keys in my hand at the same time.
Jonah was still smiling when I looked at him.
I still didn’t smile back.
He held out his hand. “I’ll take the bag.”
The baby was heavier, but I nodded and handed it over.
“Choice,” he noted as he slung one of the straps over his shoulder. “Keeps your arms and hands free, eh?”
Mo’s backpack had been a good idea. I had tried using a regular diaper bag for about a week before I’d gotten annoyed and shifted everything to a backpack. But I didn’t tell Jonah any of that. I just shrugged.
Jonah’s smile stayed in place as his eyes moved from the baby who was giving him wide identical eyes, to my face, and back to Mo.
Little Mo Peep reached a fist out toward him with a happy smile and a “Ba!”
He took it and gave it a shake. “Nice to see you again, wee one.”
I cleared my throat.
“Right then, I found the office,” he said as we walked beside each other following the handshake that had rattled me just a little. “They wouldn’t let me register until you arrived.”
Up ahead, one of the two glass doors that he’d been standing beside opened and a tall brunette came out, her phone held to her face. Jonah kept right on talking as he lunged forward to take the door just as the woman let go of it, her eyes locked on him.
“Shouldn’t take but a minute or two, I would think. It’s on the second floor,” the Still a Shithead kept talking, his eyes on me over the head of the woman who was basically staring at him with a dreamy expression on her face, still holding the phone up. “The lift is right here.”
Jonah wasn’t just one of the tallest men I had ever met, he was built as one of the biggest too. Muscles on top of muscles on top of muscles. And with that trimmed facial hair that became a beard halfway through the day and that perfectly shaped head…
Well, there was a reason this lady was probably pulling a muscle in her neck looking over her shoulder.
He was all fun and games to look at. But that was about it.
“Okay,” I told him as he let the door shut behind him, and we loaded into the elevator.
Once upstairs, one of those big hands gestured to the left of the hallway. We went that way before he pointed at the first door on the left. It was nondescript and the name of the business didn’t exactly scream DON’T KNOW YOUR DAD? DON’T KNOW YOUR MOM? WE CAN HELP! Thankfully.
It didn’t take Jonah long at all to go speak to the receptionist behind the desk and come back with a small stack of paperwork on a clipboard. “If you trust me to hold her while you fill it out, I’ll take her.”
I didn’t trust him to text me back, but hold Mo? I nodded, telling myself not to feel irritated and failing.
He didn’t say a word as we traded the clipboard for the baby. His hands were mostly steady as he lifted her up and brought her against his chest, fitting her there tightly as Mo still looked up at him with these eyes like she didn’t know what the hell to think of him… but she was trying to figure it out. And not exactly having a terrible time while she did from her wide-eyed expression and those grabby little hands clutching his shirt.
That was a good thing. I guess.
The paperwork only took a few minutes, and I turned it back into a receptionist with a smile and took the same seat, with Jonah still standing there, holding Mo and doing something that might have resembled the slightest bounce I’d ever seen. But that wasn’t what caught my attention. They were both looking at each other… but she had a hand on the tip of his nose, was mumbling who the hell knew what, and he was smiling at her from under her grip and asking, “Yeah? Is that what you think?”
That was what she thought because she kept on going.
Once Mo was done telling him her life story, I decided to be decent and try my best to be a good person.
Okay, at least a decent one.
“Were you waiting for long?” I made myself ask, even as I told myself that I didn’t really care how long he’d been waiting.
“Yeah, nah.” His eyes flicked down toward me, but his head didn’t actually move. After all, Mo was still holding on to his nose even though she was staring at something over his shoulder.
“Did you drive here?” I suddenly thought about how I hadn’t actually seen him getting in or out of a car at any point. Now that I thought about it… I couldn’t remember seeing a parked car outside of the house on Sunday when he had come over either. Or Saturday night when he’d left. I’d taken Monday off and not seen him.
Jonah was busy still looking at Mo as he lowered himself into the seat beside me, knees going wide to plant her on the thigh furthest from me… the side of his opposite leg touching my knee. “An Uber brought me,” he explained. “I do need to look into a hire car company though.”