A hire car company? Like a rental company?
“I wasn’t sure how long I would be here.” He glanced at me with those honey-colored eyes, lingering on my face for a second too long. “At first.”
It was a miracle I didn’t scoff.
“But I have my IDP,” he rattled on, like I’d asked, moving his attention back to probably the nicest person in the room. She was definitely the cutest person. I watched as one of Jonah’s cheeks went higher than the other and his fingers touched her red stretchy pant-covered lower leg. “I’ll get a ute for the rest of my holiday soon.”
His holiday.
That got me thinking about our time frames again. How he would have to leave. For work. For rugby. Because his life was elsewhere. I didn’t know where. But the point was: he would be gone for a long time, regardless of what continent or country he was in. Would he actually come back?
I really wasn’t sure how we were going to make this all function, but… we couldn’t be the first dumbasses to put ourselves in this kind of situation. One person living and working on one continent, and another living and working on another.
If you want something to work, you find a way to make it, my fucking brain attempted to remind me right then.
Damn it, I hated when my conscious made me feel guilty. If Jonah had been a friend, I wouldn’t have hesitated to offer him help. Yet here I was.
I glanced at the Fucker and found him smiling gently at Mo who had half her fist shoved into her mouth as she stared at the ceiling tiles.
Jesus, I was going to need to tell Luna about this. Someone was going to need to fawn over me being a decent human being toward someone I legit wanted to kick in the ass.
“If you need to borrow a car before you rent one…” I started to say, feeling only slightly bad that I was struggling so much to get the words out. I was a decent person. Just with people who I didn’t have beef with, is all. He was my girl’s dad, and I was going to be stuck with him, I tried to reason. And mostly, I’d just fucking promised myself that I wasn’t about to make my life more miserable because of him. I wasn’t going to be the crazy shit non-ex. I was going to be the cool one that thought she’d dodged a bullet by not being still together. “You can borrow mine.”
Jonah blinked, and I would swear even Mo looked at me like she didn’t know who I was.
“Thank you,” he replied after a second, clearing his throat. “But I wouldn’t want you to be without a car. I can hire one, it’s no problem at all.”
Mo’s hand moved to Jonah’s ear, and I watched his gaze follow the movement. His nostrils flared, and the cheek I could see twitched. Then he reached down to tap her own ear in return, earning him the cutest, sweetest little giggle.
They were going to make me throw up.
“If you change your mind, just let me know,” I pretty much mumbled. He was still a fucker.
The smile he aimed was at the baby. “It’s all good. No worries.”
Uh-huh. I had a good idea of how much money he made. I had done my crazy-person research right after he’d gotten injured, when I wanted to find him. I bet he was all good.
Thinking that then made me flash back to the microscopic apartment he had lived in in Paris. Real estate was expensive in France; it had made me never take for granted what I had in Houston. Jonah’s place—an apartment he had shared with two teammates—had been smaller than Grandpa’s bedroom, bathroom, and closet.
I doubted Jonah knew anything about designer clothes. His tennis shoes were nothing that couldn’t be bought at a mall. He had never been flashy about his money or his belongings. He had a watch on his wrist, and I couldn’t read the name on the face of it, but I’d swear it was a Casio or a Timex. It wasn’t a new one either.
Jesus knew I didn’t care about material things. I didn’t spend more than ten dollars on a shirt nine times out of ten, but I’d upgrade to guacamole any and every time I had the option. Those were where my priorities lay.
The receptionist came back to the window then and called us around to the back while I was watching Jonah and wondering what the hell he did with all the money he made.
Neither one of us said much as we went through a door and on down a hallway, following a tech. We hadn’t gone very far when my phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and took a look at the screen.
“Grandpa, let me call you back,” I answered, knowing damn well I couldn’t form that sentence into a question without him turning it around on me.
He ignored me. “Where are you?”
I lowered my voice when Jonah glanced over his shoulder as he continued down the hall. “I texted you. We’re about to do Mo’s paternity test. I’ll call you when we’re done.”
He sucked in his breath over the line. “What? Jasper doesn’t believe you?”
I made a face and tried my fucking hardest not to laugh at him calling Jonah Jasper on purpose. “He does,” I insisted, not exactly whispering, “but we have to do it anyway, I’m sure, for legal shit, Grandpa. I’ll call you back.”
“Has he looked at her?”
“That’s not how it works, and you know it. Calm your titties.”
Jonah stopped walking and turned around, a hint of a smile making the right side of his mouth creep up. It made his dimple pop. Ugh.
I couldn’t help but smirk at him, shrugging a shoulder that felt a lot friendlier than it should have. But then again, I guess we were talking about him. And our kid. So…
On the receiver, Grandpa choked. “I don’t have titties, Lenny. They’re still flat, and you know I work hard to keep them that way. And you know what? I don’t know where I went wrong with you. I swear, I don’t know—”
I laughed. “I’ll call you back when I get out of here. Go finish reading that firefighter book or take some Ensure or some A positive blood in the meantime, okay?”
“Ensure?”
“Love you, bye.” I laughed again and hit End, pulling a Grandpa Gus on him with the hanging up. Only he would get upset over Ensure. The blood thing didn’t even faze him. He took it as a compliment.
I fucking loved that crazy-ass old man, I really did.
I was still laughing when I glanced up to find that Jonah and Mo had stopped outside of an opened door, but it was Jonah who was looking at me. Mo was too busy looking at the man holding her, clutching the collar of his shirt, stretching it and trying to put it in her mouth. Jonah was smiling.
At me.
I almost stopped smiling but then got myself to drop that shitty idea. What was I going to do? Give up my happiness for somebody else? Hell no. How many times was I going to need to go over this? I could hate him passively. I could hate him in the deepest little corners of my heart and not waste any energy doing so.
I raised my eyebrows instead, set my phone on airplane mode, and slipped it back into my pocket.
We filed into the small room, the technician pulling out whatever it was that she needed. I had barely stepped inside when the Shithead held her out toward me. I made a face at him as I took her.
To be fair, his expression was somewhere between embarrassed and sheepish. “She’ll want you if she cries.” His smile faltered. “To her, I’m still some bloke.”
I pressed my lips together and told myself there was nothing to feel bad about. But when those lids slid over his honey-colored eyes slowly and I saw his Adam’s apple bob, I opened my mouth to tell him that wouldn’t always be the case.