“Great,” he replied.
“The gym is working out okay?” I was feeling friendly today apparently.
“Oh, yeh, it’s nice,” he replied as he shifted around in his seat, one hand wedging itself between the door and his thigh. He hadn’t needed to move backward. He was the last person to ride in the front seat. “Has everything I need and more while I’m here.”
While he was here were the keywords there. I really did need to ask him eventually what he was doing and where he was going. I hadn’t gotten another notification on my home screen with news on him switching teams, so I could only guess he still hadn’t made a decision. I was pondering that over when he asked a question, and I had to ask him to repeat himself.
“Do you have an idea where I might be able to get jandals?”
I hesitated. “Jan—what?”
“Jandals… Thongs?”
I blinked, an image of that body in a thong filling my brain for a second. Well, it was something else being stuffed into a thong that I imagined. That was a mental picture I needed to live without.
“Sandals?” he offered, hopefully not being able to read what I’d just imagined.
Oh. Oh. “I thought you meant”—I looked at him, but he looked totally and completely innocent—“—thong underwear.”
He looked at me for a split second. Then that deep, deep laugh trickled out, filling the car. “Nah, sweetheart. That’d be a sight, wouldn’t it?”
It would be a sight. If I was still into that.
I had dug myself into this hole by bringing up his underwear, so now I had to get myself out of it. I got back on topic. “What size shoe do you wear?”
“Fourteen in En Zed,” he replied. “Don’t know about here though.”
I thought about it. “Let me text someone. I don’t know if they carry size fourteens around in normal stores, but you can order some online, worst case. Order them today and you can get them in two days. I’ll find out for you when we park.”
“You’re a sweetheart, Lenny.”
That had me snickering at the windshield.
“What’s that laugh for?”
I shook my head. “Just about every single person I know would laugh if they heard you call me that.”
His attention was outside the windshield too when I glanced at him. “Can’t speak for them, but you’ve been bloody good to me so far. Heaps better than most would in the same position.”
I side-eyed him. “I’m being all right to you because you’re here and I can tell that you’re trying,” I told him honestly.
Some of his smile dropped off, but he clung to that shit, and it was him trying to keep it that made me keep going. Because I didn’t want to make him feel bad, even though he deserved it. He was trying. I’d never tear him down for being responsible.
“Look, I’m real good at holding grudges, but only if they’re called for, and I’m not going to make my life miserable by being mean to you if you’re trying your best,” I finished, facing forward again. “I’m good at a lot of things, Jonah, and getting along with people, especially men, is one of those things.” I pressed my lips together and made a face at the windshield. “Except you’ve seen me naked unlike them, but whatever.”
He choked so deeply I glanced at him and smiled a little. I really was in a good mood. He was so easy to fuck with, and it just made me want to do it more.
So that’s what I did. “And I’ve seen your winky. And we’ve had sex.”
It wasn’t like Mo had been immaculately conceived.
Jonah’s face was already pink and, from the looks of it, escalating to a special shade of red, and it just egged me on.
“But I’ve seen a lot of little breakfast sausages at the gym, so don’t get all shy,” I told him evenly, secretly eating up the color at his cheeks and the choking sound he made again. Heh. I’d forgotten he was such a prude. And that brought me joy.
“Why?” he got out after a second.
“Why what?”
“At the gym?”
“When the guys drop weight, they get on the scale naked, and half of them don’t have enough modesty to put on a towel when they do it. I don’t go over to them and hold up a magnifying glass to inspect their sweaty, hairy little chicken eggs or anything. They’re just… there. Like overripe, sad little bananas sometimes.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a big hand go to his face, and I could barely hear him as he repeated, “Sad little bananas?”
“You forgot overripe.”
His groan filled the car, and I couldn’t fucking help but laugh at goody two-shoes.
How the hell had I forgotten that? I remembered I’d referred to a penis as a willy right after we’d met, and he’d cracked up big-time. Then I’d called it a pee-pee to fuck with him, and he’d had tears in his eyes.
Fortunately, we rolled up to the daycare soon afterward, where Mo spent some time at twice a week. Since most of the parents who dropped off their kids worked “normal” full-time hours, there was no one parked out front. Jonah and I got out at the same time. He did what I had started growing to expect from him: he opened the front door for me, making eye contact as I passed him.
I kept my own expression nice and even as I did it.
And half of his mouth tipped up, that fucking dimple popping.
“Hey, Lenny,” a familiar voice called out from the office directly in front of the double doors.
I tore my attention away from the man who stopped directly beside me, his forearm and the back of his hand brushing my upper arm and elbow like there wasn’t enough space in the entrance so he had to stand so close to me. “Hey,” I greeted the older woman who came to a stop in the doorway, keeping my arm exactly where it was. “How’s it going?”
The director of the daycare moaned. “Fine except for this monster cold I’ve got. I’ve got to stay away from the children for the time being.” Slowly, her eyes swiveled to the man literally standing right beside me, and I could see her eyeballs widen just a little but just enough.
That was my cue. “Rachel, this is Jonah. He’s Mo’s dad. I was going to ask you if you could add him to the list of people who can pick up my little monster.”
Her eyes widened even more, and I couldn’t say that I blamed her.
I tipped my head up to look at Jonah and gave him a little smile. “You have your license, right?”
That bottom lip was pulled into his mouth with his teeth right before he nodded. He glanced at the woman and said, in a voice quieter than I had ever heard before, “I have my New Zealand license. I can bring my passport if you need something else.”
I frowned. What the hell was he whispering for? He didn’t speak very loudly in the first place but….
Poor Rachel, on the other hand, was too busy trying her best to keep it professional, to wonder why Jonah was talking like he was Stuart Little. But I knew what she was thinking. How the fuck had Lenny had a child with brown-haired Thor?
I wouldn’t have known how to answer. I still didn’t totally get it either. I wasn’t the most attractive woman in the world, but we’d… gotten along. Or at least, he’d thought my sense of humor was awesome, and he’d been charmed by my foul fucking mouth.