I felt my eyebrows go up, felt my brain tell the rest of me to go back into the office. To leave right now and quit playing around. We weren’t enemies, but we weren’t friends either.
We were a team. In a way. Because a team worked toward a greater good, and our greater good was eighteen pounds and six ounces.
My subconscious tried to remind me I’d never really been a big fan of team sports. I didn’t like the idea of leaving my future in the hands of someone else who might not give as much of a fuck as I did. It’s why I’d been a good swimmer, a pretty good gymnast, and I hadn’t been a big fan of cross-country running, but I’d been all right at that too. The one and only time Grandpa had enrolled me in a season of basketball when I’d been ten, I’d been asked to leave the team because I hadn’t been a good team player.
And yet knowing all that…
I ignored those instincts that asked me to walk away. “You?” I asked him, to be sure he was suggesting what I thought he was suggesting.
Jonah dipped his chin.
I knew what the answer was going to be, but I didn’t want to kill his sketchy dreams so quickly. “How much do you think you weigh right now?”
“One-hundred and thirteen kilos, usually. Might be a bit more or a bit less,” he answered.
Yeah, that settled it. “That’s going to be a negative then. Five years ago, I would have tried, but even then I could only lift Mount Denali, not”—I waved my hand toward his body—“Everest. I could get you on the ground without throwing you though.”
For once, I didn’t like his laugh.
“You don’t think I can?”
Those cheeks tipped up, and he had the nerve to tip his head to the side like he was trying to be adorable. “I was joking when I asked, I mean.”
I slipped out of my flip-flops and walked over to him.
“I’m sure you could easily have taken a Denali before your last surgery...” He trailed off, watching me too carefully. “I’m an Everest though, eh? Sweet as.”
I ignored his NZ slang that I had started getting the hang of and grinned, actually feeling a little excited. “Are you going to be upset if you get the breath knocked out of you?”
He tipped his head to the other side a little, narrowing those honey-colored eyes. “No…?”
“Are you sure?”
Jonah’s face got warily cheerful again. “Lenny, love, I’ve been getting tackled since I was—”
All right. He’d said it.
I stopped directly in front of him, reached out as quickly as I could, grabbed him by the collar and swept his legs out from under him.
He fell like a beautiful, ancient Redwood tree. The sound of him hitting the turf loud. I mean, literally, it was a boom. The floor wasn’t padded and wasn’t built to cushion falling bodies.
I pressed my lips together as I looked down at him slightly, half expecting him to be pissed, maybe a little shocked even if he was used to being tackled by men bigger than me. But all I got were wide, shocked eyes. He sucked in a breath and then gasped.
Maybe that hadn’t been my best idea ever. He was worth a lot of money when he was healthy. Shit.
“Jonah, I’m sorry—”
This fool fucking burst out laughing. “Bloody hell, Lenny, how’d you do that?”
I’d had a lot of guys react in different ways to getting thrown around, but never, ever had one of them fucking laughed. Never. Not even close.
And as Jonah cracked up from his spot on the floor, knees up, feet flat on the floor, arms loose, looking shocked… something inside of me kind of… cracked.
More than it already had, it felt, and I didn’t know what the hell to do with it.
“You aren’t the first big guy I’ve foot-swept before,” I answered him, smiling back and not able to help it, or regret it either. “But you’re probably the heaviest, and now everything from my knee down is probably going to hurt because I’m a show-off, so don’t get butthurt I got you.”
This idiot just went on laughing.
And I couldn’t help but keep smiling down at him.
The rest of my life.
I thrust my hand out at him, and he met mine halfway, wrapping those fingers around me, before I kind-of sort-of helped heft him back onto his feet, even though his own muscles did most of the job.
I huffed, practically sitting down on the ground to get enough leverage. “If we were hiking in the woods and you broke a leg, you would die. You’d be left there, for real,” I joked, knowing damn well I shouldn’t but unable to stop when I was feeling in this good of a mood.
“You wouldn’t try to help me hike out?” He chuckled as he slipped his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts and adjusted them.
“So the bear could get us both when it smells your blood and comes looking for you? I don’t think so.”
Another big, booming laugh came out of him, and that shit went straight to my spine. “I thought it was sharks that will hunt down something bleeding.”
I could feel the corner of my mouth pull up in a smirk. “Well then, you better hope we aren’t on a boat in the ocean together if you start bleeding, because I wouldn’t be able to lift you back on the boat either.”
“In that case, we’ll make sure Mo is around since you have all these plans to let me die if things get tough. I couldn’t see there being anything the two of you couldn’t do together if she’s anything like you.”
I hated him. I really did. And myself, because I had no business joking around with him, but I couldn’t regret it too much either. Damn it.
“I’m not scared of trying to pull you in, but I’ve torn both rotator cuffs. You should just know what to expect. It’s not my fault you’re heavy.” I tried not to smirk but failed. “But if it makes you feel any better, we’ll be able to pull you back into the imaginary boat between the two of us,” I joked, unable to stop myself.
“Good thing I’m a great swimmer,” he countered playfully. “I’ll make sure to keep my fitness up so you and Mo don’t have to worry if you’re the ones bleeding in the water.”
Me and Mo.
Well, I’d hope he’d try to save the mother of his kid. At least for that reason alone. That’s why he was still here, after all, wasn’t it? Because of her?
Something that wasn’t exactly a knot tried to form in my throat, and all I could do was manage a half-assed smile that had his grin melting into a long, loaded look.
I was worthy of love. I was loved. Just because he hadn’t….
I was fine. Great. We could be friendly. It would be easier if we were.
Jonah was watching me, and his Adam’s apple bobbed before he said, “Have lunch with me, Lenny.”
What? “I’m not going to see Mo for lunch today. Grandpa Gus is taking her to the Children’s Museum.”
Those honey-colored eyes stayed steady on my face. “I know. I heard him last night,” he said just as the door to the building swung open. “We can just talk about Mo if that’s what it takes to get you to come.”
It was second nature to glance over and see who was coming in, but as soon as my brain processed the face, a sigh built up in my chest.
It was a guy I’d kicked out of the gym two months ago.