A glance at Jonah showed him looking really expectantly.
Grandpa Gus had his hand over his face as he kept on losing his shit, recounting this story. Probably one of his most favorite stories of my childhood. It was one of mine too, not that I’d admit it to him.
“What did she take?” my girl’s dad asked.
It was hard to understand him but not impossible as he answered, “She took… she took nunchucks to school and got suspended for two days when she was in kindergarten. The principal said it was a school record.”
I groaned again. “All right. I’ll be upstairs now.”
He ignored me. “Remember? You told Noah the night before you were going to beat him up if he pulled your hair again and he did, so you took them to school to do the job so you wouldn’t get in trouble with your coach?” Grandpa Gus cackled, grabbing at his middle like it was seriously the first time he’d recounted the story when it was probably the millionth, and he still thought it was as hilarious as it had been the first.
I glanced at Jonah as I undid the tray of Mo’s high chair and lifted her out of it. The dark-haired man was smiling, but it was… it was a weird smile. Like he was thinking about something a little too hard.
“Nunchucks?” Sarah was too busy gasping. “Where did those come from?”
Only Grandpa Gus would laugh his fucking ass off at a six-year-old having nunchucks. “Her godfather. She asked Pierre for them for Christmas.”
Even Peter chuckled. “He was never able to tell her no. All she had to do was ask, and he would do whatever she wanted. She’d ask if he was coming to one of her competitions even though he was in the middle of filming a movie, and he would come every time.”
“Like a sucker.” Grandpa Gus chuckled. He put his hand on his chest and smiled almost dreamily over at Sarah. “I really hope Mo ends up taking more after Jonah than Lenny. I really do. My heart can’t handle another Lenny in the world.”
Liar.
But maybe not.
I edged my way closer to the door with my girl, shooting a glance toward Jonah again who still had the same thoughtful expression on his face that was almost a confused one. “I was a precious angel, and you know it.” I flicked Grandpa Gus behind the ear as I walked behind him. “Jonah, you coming?” I asked as I shouldered the door open, and he got up.
I had barely made it about three steps into the hallway toward the stairs when he came up behind me. “Lenny?”
“Hmm?”
“Peter said something about your godfather, Pierre….”
Oh. That. “Yeah?” I started up the stairs.
“Making movies…,” he kept going, following me up. “Is he referring to Pierre St. Cloud? The actor?”
“Yeah,” I told him, stopping to shoot him a glance over my shoulder. “He filmed a couple movies here in the 80s. Grandpa trained him during them.”
His face was blank with surprise. “Blood Games Pierre?”
I nodded.
“Karate master Pierre?”
I lifted a shoulder. “A second dan black belt. I wouldn’t call him a master….”
Jonah blinked.
“I used to call him Pew-Pew because I couldn’t say Pierre,” I told him. “You’ll probably meet him one day. I still see him a couple times a year.” You know… if Jonah was around in the four months he had off from work.
Fuck.
I turned forward again and kept heading up the stairs, listening in to the fact that I was almost all the way to the top before I heard his footsteps again.
“Why didn’t you say anything about it?” he called out after me.
“Because it’s not a big deal.” I paused. “And because sometimes people make fun of him when they know. People say he’s cheesy and stuff, but he’s always been great to me. I don’t like him being made fun of. If it hadn’t been for Blood Games, I don’t think MMA would have ever blown up the way it has because he inspired so many kids who are now adults, you know.”
His footsteps stopped again as I made my way down the hall, passing the master bedroom, the spare, and finally getting to Mo’s room, separated from mine by the bathroom in between. Jonah stopped just to my side and, without prompting, took the baby out of my arms and into his, his biceps bunching and showing off the fact that one was just about as big as Mo’s entire body.
The boy was ripped.
And that wasn’t saliva pooling in my mouth at the memory of running my hands up and down those arms while he’d—
Nope.
I forced a smile onto my face. “I’m gonna brush my teeth and change. Just holler if you need anything.”
I ducked into the bathroom. Brushing my teeth, washing my face, and rubbing some moisturizer into my skin didn’t take long and neither did applying deodorant. On the walk from the bathroom to my room, I heard Jonah talking quietly, but I had no idea what was being said or done. He’d been around long enough. He knew what he was doing.
I stripped down to my underwear and sports bra, deciding to leave that sucker on because the last thing I needed was a boob to pop out in mid-swing push, and had just put on my high-waisted black leggings when I heard a cough from the doorway.
“The door was open,” Jonah murmured as I turned, one hand in my drawer as I pulled out a sweater.
Mo was holding a toy in one hand, gnawing and drooling on it at the same time.
I had never been too-too ashamed of my body even after having her. I wasn’t back down to pre-baby weight yet—and I sure as hell wasn’t at my competing weight or body composition—but I was getting to what was becoming my new normal. And, well, a lot of things had changed and moved around a bit, but I had expected that to happen from the books and blogs I’d read while I was pregnant.
But now, all of a sudden, standing there in my high-waisted pants, I got self-conscious for what might have been the first time in my fucking life.
“I’m almost ready,” I told him, tugging the sweater out, suddenly aware of how much of a mess my room was. There was a pile of laundry on the floor in one corner, another rocking chair I’d used pretty often with Mo over the last few months that was covered in clothes that I’d worn but could wear again. Then there were the handful of toys all over the floor that I hadn’t put back up after bringing them over for my booger to play with while we hung out in my room.
The bras hanging off the doorknobs of my closet were a nice touch too, I thought, knowing there was no way to miss the giant bra cups.
And that was where his gaze went straight for.
I’d swear on my life that his eyes moved down to my boobs for a second. And I’d swear on my life too that his Adam’s apple bobbed as he looked at them. They’d always been big, and had only gotten bigger with Mo, even if she’d decided a couple months ago that she was too good for breast milk.
Was this kinky bastard….
“Are you staring at my boobs?”
His gaze flicked back up, eyes wide. “No,” he spat out before pausing, shaking his head and giving me the start of a bashful smile. “All right, yes.”
Well, well, well.
I pulled the sweatshirt over my head and only let myself smile when it was covering my face, wiping it back off once my head popped through the top.