I grabbed my glass water bottle and chugged down half of it before focusing back on the footage. I rewound three minutes further back than originally and hit play.
I was in the middle of switching from one camera to another when there was a knock on the door, and I hit pause just as I called out “What?” like a fucking asshole as I rubbed at a spot between my eyebrows.
There was a pause and then, “It’s Jonah,” the deep voice answered.
Oh.
I got up, flipped the lock, and cracked it open, finding the familiar face standing right there. I grabbed him by his sweatshirt, yanked him in, and peeked back out through the crack.
Kicking the door closed, I flipped the lock and turned around to face the man standing literally inches away, a surprised but amused expression on his face. He was holding an orange smoothie in one hand. “Is there something I should worry about?”
“No.” I brushed his hip as I wedged myself by him and sat back down in the chair. “I don’t want anyone else to see me in here. I told Bianca she could tell you and Peter where I was, but that was it.”
“What are you up to in here? Spy work on the side?” He moved to my elbow, bending over at the hips to peek at the computer screen. He set the smoothie on the surface of the desk and nudged it toward me. “For you.”
I looked at him. “For me?”
Jonah nodded.
Huh.
I gave him a little smile and pulled it toward me, taking a sip. It was my favorite, Orange Sunshine. “Thanks.”
He just smiled.
I eyed him one more time then hit play. “Someone stole Bianca’s cell—that’s the girl at the front desk, the one who signed you up. I’m looking through the footage right now to find out who I’m going to have to kill for being an asshole.”
One day, years from then, I’d look back and think about how easily he’d replied with, “Oh, is that what you’re going to do?”
“Uh-huh,” I replied, staring at the screen. “Ooh, wait, wait, wait….”
I skipped forward a few seconds and squinted, watching a figure hovering by the desk before Bianca had even moved away from it. Then it happened, she ran around it, disappearing from the view of the camera I was watching on and into the view of the one I’d seen right before. I waited, four seconds went by, five, six, seven—
Warm breath hit my ear, and I held my breath as I glanced out of the corner of my eye to find Jonah’s face directly next to mine, his cheek moving into place right there….
Did his skin have to be so clear? I could tell that he’d shaved that morning, but hair had already started growing back in with a vengeance, the stubble thick and full. His lips were slightly parted.
I flicked my gaze back to the screen.
I kept my eyes on it and then leaned back two seconds later and shook my head.
“Bingo, ho,” I whispered to myself as I wrote down the shirt and hair color of the asshole. Not that I totally needed it, I had a clear view of his face. Dumbass.
Now all I needed to do was fast forward through the camera facing the doors and find out when he walked through so I could time it with when he scanned his card. Or better yet, it might be faster to just show Bianca the footage and see if she recognized him off the top of her head. Yeah, that would be better. Might as well try that first. I took a screenshot of the dumbass’s face and couldn’t help but cackle to myself. Busted.
The snort beside my ear had me glancing over to find Jonah with a big dumb grin on his face.
“What?”
His big dumb grin got even bigger. “I like it when you laugh evilly to yourself.”
I blinked. Well, that wasn’t anywhere near what I’d expected, and I couldn’t stop the way my cheek went up in a half-grin. Grandpa Gus had told me the same thing more than once before.
“What are you going to do now?”
I spun the chair around to face him fully. “I’m going to show her his picture and see if she recognizes him. If she doesn’t, I’ll look through more footage and figure out what his name is before I call the cops.”
“You’re going to call the police?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Cell phones are expensive, and it wasn’t an accident. Unless Bianca decides she doesn’t want me to, but I hope she does.” I sighed. “Are you done for the morning?”
“I am,” he answered. “I wanted to bring you a snack and see if you wanted to have lunch.”
That wasn’t disappointment I felt. Jonah was just here for Mo, I reminded myself. That was all that mattered. Plus, he’d brought me a smoothie. “I need to stay here and deal with this.”
“Dinner then?”
Alone? Or… with Mo? Uh….
“Actually, I have something I need to do tonight.”
His eyes bounced from one of mine to the other, mouth going flat and pressed. “Oh.”
“I was thinking about taking Mo with me too, sorry.”
Well, that instantly changed his expression. He even let out an exhale I didn’t totally get what to think of. All he said was another “Oh.”
For the first time, I thought about how he was here, alone, with no one else. As far as I knew, he woke up early, had breakfast, squeezed in a long run of cardio, had a second breakfast. Then he went to the gym and trained for three or four hours, had lunch, played patty cake at his hotel for hours and then came over every night. I hadn’t seen him even talk to another person other than my family, except for his weird little whispering sessions I forced him into.
What was he going to do tonight by himself?
And why did I care and feel guilty?
And why the hell did I invite him? “Do you want… to come with us?”
The fact he instantly said “Sure” was a spear straight into my stupid-ass heart.
“It isn’t anything fun,” I warned him, watching that handsome face.
This big, beautiful man ticked his head to the side. “It’s all good. I’m not particular about what we do.” One of his dimples popped. “I’d do anything with you.”
That fucking spear went in just a little deeper.
And I left it there as I eyed him. “It’s my old sensei’s sixtieth birthday today, and they’re throwing him a little party thing. He asked if I could come by and help with the white belts—today it’s the little kids—before.” Something I wasn’t going to consider to be anxiety poked at my stomach for a second as I thought about the request again. And how I couldn’t say no.
“All right,” he agreed just as easily.
I pasted a smile on my face. “Okay. You’d just have to sit there with Mo. It shouldn’t take more than an hour or two. The class is an hour long, and his cake is right after that. We don’t have to stay long.”
Yeah, that wasn’t nerves or dread I was feeling.
That was a lie. It was. I forced another smile on my face, hoping he couldn’t see through it.
If he did or he didn’t, Jonah didn’t comment on it. He just said, “Whatever you need.”
Chapter 14
6:21 a.m
You are a fuck face,
but I really do need to
speak with you.
I don’t need anything from you