“We weren’t together?” he taunted me in another whisper, that hand on my neck inching up to cup my jaw as I continued resisting looking in his direction. “Is that what you’ve been telling yourself? From the second we met, we were only apart when I had to train or I was gone with the team, or when you had to coach. We slept in the same bed together more than we did apart after those first two weeks,” he told me, like I hadn’t been there. Like I didn’t know.

How could I forget? And when I went to suck in a breath, it was harder than normal. So much fucking harder.

“I still sleep on the left side of the bed even without you, Lenny.”

Some primal part of my brain that knew all about survival didn’t want to believe what he was implying. Saying. It wanted to cry bullshit.

But an even bigger part of me, the reasonable, practical part, thought she knew Jonah well enough to tell the rest of me that he wouldn’t lie. Not about that. Why would he? I had told him he was under no obligation to me. I wasn’t and hadn’t been trying to reel him back in. I’d enjoyed his friendship. I’d enjoyed him.

He wasn’t lying, and I wasn’t going to insult him by claiming he didn’t know his own thoughts and feelings.

That didn’t mean it made it any easier for me to handle what he was implying. Maybe it was easier to think that he hadn’t wanted me as much as I’d wanted him. Maybe it was a hell of a lot easier to not dream that he’d made a huge mistake and that he had felt the same way.

None of that meant I was anywhere near being ready for it or wanting to do anything about it.

“I don’t ask you to lunch because I want to just see Mo. I want to see you too. I want to be your friend again. I want to be more than your friend. I want to be more than any other friend you’ve ever had before or ever will.”

Well.

I gulped as I looked into his eyes and saw a million different things reflected in them.

And not a single one of those things were bad.

I still hadn’t taken a breath as I told him in a voice that only wobbled a little bit, because apparently today was the day for me to face shit, “Are you sure about that?”

The hand on my jaw cupped my cheek then, and his voice was soft and strong somehow as he answered, “Oh yeah.”

I finally turned to look at him. We stared at each other. We stared at each other and stared at each other.

Finally, he broke the silence, quietly. “I’m willing to prove it. If the children try and hurt you inside, you can use me as a human shield.”

I didn’t say anything for so long that Jonah flashed those dimples at me and had me shaking my head and setting all those things I wasn’t sure I wanted to face yet aside. “You’re an idiot.”

He smiled even wider, but I could see something in his eyes that was an awful lot like regret. And I kind of hated it. “Yeh, my sisters would agree with you, eh,” he told me.

“It’s good to know they’re smart,” I replied, trying to file away his words and his offer for later.

Sneaky ass, my stupid weak-ass heart whispered.

Jonah leaned forward, rested his head against mine, and took his time with his next words, setting each one down carefully like it was an egg. “Going back to the subject of you and best friends and family…” The hand on my arm loosened, and his gaze was intense. “You’ll have to tell me what all the requirements are. I want to nominate myself.”

That thing inside of me that had broken when we had been at the daycare with Mo cracked open even wider, leaving me with this intuition that nothing was ever going to be able to glue those pieces back together. And honestly, if I sat back and thought about it, I wasn’t sure I would want them to. I wasn’t sure what the hell I wanted anymore.

Or at least, I wasn’t being totally honest with myself that that was even the truth.

“It’s easy.” I sniffed and straightened, raising my own hand up to pat his prickly cheek with my fingers. “If you’re my ride or die, you don’t ask questions, and you do exactly what I say all the time.”

His eyes went wide, and he grinned and then started laughing right in my face. “Is that all?”

One of my cheeks went up into a partial smile as I nodded.

Jonah’s smile grew just that much more. “In that case, I feel like we should cuddle on it.”

Cuddle? “A handshake?”

“No. This is family business. Best friend business. A cuddle is appropriate.”

I maybe sat there for a second before I thought fuck it.

Then, before I talked myself out of it, I slid my seat back and got up to my knees as fucking Jonah moved his own seat backward… and then opened his arms as wide as he could in my car. I crawled into his lap without a second thought. He drew me into the wide chest I hadn’t been up close with in a long, long time as my butt settled onto his thigh.

Jonah hugging me was the second to last thing I expected, followed only by me actually taking what he offered. A cuddle. Fuck me.

I just went right in and let him hold me as I pressed my forehead against the side of his neck as I thought about what it was he’d said. Those big arms wrapped around me and held me.

His voice was a whisper as he said, “I know we need to go in, but let me cuddle you a minute, yeh?”

What was I going to say? No?

And so Jonah cuddled me—hugged me—a minute.

When we finally climbed out of my car, we pulled a talkative Mo out of her car seat, grabbed my bag out of the trunk, and headed toward our destination.

The nervous apprehension of how I’d be welcomed after so long was still there.

These people had mattered to me for years, and while I might not give a fuck what 99 percent of people thought… this reception might actually hurt.

Jonah grabbed ahold of my hand halfway through the parking lot, and I didn’t even think about taking it away and losing the contact.

“No worries, Len,” he whispered right before opening the door for Mo and me, her backpack over one shoulder and my own bag over his other one.

Her scent reassured me that I had done the right thing when I’d left this place, and whatever happened, I could handle it. It had been worth it. It would always be worth it.

And when the door slammed closed behind us and a group of people turned to look at us…

I wasn’t expecting them to yell, “Lenny!”

I definitely didn’t expect to be bombarded by hugs either while Jonah stood right next to me the whole time.

Chapter 15

8:55 a.m.

Call me back, you dickwad.

8:56 a.m:

Or text me back. I don’t care.

It was almost a week later, and I was having a pretty good day considering all the small, shitty little things that had been building up since the night before.

Mo had been fussy all night, and I was worried she was getting sick. I’d gotten into an argument with the HVAC company that we usually worked with within an hour after getting to work, and then Bianca had told me the inventory for the juice bar was off. By a lot. I’d had to spend three hours looking through footage to see what happened and had been more than a little disappointed when I’d caught an employee, who had been at Maio House for eight months, giving out what I counted was eight different smoothies for free.