But that had been once upon a time.

And I remembered now that I had never been crazy about fairy tales in the first place.

And even with those thoughts, I still wasn’t prepared for all that size and mass focused solely on me as he said in a voice that had lost all traces of uncertainty and choking emotion, “I didn’t mean to leave like that. I swear. I didn’t know.”

I didn’t say a word. I wasn’t going to brush this off and make it seem like him leaving or not knowing was not a big deal. But I didn’t need to bring it up every three seconds either, I realized. You didn’t help an injury by aggravating it constantly. And it wasn’t like I was ever going to forget what happened.

Maybe he knew that… maybe he knew it was the best thing to let me keep my silence… because he opened the door then and stepped out. It wasn’t until he turned around and reached inside to grab the handle while I stood there that he said it again, “I’m not leaving, Lenny.”

I wasn’t holding my breath, and I was pretty sure he knew that.

Chapter 8

“You are genuinely pissing me off now. I made it back to Houston, not that you give a shit, but I still need to talk to you. (pause) It’s Lenny.”

I woke up the way I hated the most: jolting myself awake.

One minute, I’d been totally out, and the next second, bam! I was wide awake, staring straight up at the ceiling and listening.

Based on how much sun was coming in through the windows, it had to be at least nine in the morning. Three hours later than I usually woke up. Well, it was more accurate to say it was three hours later than General Mo, the Hungriest Baby in the World, woke me up to feed her. Rolling my head to the side, I peeked at the baby monitor that lived on my nightstand, even though I didn’t need it. Mo might not cry often, but when she was hungry, she was hangry.

She got it from me.

There was no ignoring her or mistaking her usual kitten cries for you better feed me now, lady.

But the baby monitor wasn’t on the nightstand where I knew without a doubt I had left it. That in itself wasn’t weird. Peter and my gramps would creep into my room while I was sleeping to take it sometimes. I never slept with my door closed anymore. Neither did they, at least not all night.

It didn’t take me long to go to the bathroom, do my business, and then drag myself down the stairs, passing by the empty bedrooms in the pajama shirt I had been able to start wearing again since Mo wasn’t breastfeeding anymore and I didn’t have to whip out a boob on call. As comfortable as nursing bras were, I’d been wearing sports bras for so long that nothing else compared to the comfort they brought me. I’d missed them. It wasn’t until I reached the bottom of the stairs with a giant yawn that I knew something was different.

There were noises coming from the living room, which on Sunday was totally normal. Sunday breakfast was the only time we all managed to eat together in the morning. Peter was usually at Maio House by six, and Grandpa tried to sleep in while I got Mo ready for the day and spent some solo time with her. He usually didn’t crawl out of his coffin until after seven.

But it was the familiar but unfamiliar voice I could hear speaking in the living room that had me pausing.

I didn’t have to look at my phone to know it was nine-fifteen in the morning, and I didn’t need a DNA test to know the voice I could hear belonged to the fuckface.

What the hell was he doing here?

We’d agreed to lunch, but I figured that would be around noon.

Four steps later, I stopped at the edge of the wide opening that led into the living room and peeked.

On the floor, two brown-haired men, one with more salt than pepper in it and the other with a fade cut, were kneeling, surrounding a baby kicking two chubby bare legs in the air but also somehow trying to roll over at the same time. A baby that wasn’t wearing a diaper. Beside her, was the stuffed animal that Jonah had brought over the night before but hadn’t gotten around to giving her.

“It’s easy, but you have to be fast now that’s she rolling over.” It was Peter, the smaller one of the two, who spoke as he pulled a diaper out of nowhere like a magician. “You lift her bottom—” He held two feet together and lifted said butt in the air an inch before sliding the opened diaper beneath the bare butt. “—spread it out, fold the front over, and put the tabs back down, and you’re done.”

Jonah, I couldn’t help but notice, was watching him like a hawk as he kneeled beside what looked like two balled-up baby wipes right by his right knee.

“She’s eating real food now. That gets messy, but it’s still simple,” Peter said as he helped Mo sit up.

“How did you learn? With Lenny?”

“No, she was using the bathroom on her own by the time we met.” I watched Peter’s nearly black eyes flick toward the man beside him and saw the protectiveness hidden in them even from across the room. “We took a class and watched some videos to learn how to do everything.”

Jonah made a subtle startled face. “Videos?”

“Yes,” Peter confirmed, stealing another quick glance at the other man before looking back down with a frown. “Len couldn’t sleep much at the end—in the last trimester. We looked up everything then to be ready. We learned together.”

Something flashed across Jonah’s face as he gazed down at the baby. Regret? He might have been faking that too. How the hell would I know?

Peter kept talking though, his gaze shifting back to Mo so that he couldn’t see what I was seeing. But that fiercely protective look on his face didn’t lighten up. It didn’t go anywhere, and it made my heart grow a few sizes. Maybe this other idiot hadn’t liked me enough to even keep being my friend, but Peter would always have my back. Our backs. Always.

“If you’re planning on staying,” Peter said, “you’ll figure it all out. It’s easy. Madeline won’t get mad if you do something wrong. She doesn’t have anything to compare to, and she doesn’t know a bad mood unless she’s hungry. She’s a good girl. She’s tied with her mom for being the best two girls in the world… aren’t you, Mo? Aren’t you good and special and smart? Just like your mama.”

“I didn’t know Lenny was… pregnant. If I had, I wouldn’t….” He swallowed and seemed to struggle for a second to find the right words… or the right lies. “I would have been here. Or maybe… maybe Lenny would have been with me, I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I still can’t believe she… exists.”

Me be with him. Ha. Something that could have been anger or sadness swirled around in my chest.

He continued talking quietly to Peter. “I’ve missed out on heaps. I know it doesn’t change much, but I want you to know that I wasn’t avoiding my… her… Mo.” He closed his eyes for a moment before gluing them back down on the figure on the blanket. His expression startled and nervous and just… heavy. “Wish I could take back the mistakes I’ve made.”

I had no right to let those words make me feel nauseous. I knew that.

I had no right to imagine what those mistakes were—him disappearing for months and having sex with a ton of women, him doing drugs, having another child somewhere, getting married, getting involved with the wrong people—but I ran through all those possibilities in my head anyway.

I hadn’t looked him up in months. The only information I had been caught up on was how his rugby team had been doing over the season, and that was only because of the articles that every so often popped up on my home screen page… from all the previous stalking I’d done before Mo.

I had no idea what he’d been doing with his life. Because it wasn’t any of my business. Because I wasn’t going to look it up.

Jonah and I hadn’t exactly been in a relationship. We had been friends. Who liked each other a lot. Who were attracted to each other, at least I had thought.

But I hadn’t been his girlfriend. I had never been anyone’s girlfriend.

If he had done something after we’d gone our separate ways, it wasn’t like he had cheated on me.