The look he sent me though….

I wasn’t sure what to think of the way his eyebrows knit together or the clench in his cheek. I wasn’t sure what to think of the words that came out of his mouth next either. “I’d like to explain, Lenny,” he said carefully, dousing me with that accent of his that made everything out of his mouth instantly sound prettier than everything out of mine, even though I still wanted to trip him near a flight of stairs. “Need to, really. I’m not going anywhere.”

“It’s easy to say things. It’s not as easy to do them.”

I didn’t mean for my words to come out so bitchy, but it wasn’t like I could take them back after they were out. Maybe he didn’t remember how he had stood in front of me the day before his game—match, whatever—held my face in between those big hands, and said, We should go to the catacombs when I get back from Toulouse, yeh?

We never made it to the catacombs.

I had never made it to the catacombs.

“I deserved that,” he replied, and not for the first time, it hit me that he didn’t fight back, or that he didn’t get mad or try and deflect. Jonah looked down at the ground, that wide jaw working.

His fucking throat started to go pink, and I almost felt guilty. Almost.

But Jonah kept going, his throat bobbing as he owned my borderline bitchy comment. “If that’s what you want, I won’t say anything, but know I want to.” One bright brown eye focused on me. “We can talk about our girl, then?”

We passed by one of my favorite historic houses in the Heights. A massive white and purple home that reminded me of my best friend’s much smaller house, but I had my mind on other things. Our girl. He’d gone with that, huh? Fine.

“Sure,” I told him, training my eyes on the house as we walked by.

“I’m going to contact my lawyer—”

I stopped moving at the same time as a car honked from behind where we were walking. Clenching my fist and holding my breath, I glanced over my shoulder just as a familiar voice hollered, “Hey, Lenny! Hi, Mo!”

What were the fucking chances? I wondered as I faced the minivan that pulled up beside me. “Hi, Mrs. Polanski,” I said to the graying blonde woman in the driver’s seat who was waving.

“I’m heading to church, but drop by the house this week so I can get my hands on that baby,” the woman who was about the closest thing to a mother figure I’d ever had called out with another wave. “Love you!”

“I will. Love you too!” I yelled back at her with another wave that was only partially half-assed while I processed what the fuck had just come out of this asshole’s mouth before Mrs. Polanski of all people had rolled up.

Contact his lawyer?

Jonah had stopped too at the honk, and he instantly held up a hand the second I turned back to him. “Not like that. Listen to me. I’d like to be put on Mo’s birth certificate. She would have dual citizenship, I think, as well. And I owe you—”

Was he trying to give me a heart attack? Fuck me. “You don’t owe me anything.”

The Asswipe frowned. “I owe you. Children are expensive. I don’t know much about them, but I know that,” he kept going. “You don’t have to look at me in that way. I don’t want to fight you for rights, but I think she should know where I come from. I want her to know me.”

I could feel my lip curling up like it wanted to snarl, and I tamped it down, keeping my face even.

“I suppose we’ll have to do a paternity test, but I’ll find out, see what needs to be done.” He blinked, as if something finally hit him. But just as quickly as he stopped to do that, he refocused, like he was on top of the situation all over again. “Once I talk to my agent and lawyer.”

He didn’t look away from me, and all those features got even more determined, and I didn’t know what to think about it. “I meant what I said about wanting to be around. I want to do right by her.” I didn’t want to see the earnestness that moved over his face. “I need to do right by her.”

I swallowed and watched him gesture toward the stroller he was pushing around.

“If I would have known….” He lifted up a brawny shoulder. “I want to do the right thing. I want to do what I should have from the beginning. If I could go back in time and do things differently, I would, but I can’t, Len. You don’t owe me anything, and I know that. I appreciate you being willing to let me see her and be a part of her life.”

His hands flexed around the handle, and he continued. “I know you don’t care for me much now, and it must not be easy, but I appreciate what you’re doing. You’re right about how saying something is different than actually doing it, but I’m not going to leave like that again. I’m going to be a part of her life… of your life.”

Did he have to look at me like that as he said those words? What game was he on? And did his eyes have to be so shiny and direct?

“I want to earn your trust again. Want to raise her with you.”

I wished right then I had my stress ball in my pocket.

“You’ll have to help me, I’m sure, but I can promise I’ll try my best to not mess it up heaps,” he said in that calm, collected voice that shouldn’t have ever gotten under my skin, but it did every single time. Maybe it was because I’d been raised around so many loudmouths, but that was one of the things I had liked the most about Jonah as I’d gotten to know him. He was just himself.

I had thought for a long time that his quiet confidence had been his most attractive trait. More than his body. More than his smile. More than his face and how cheery he’d been.

But I’d learned the hard way that he hadn’t been as confident as I had expected. Otherwise he wouldn’t have just… fallen off the face of the earth after his injury. I’d been injured countless times and didn’t wallow in my own bullshit for long.

But, to be fair, at least he was here now. I could give him that. For Mo.

“We can do this together, yeah? Be on… the Mo League, if you want to call it,” he asked. “I can do better, Lenny, if you give me the chance. I can promise you that. I will do better.”

I still said nothing.

The Mo League?

I fucking hated how much I liked it. Hated how reasonable and even sweet he was attempting to be. Hated that I was even in this position in the first place. Not having a kid, but not having her with someone who I could fully trust. Someone I loved, even. That would have been nice.

But this was what I had so….

A hand with short, trimmed nails wrapped itself around my wrist, and I looked up into those honey-colored eyes that popped so much on his tanned skin and held my breath. “There’s so much we have to work out, but I’m more than willing to. I won’t give you a reason to regret it.”

Regret was a weird thing. It was the one topic that Grandpa Gus had drilled into my head over and over and over again when I’d gotten nervous while I’d been growing up. You did something and you could regret it, or you could not do something and regret it. You never knew which way it would go. Everything in life is a gamble.

But I knew what I would regret the most. I knew it deep inside my bones, deep inside my soul, deep inside everywhere.

I looked at the man standing with me on a quiet residential street at ten-thirty in the morning on a Sunday and thought of the words he had already used both in my presence and out of it.

He claimed he wanted to be around for Mo. He’d said it without thinking about it too much, which I wasn’t completely sure was a good thing. But… he couldn’t fuck up if I didn’t give him a chance to.

Jonah couldn’t be a dad if I didn’t give him the opportunity.

I didn’t need to look at the sweet little booger with big honey-colored eyes to know there was nothing I wouldn’t do for her, and spending time with a man who’d hurt my feelings… being obligated to be in contact with that man for the rest of her life—of my life—well, I could do it. I would do it. The way Mo had come to exist was in the past already. But her future was up to us.

I could only hope this might be the easiest thing I ever had to suck up to do.

Being a mom wasn’t for weak asses, that was for sure.

So, I flashed him a grimace that I hoped was at least part of a smile. “Fine. Welcome to the Mo League. You can be the vice president if you’re willing to fight Grandpa Gus for the spot, but he fights dirty, so you’re probably better off being the secretary, I guess.”

Chapter 9

9:08 p.m

Your voicemail is full.

In case you deleted my number,

this is Lenny.

Call or text me. Please.

When I walked into Maio House on Tuesday morning and felt the awkwardness in the air, I knew something was up.