I should probably call Noah back so he could piss me off and remind me of what a douchebag was. That would be exactly what I would need to keep this meh-train going with Jonah. I was the conductor, and I wasn’t ready to retire.

I cast another glance at that handsome-as-hell face beside me and kept my damn mouth closed.

That big body shifted in the seat again, legs and shoulders moving one way and then the other. Then he went for it. “Are you seeing anyone?” he asked like he wanted to know what fucking time it was.

I didn’t see how that was any of his business but… fine. I guess it kind of was. I’d want to make sure, if he was in a relationship, that the woman wasn’t some kind of psycho. And if my chest felt a little weird at the idea of him being in a relationship with someone, I wasn’t going to linger on it. I hadn’t looked at his Picturegram account in forever, and I wasn’t about to start now. Maybe there was someone. Maybe there wasn’t.

I wondered then if he’d taken down the two pictures of us he’d put up there so long ago. One had been of us at Versailles, the first day we’d met. It had surprised the hell out of me when he’d shown me he’d posted it, hours after meeting. He’d started following me immediately after.

The second picture had been of us at Sacré-Coeur with the city sprawled out behind us on a beautiful day. I had really liked that picture. That one had been taken a month before his injury.

“No,” I answered him, ignoring the tingle in my stomach that felt an awful lot like disgust. “Are you?”

The second it took him to answer felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.

“No, there’s no one,” he replied slowly. There was another pause. “There hasn’t been.”

Hasn’t been? Since when? Last week? Last month? Six months ago?

It was none of my fucking business. I wasn’t going to ask, and I wasn’t going to look to find out either.

I kept my eyes forward as I said, “Okay.” I tried to make the feeling that had moved from my stomach to my chest go away, but it didn’t want to go anywhere. It was going to happen. The dating. I was thirty-one. He was thirty. Now or never. “We should probably talk about that then while we’re on the topic, so we know what to do if—when—the situation rises. You know, when I decide to start dating again—“ His head swiveled toward me, but I didn’t see what his expression was because I didn’t look at him. “—or when you do, so that way we’re on the same page. I think it might be best to wait to introduce new people into Mo’s life until we’re sure that they’re going to be around.”

His “all right” took a moment or ten longer than I would have expected. And it sounded a lot rougher than it needed to as well. It came out hesitantly, if I wasn’t imagining it.

My hand shot out before I could think twice about it. “You sure? Deal?”

That big hand that was a lot more calloused than I remembered, settled over mine before I had a chance to take it back, his fingers sliding over my own, giving them and my palm a warm squeeze that lingered longer than necessary.

Well, I’d been doing that for a low-five, but… okay. That seemed even more permanent. All right.

I wouldn’t be doing that again anytime soon.

I swallowed and pulled my hand away, returning it to the steering wheel.

We had a whole lot more to settle, but suddenly, I really didn’t feel like asking any more of the hundred questions we had to discuss. Not when we were so close to Maio House, and I was still unsure what the hell my gramps’s weird call had been all about. Luckily, in no time at all, I was steering the car into one of the three reserved spots—one for Peter, Grandpa Gus, and myself.

As I was putting the car into park, I asked, “Do you want to come inside?” Then immediately fucking regretted it.

Shit. I imagined the looks the assholes inside were going to be giving if and when he came in with Mo and me. As soon as I thought that, I wanted to punch myself.

What the hell was I doing? Worrying about what they would think or say? They could all suck it. I wasn’t hiding anything.

“It might be a while,” I let him know, irritated with myself for worrying over what other people would think or say if I walked in with him.

He was Mo’s dad.

And he might be a dipshit, but it wasn’t like anyone else knew that.

Fuck it. They could think whatever they wanted to think. It was more than likely going to be true anyway.

Oblivious, Jonah nodded as he unbuckled his seat belt, reaching for the door with his other hand.

I got Mo out, Jonah grabbing the diaper backpack in the process. But it was just as I was standing straight again that I realized what was happening. I held Mo out to him and raised my eyebrows. “Take her. The more you hold her, the more comfortable you’ll feel with her.”

His “all right” sounded pretty dubious to me, but I could appreciate him not trying to get out of it. I guessed.

He kept the diaper bag over his shoulder as he pulled her in real close to his chest, eyes widening the slightest. “We’re going to get along just fine, aren’t we, Mo?” Jonah asked as he gazed down at the girl with his same eyes.

Mo answered by grabbing his nose and pinching it with a quick burst of animated commentary.

He grinned right back at her.

All right. Enough of that. I was glad I wasn’t the jealous type.

I turned around and headed toward the entrance to the training facility, Jonah and Mo trailing behind me. I punched in the code then opened the door. I held it wide and watched the corner of his lips arch upward as he headed into the building first, stopping just inside.

He really was a big son of a bitch, I thought as he brushed by me.

Gesturing him toward the office like he didn’t know where it was, I stopped almost immediately at the sight of Grandpa Gus, a woman, and Peter standing right outside the office door. But it was Grandpa’s posture that had me pausing. He had his arms crossed over his chest, and the look on his face was one I hadn’t seen, ever. Not even when he mean-mugged Jonah the other day during breakfast.

But even Peter, who was pretty damn easygoing, looked tense.

Taking in the woman, who had to be somewhere around my height, she had to easily be in her sixties or early seventies. Slim without looking exactly frail. Her hair was all white and was cut in a chin-length bob. She had on a dressy blouse and white pants.

She was… elegant.

And I had no clue who the hell she was, but I already knew I wasn’t going to like her because of Grandpa Gus and Peter’s body language.

If I had thought I was imagining that something was going on, it would have been confirmed when Grandpa Gus spotted me and winced.

This was the man who had given me the puberty talk complete with visuals and a book. Who had bought me pads and tampons without flinching dozens of times. Who had shaved his own calf to teach me how to shave my legs. This was the same man who had given me a very serious sex talk before blatantly asking if I needed him to take me to get on birth control, even though I’d never said anything that would give him the impression I was interested in boys. This was the same man who had gestured toward my boobs a hundred times while helping me train and growled, “Do something with them!” when they were halfway popping out of my sports bras back before I’d gotten smart and started doubling up on them.

This was the same man who had left a box of condoms on my bed eight weeks after I’d had Mo.

Grandpa Gus and I didn’t do awkward. We never had. So the fact that he was sucking in a breath, making a face that said he was dreading whatever was about to happen…

I already didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all.

And I knew somehow that it wasn’t because of the man with me.

And I got that reconfirmation to listen to my gut instinct not even two minutes later.

“Elena,” Grandpa Gus greeted me tensely, making that dread grow even bigger.

This person here wasn’t a friend. She wasn’t someone to be trusted. That’s what that name meant.

I braced myself, trying to rack my brain for whatever the hell this lady could mean. Who was she? “Grandpa,” I said as I stopped beside him, giving him a kiss on the cheek and then going up to my toes to give Peter one too, right as Jonah stood beside me. Really, he shouldn’t be surprised I’d shown up. He’d basically asked for it by being so weird and cryptic. He knew me better than that.

“Peter, Mr. DeMaio,” Jonah said, extending a hand toward Peter first, shaking it, and then doing the same toward my grandpa.

Honest to God, even I was impressed right then that he’d taken the initiative to be the bigger person and try shaking his hand again. I was going to have to think about that later.

Something was off because Grandpa Gus decided this woman was the greater threat because he shook Jonah’s hand after a moment of hesitation, when I damn well knew that if things were normal, he would have just stared at it until things got uncomfortable.

That was how we rolled.