I was definitely fucking crying by the time I pulled myself out of the chair with his comment about lube ringing heavily in my head. There was something wrong with him. I’d swear. All that boxing. All those hits. It explained everything. It really did.

I was still cracking up as I pulled a drawer open and got my wallet and keys out. Edging my way around the desk, I finally focused in on what I had to do… and what I should do. I hadn’t seen Jonah again all morning. Slipping my phone and wallet into the back pockets of my jeans and grabbing my backpack, I headed right out the door and stopped.

There was a broad kneecap connected to a heavy and hairy thigh right there.

“You okay?” I asked the freshly showered man sitting cross-legged beside my door with his bag sitting next to him.

“Yeh,” he answered with a happy expression. “Figured I’d wait for you to finish.”

Why though? I kept the question to myself. “I was about to see if you were still here,” I told him. “I have to go pick up Mo from the daycare before noon so they don’t charge me for the whole day. Grandpa Gus had an appointment this morning and has another one right now, and he’ll get her afterward from his friend’s house. Do you want to come with me?” I paused. “You don’t have to if you would rather see her tonight.”

He was already getting to his feet. “I’ll come. Tonight, too, if that’s not a problem.”

If there were such a thing as a right answer, that would have been it. I tried not to let it show on my face though. Unfortunately, he took it the wrong way and kept talking, like I would tell him no.

“The more time I spend with her the better. I need to make the most of it while I’m here.”

I hated him. I really did, and I didn’t trust a word to come out of my mouth right then when he was saying all these… things that were nice but too nice. Too perfect.

But the while he was here hung there, and the Still a Tiny Bit of an Asshole raised his eyebrows in return.

“Of course you can see her tonight. Let’s go,” I muttered, figuring we could talk about his plans later.

“What’s that face for?” he asked when we had gotten about halfway to the door leading outside.

I kept my gaze forward and didn’t even bother lying. “I don’t know what to think of you.”

He waited until he was pulling the door open. “Nice thoughts?”

I snorted, and I sure as fuck didn’t look at him. I didn’t need to see him smile at my sarcasm.

“Would you like to know what I think about you?” he asked teasingly.

“Sure,” I said as he caught up behind me, telling myself not to take him playing around to heart.

“You didn’t even think about it.”

I glanced at him over my shoulder and gave him a face. Like there was something he could say that would hurt my feelings. Ha. He hadn’t gone to a private Catholic girl school for a year with a buncha bitches.

Jonah lifted up one of those shoulders. “All right. You’re brave—”

That had me coughing. “Brave?” Where the hell did he get that from?

Jonah’s arm brushed mine as we walked side by side. “Yeah. You didn’t hesitate to say yes, did you? I’m not sure I’d want to know what you think of me.” He paused. “Actually, I wouldn’t want to know.”

He probably didn’t, and I was only going to feel slightly bad about that. “It’s not all bad,” I mumbled, reluctantly.

He chuckled. “Well, as long as it’s not all bad….”

I rolled my eyes and kept my mouth shut to not egg him on.

Or make him do something that would make me really smile.

What he did do was brush his forearm against mine again.

Luckily, he waited until I was backing out of the parking spot to talk again. “How ya goin’?”

“Fine. You?”

“Great,” he replied.

“The gym is working out okay?” I was feeling friendly today apparently.

“Oh, yeh, it’s nice,” he replied as he shifted around in his seat, one hand wedging itself between the door and his thigh. He hadn’t needed to move backward. He was the last person to ride in the front seat. “Has everything I need and more while I’m here.”

While he was here were the keywords there. I really did need to ask him eventually what he was doing and where he was going. I hadn’t gotten another notification on my home screen with news on him switching teams, so I could only guess he still hadn’t made a decision. I was pondering that over when he asked a question, and I had to ask him to repeat himself.

“Do you have an idea where I might be able to get jandals?”

I hesitated. “Jan—what?”

“Jandals… Thongs?”

I blinked, an image of that body in a thong filling my brain for a second. Well, it was something else being stuffed into a thong that I imagined. That was a mental picture I needed to live without.

“Sandals?” he offered, hopefully not being able to read what I’d just imagined.

Oh. Oh. “I thought you meant”—I looked at him, but he looked totally and completely innocent—“—thong underwear.”

He looked at me for a split second. Then that deep, deep laugh trickled out, filling the car. “Nah, sweetheart. That’d be a sight, wouldn’t it?”

It would be a sight. If I was still into that.

I had dug myself into this hole by bringing up his underwear, so now I had to get myself out of it. I got back on topic. “What size shoe do you wear?”

“Fourteen in En Zed,” he replied. “Don’t know about here though.”

I thought about it. “Let me text someone. I don’t know if they carry size fourteens around in normal stores, but you can order some online, worst case. Order them today and you can get them in two days. I’ll find out for you when we park.”

“You’re a sweetheart, Lenny.”

That had me snickering at the windshield.

“What’s that laugh for?”

I shook my head. “Just about every single person I know would laugh if they heard you call me that.”

His attention was outside the windshield too when I glanced at him. “Can’t speak for them, but you’ve been bloody good to me so far. Heaps better than most would in the same position.”

I side-eyed him. “I’m being all right to you because you’re here and I can tell that you’re trying,” I told him honestly.

Some of his smile dropped off, but he clung to that shit, and it was him trying to keep it that made me keep going. Because I didn’t want to make him feel bad, even though he deserved it. He was trying. I’d never tear him down for being responsible.

“Look, I’m real good at holding grudges, but only if they’re called for, and I’m not going to make my life miserable by being mean to you if you’re trying your best,” I finished, facing forward again. “I’m good at a lot of things, Jonah, and getting along with people, especially men, is one of those things.” I pressed my lips together and made a face at the windshield. “Except you’ve seen me naked unlike them, but whatever.”

He choked so deeply I glanced at him and smiled a little. I really was in a good mood. He was so easy to fuck with, and it just made me want to do it more.

So that’s what I did. “And I’ve seen your winky. And we’ve had sex.”

It wasn’t like Mo had been immaculately conceived.

Jonah’s face was already pink and, from the looks of it, escalating to a special shade of red, and it just egged me on.

“But I’ve seen a lot of little breakfast sausages at the gym, so don’t get all shy,” I told him evenly, secretly eating up the color at his cheeks and the choking sound he made again. Heh. I’d forgotten he was such a prude. And that brought me joy.

“Why?” he got out after a second.

“Why what?”

“At the gym?”

“When the guys drop weight, they get on the scale naked, and half of them don’t have enough modesty to put on a towel when they do it. I don’t go over to them and hold up a magnifying glass to inspect their sweaty, hairy little chicken eggs or anything. They’re just… there. Like overripe, sad little bananas sometimes.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a big hand go to his face, and I could barely hear him as he repeated, “Sad little bananas?”

“You forgot overripe.”

His groan filled the car, and I couldn’t fucking help but laugh at goody two-shoes.

How the hell had I forgotten that? I remembered I’d referred to a penis as a willy right after we’d met, and he’d cracked up big-time. Then I’d called it a pee-pee to fuck with him, and he’d had tears in his eyes.

Fortunately, we rolled up to the daycare soon afterward, where Mo spent some time at twice a week. Since most of the parents who dropped off their kids worked “normal” full-time hours, there was no one parked out front. Jonah and I got out at the same time. He did what I had started growing to expect from him: he opened the front door for me, making eye contact as I passed him.

I kept my own expression nice and even as I did it.

And half of his mouth tipped up, that fucking dimple popping.

“Hey, Lenny,” a familiar voice called out from the office directly in front of the double doors.