Jonah covered his mouth and nose to muffle his chuckle as he gazed down at Mo lying in her crib, trying her hardest to keep her eyes open even as her little mouth gaped wide enough for a fly to go into it.

It was so fucking adorable.

I wished I hadn’t left my phone downstairs so I could take a picture.

“She’s so cute. I can’t even be mad or annoyed with her for keeping me up last night,” I whispered to him.

“Did she keep you up a lot before?”

Before. Right. “I barely slept the first… four months. She was waking me up every other hour to feed her or change her diaper, and I’d still constantly wake up to come check on her even if she didn’t make a peep. I worried that she’d stop breathing or someone would climb in the window while I was sleeping to steal her or something. It was kind of bad, but right after that, she started sleeping almost through the night.” I had done some difficult things in my life, but none of them were anywhere near as hard as this parenthood thing. I didn’t know the meaning of pressure until I had the responsibility of keeping a mini life alive.

But hey, she was still here, so I couldn’t be fucking up the job too badly.

At least not yet.

“I had an air mattress in here at first so that I wouldn’t have to walk all the way back to my room.” AKA all the fifteen feet down the hall, which had been more like a mile and half when I could barely keep my eyes open and my body hated me for the trauma I’d put it through after so long of taking care of it.

Jonah didn’t say a word, but I could hear his steady breathing beside me as I kept rubbing Mo’s sole, her little eyes fluttering closed and then reopening with a jolt, over and over again. I’d read her book too early, I guessed.

The sigh that came out of his mouth had me glancing over at him.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Those two hands went to the top rail of the crib, fingers curling over the edge, his attention totally focused on the squirming body inside of it. “I can’t help but wonder… if I hadn’t gotten hurt, if I hadn’t gone off to my granddad’s farm to sulk about for so long… if I would’ve hardened up and come before or answered the damn phone or messaged you back or checked my fucking email… if I wouldn’t have felt sorry for myself like a selfish fucking arsehole….”

Oh.

That’s what he meant.

“I don’t know how you can forgive me for leaving you. For leaving you both,” he whispered in a voice rougher than I’d ever heard him capable of before.

He sounded so damn upset, it made my heart hurt, and I wasn’t expecting that.

His right hand reached inside the crib, and his thumb and index finger took hold of the other tiny heel just as he sighed. “I should’ve been here.”

Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve. One of my coaches had told me once that those were the most pointless set of words in the world. But you learn to live with them, you learn from them, or you let them weigh you down for life.

And maybe I had been pissed off at him for so long for not being around. But he was here now, and, mostly, I understood why he’d done what he did. Not totally, but mostly. He was sensitive and apparently shy.

I knew all about what I expected of myself. So I could understand the expectations someone else would put on themselves too. I wasn’t that much of a hypocrite.

Those shoulders of his were enormous, but there are certain weights that no one could bear.

Especially alone.

And really, seeing his profile, hearing his words, I couldn’t help but forgive him for what he’d done. He was going to beat himself up over it more than I ever would. He’d suffered enough maybe, I thought with surprise. I hadn’t even made a shitty comment to him in a while because there hadn’t been anything to complain about.

He should’ve been here, yeah. But he hadn’t. But he was now.

I didn’t hesitate to lean my shoulder against him, just a little, that ache in my heart still faintly there. “It would’ve been nice to have you around so I could blame you for all those months of morning sickness,” I told him quietly, sucking up the heat of his clothing against my bare arm. “Or to bitch when I was sleepy all the time, didn’t want to eat anything but fruit, and on the nights I couldn’t sleep or be comfortable or hold in my pee. It was rough. I was mad. Then I went through a period of feeling sorry for myself and confused and scared. I was worried the baby and I wouldn’t bond or that I would resent her because I thought my life was over.

“Those months were rough, and I wasn’t the same person. To a certain extent, I’m not the same person I was then or even before then.” That was the understatement of a lifetime. I hadn’t just been mad; I’d been hurt too. “I thought you didn’t want to have anything to do with us, and that pissed me off. But she’s here, and I’m here, and you’re here, and I love her so much I can never explain it, even to you. We can’t turn back time, but I thought we were trying to move forward. I haven’t thought about pushing you down the stairs in at least two weeks,” I tried to joke.

But he didn’t take it. Instead, Jonah murmured, “I’m so damn sorry.”

“I know you are.” Because I did.

“I wish I could go back in time and change it all.”

Was my heart supposed to hurt like this? “Not everything, I hope.”

Jonah turned to me, one cheek hitching up in a grave half-smile. “No, not everything.” His nostrils flared at the same time his other cheek started to go up too.

“Had you even thought about having kids?” I asked him, realizing I had no idea how he’d felt about it.

His features got thoughtful for a moment. “I never thought about it much. I have a big family… but I think I would have been happy.”

I gave him a flat look that had him giving me a slightly amused but pained one.

“All right, I would have been worried too, maybe even a bit scared, but I liked you so much….”

I barely managed to keep the snort to myself. Sure, he’d like me so much. He had liked me so much he hadn’t reached out to me, regardless of how often he’d thought about me and how crazy he claimed he had been over me. But I was going to ignore that slight pain. I wasn’t going to think about it. His career had been the most important part of his life. There was no competition there, and I understood it.

You couldn’t change a person’s priorities. I couldn’t make myself more important. I was lucky enough to have been so high up on at least two other people’s lists.

“I like you so much,” he amended while I kicked my thoughts aside. “It would have been fine. I would have been there, here, wherever you were.”

Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve.

And then there was that present tense.

“I’m sorry again for the things my mum said today. She thinks she means well, even when she meddles and says things—”

“She’s just watching out for you,” I told him. “She doesn’t know me, and I’m sure you’ve had more than enough girls throwing themselves at you before because they know who you are.” And because of that ass. And that face. And all those muscles. But he didn’t need an ego boost right then, or ever, so I didn’t mention any of that. Much less all the good parts that weren’t visible to the naked eye, like his personality.

He had made a face when I said the last sentence, and I couldn’t help but snicker at it.

“I’ve grown up around men in the spotlight, jackass. I’m not stupid.”

Jonah let out a suffering sigh that made me snort, and I could tell he was fighting back a small grin that he wasn’t totally feeling. “Did you not hear what my sister said?”

“What? About you being shy? I was going to ask you about that. You talked to me like nothing from the moment we met.” I’d thought about that period again in the afternoon while I’d been with just Mo. Jonah had instantly started talking to me, smiling, being playful and teasing….

And just… maybe a little bashful, a little more easygoing by not being aggressive or cocky.

But we’d never struggled to talk or get along. He had been the one who invited me to go to dinner after our tour. The one who had asked me for my number so we could go to the Louvre together. He was the one who’d posted a picture of us together hours after we’d met.

The point was, he had never been shy around me. He had never used that ultra-quiet voice in my presence. But I’d witnessed it around others. I really hadn’t thought much of it when we would go out to eat and he’d lower his voice or just tell me what it was he wanted.

And based on the face that he was making, he was struggling with explaining it, which was actually just more proof that he might be. “I’ve always struggled with strangers,” he admitted with a half-smile. “I didn’t start speaking until I was three. Mum had to take me to therapy for it. Then, when I did start talking, it was only around my family. In school, some of the boys, and the girls, teased me over it, and that made me want to say things less, I reckon.”