The urge to go back in time and kick a bunch of little kids in the ass was really strong then.

Jonah gave me a twisted smile in the darkness of Mo’s bedroom. “I told you I was this skinny wee thing. No girls liked me back then, and I’ll tell you that messes with a mate’s head. It changes the way you see things and people when you get teased for being yourself, like you’ve got some other choice in the matter. Once I grew, everything changed. The only thing that made me special to other people was my size and being good at footy. So, yeh. I had a hard time with people I didn’t know then, and now it’s worse, you know. Not just with talking, but with trusting another person to do… things like that with.”

That? Sex?

And seriously, what asshole had been teasing him back in the day for being skinny and little?

He couldn’t read my mind, so he didn’t answer or explain, but he did keep moving right along. “Everyone is out for fame or for more than that. If I told you the stories I’ve heard about the things some women have done… asking for money, tampering with protection, phone footage…”

Unfortunately, I knew all about that.

“Women don’t want me because they know me, Lenny,” he explained softly. “They only see the jersey. Not me.” He paused. “I’m sure you know that with all your manly knowledge.”

“My manly knowledge?” was what my mouth repeated.

And it made Jonah smile like he hadn’t just told me about being teased for the things he couldn’t change as a kid and how it had affected him then and even now as an adult. He could go out there and play in front of thousands and thousands of people, but talking to strangers was what made his balls sweat. Because somewhere deep down inside, he expected them to make fun of him too, I guessed.

And I couldn’t remember the last time something had touched me so deeply.

Or made me want to protect him that much more.

How hard must it be for him to play this sport he loved, be so good at it and popular, and get so much negative shit for it at the same time? It made sense now more than ever why he had fallen into such a black hole after his injury. Because of how other people had made him feel. Because they had made him think the only special thing about him was rugby. Hadn’t his own mom brought that up during lunch multiple times? His career and success?

This fucking man.

I didn’t know how someone I still wanted to hate could slip so deeply under my ribs. I really didn’t.

“You said it,” Jonah quietly teased back after a moment. “You grew up around professional athletes. You know what it’s like for us.”

I scowled at him.

He smiled. “But I don’t want to talk about that anymore, eh. My mum was awful to you, and that’s what’s important. It’s my fault, Len. All I told her was that I was off to holiday once the season ended. All I was expecting was to come and talk to you and see if you could forgive me.”

I swallowed his words and tried to process what they meant.

“Then you told me about Mo and….” His plans had changed. His life had. I got it. “She was upset when I mentioned I was spending the rest of my time here instead of going back to En Zed. I was going to explain, but… I just wanted to enjoy this as much as I could. She must have known something was going on because she called every day. Most I’ve talked to her since I was a boy.” The hand he had on the crib slid a few inches to the side. Closer to my own hand. “She came without warning me. I finally posted on Picturegram while working out and didn’t realize the location had been tagged. That’s how she found out where I was. She had no idea about Mo. No idea about you. Until now.”

About me?

I rocked on my feet. “So she’s usually really nice when she hasn’t just found out randomly that she’s a grandma?”

His laugh was awkward and said everything. “Eh… I don’t know if I’d say that. She’s always wanted the best for us. Always pushed us and supported us in her way. But only my second oldest brother has lived up to her hopes. The rest of us… not so much all the time. It’s all good. It’s easier to let her say what she wants and do what we want.” He laughed again, still rusty and tense, his fingers moving even closer to the ones I had almost beside his. “But she’ll be better with you. She promised. I told her everything. About the phone calls and the emails and the messages…. About why I came.” He gave me a pointed look that I wasn’t totally sure what to make of. Did he want her to know that he’d come… to see me?

“I reckon she understands now, and I’m sorry for that,” he said. “You shouldn’t have had to defend yourself or think you aren’t good enough.”

“I know I’m good enough,” I said, earning a quick glance and a quicker, slighter smile. “But I get it. I’m not winning any beauty competitions or charm awards.”

Those big brown eyes widened. “What’s a charm award?”

“The same thing you aren’t winning either, stupid,” I muttered, getting a big grin and laugh that he tried his best to muffle when Mo’s eyes instantly opened in response. “Look, I get it. I’m not what any mom would want for her precious baby.”

His laugh cut off immediately and so did the smile on his face. “Yeah, nah, Len. Why do you say things like that?”

I felt my lips drop out of the smile they’d been in.

“You’re smart, and you’re so damn funny.” I’d swear his eyes twinkled. “I could look at you all day, if it was possible.”

I shut the hell up.

“And I’d tell you what I think about all the rest of you if I didn’t think you’d knock me to the ground again,” Jonah admitted quietly, the smile he gave me afterward, small.

This big, massive man was smiling shyly.

God help me.

Even the hand I had on Mo’s foot stopped moving at what he’d just said.

I’d had more than a handful of—mostly drunk—guys tell me that they thought I was hot or goddamn, that fucking body, but I took it with a grain of salt. Beer goggles were real. I’d seen them in action. And I didn’t give a fuck what those guys thought. Or what most people thought. I saw myself in the mirror clearly.

But this man saying those words…? About me? To me?

Jonah kept on smiling—and fucking stealing my heart straight out of my chest even though I was trying to cling onto it for dear life—and then he did it some more with the “Heh” that came out of his throat.

All I could do was look at him, so that’s what I did even as I swallowed again and said the words I should probably regret in the future but probably wouldn’t. “If you’re trying to get me to want to sleep with you again, it’s working.”

He blinked. “I….” He closed his mouth. Opened it again, said, “Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re joking with me or not.”

I wasn’t.

But I also wasn’t sure I wanted to repeat that sentence either.

Instead, I smiled at him and looked back down at Mo like that would win me a break to get my own thoughts together.

Well, it wasn’t news to me that I didn’t look like Freddy Krueger.

And even though I knew it wasn’t cool or mysterious or flirty or smooth, I found the words, and even though they made me uncomfortable, I still threw them back out into the world. Into Jonah’s direction. “I had started to think that I’d forced you to talk to me.” My lips moved to the side, and I had to fight the urge to grimace-smile at him. “I know I’m not soft or even that nice or sweet or girly. Not that there’s anything wrong with being that way or not being that way, but I know not everybody is into… that.” Me. And my sometimes bad attitude. And my bluntness. And a bunch of other aspects of my personality that I wasn’t going to apologize for.

The lines across his forehead and at the corners of his eyes grew deeper as those eyes moved across my face, and it was right then that big, warm fingers covered in calluses covered mine. And Jonah’s voice was a low, husky thing I didn’t know what to do with. “You didn’t force me to do anything, love.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he shook his head. “And you are all those things, they’re just mixed in with all those other traits I like even more.”

His fingertips slid from my knuckles to my fingertips and back, and his smile grew a little wider, a little more brilliant, as he said, “You’ve got the sweetest face, even when you’re throwing out every insult in the English language.” Jonah’s eyes bounced from one of mine to the other, and he asked quietly, “Do you know why I could talk to you when we met?”

I didn’t.

“You were sitting on a bench at the architectural museum while we waited for the tour organizer to come around to sign everyone in.”