want.”
Jonah’s smile fell off.
What he didn’t see was one of the other guys from the gym hitting the guy who’d piped up in the thigh and whispering something in his ear that had him leaning forward and looking across the room at the man sitting on the couch.
“I’m good,” I replied, still watching the biggest man in the room.
Clutching the baby monitor under one arm and my water in my other hand, I waited until the end of a round to hop across the floor, stepping on someone’s toes before I made it to the far end of the room.
“Lenny,” Jonah called out, sitting up straight on the couch, scooting forward enough so that he was perched on the end of it, one hand on the armrest. “Sit here.”
I shook my head as I took another step closer, so close I was directly beside him and the couch. “If you pass me that pillow, I’ll be fine on the floor,” I said just as the commentators on the television started talking about what needed to happen in the final round of the fight that was on.
The father of my child shot me a look.
I shot him one back, already slowly lowering myself to the floor to his right. “I’m serious,” I promised him. “If I wanted to sit on the couch, I would. Cushion, please.”
That serious-ass expression didn’t go anywhere as he pulled out the toss pillow that was wedged in between his side and the couch before handing it to me. I set it on the floor, and then parked my ass on top of it, my back against the front of the armrest part of the couch. I scooted over an inch to the left to bring the long length of Jonah’s lower leg closer to me, so I could lean against it slightly.
He didn’t move away as I scooted in, setting the baby monitor down on my other side along with my glass of water.
The last thing I remembered was yawning as I focused in on the television and tried to recall any information I could about the two men fighting in the cage.
I passed out.
At least, I didn’t realize I had passed out until sometime later when I woke up because something was hurting from the general vicinity of my neck.
I opened both eyes slowly, not surprised at all I’d fallen asleep and licked my lips as I focused in on a few things.
One: apparently I’d started hugging and leaning against Jonah’s leg because I had an arm around it, and there was a wet spot over his jeans right by his knee that had to belong to me.
Two: The main fight was over because what was playing on the television wasn’t anything that involved two highly trained fighters trying to win a lot of money. Instead, on our eighty-inch TV, there were a lot of sweaty men running fast across a field, passing a ball from one person to another. Some of them were wearing red jerseys, others were wearing blue jerseys. But it was the short shorts on the screen that confirmed they were watching rugby.
Three: At least half the room had emptied, but Grandpa Gus was still there, so was Peter, and I didn’t know who else to my left.
But most importantly, Jonah was talking quietly. Not in his Mighty Mouse voice, but in a very, very soft one.
And it had to be Jonah who had his fingers loose and heavy over my head as he murmured to someone, “The scrum only happens when there’s been a minor infringement and play has to be restarted.”
“But how do you know when play has to be restarted?” a voice I faintly recognized asked.
“You’re a dumbass. How do you know when any play in any game has to be restarted? When somebody fucks up. Like a foul. What do you think an infringement is?” another voice I also recognized answered.
I yawned as Grandpa Gus’s voice piped in with, “The big one right there is bleeding, and he’s getting into that… what’d you call it? Scum?”
“Scrum,” Jonah corrected.
That word reminded me of how he’d told me so long ago that he had started wearing a scrum cap to protect his ears at his grandmother’s insistence.
“But they aren’t taking him out of the game?” Grandpa asked.
The fingers on the top of my head stirred over my hair. “Yeh. Rugby isn’t… like that. Unless there’s a head injury and an HIA is needed—”
“What’s an HIA?” that was Peter who