was making my whole year by being mad, that I put a hand on that beefy-ass upper arm and told him calmly, “I’m only going because if I don’t, he’ll never drop it. Whatever it is he’s thinking isn’t going to go away with time. He needs to totally understand what the situation is, and he won’t listen if I do that in front of you, Jonah.”
He opened his mouth, but I kept going.
“I’m not going to dinner with him. I don’t even want to meet with him period, and I’m only doing this because he was my friend for a long time.”
“He hasn’t been your friend for a long time either.”
That was a good point. “But he was my friend for a long time first. I know what I’m doing. I know who I’m dealing with. I’m talking to him for thirty minutes at the juice bar. I was trying to be considerate of your feelings, if you don’t see that.”
This man I had so rarely seen lose his shit, huffed, shook his head, and then nodded all in less than a minute. “Bloody considerate.” He took a step back and swallowed hard. “I need to finish my workout. Good luck over juice.”
I didn’t say shit as he walked out, and I waited to smile until he was way out of the office.
That little jealous asshole.
I loved it.
Hours later, after I’d spent two of them on the phone arguing with the cleaning company about how they had double-charged me—Maio House—I was still feeling a little on edge as I headed toward the juice bar.
It wasn’t that I was dreading my conversation with Noah, because I wasn’t.
I already knew what the outcome would be, and it was going to suck, and it was probably going to be uncomfortable, but… it had to be done. That chapter of my life, the one that had him in it was over. He’d made his choice, and even if he changed his mind now, it was too late.
The thing was, he wasn’t going to change his mind.
I could see that by the way he had reacted when I had just brought Mo up.
The other thing was, I didn’t regret shit.
The training facility part of the building was starting to fill up with guys filtering in slowly, taking their time talking outside of the locker rooms and making loud noises inside them. Peter was already leading his group of ten men through warm-ups that consisted of jogging the perimeters of the mats with their full gear on: head protection, shin, chest, and gloves.
I had spilled the details about Noah showing up an hour ago when he’d first arrived, and it hadn’t been hard at all to notice the way Peter’s normally easygoing eyes had narrowed and the way his head had lulled to the side more than normal while I’d recounted most of the incident.
Minus Jonah getting all butthurt and jealous over it. That was my own personal little treat I got to indulge in.
The other thing I got to enjoy was the long, warm hug that Peter had given me before we’d noticed the time; he had to get back out on the floor. His arms had still been around me while he’d said in that calm way he had about him constantly, “We outgrow clothes the same way we outgrow people, Len. We change inside the same way we do outside.”
It was that thought that I had in my heart and my head as I pushed open the door that led to the walkway and then a few moments later as I opened the connecting door to the main part of the gym. It was in its early stages of getting packed. In fifteen minutes, the cardio machines would be filled and three-fourths of the dumbbells would be missing from their racks. I waved at a few people I recognized but kept on walking, not wanting to get distracted. I had thirty minutes for this; then I was going to tell the assistant manager on duty that I was going home.
Turning toward the juice bar, I smiled at Bianca when she caught my eyes, and she smiled back at me a second before I noticed that Noah wasn’t there. The employee behind the counter was moving quickly through whatever the customer in front of him had ordered, with a line of two more people. I fought off the irritation that Noah wasn’t around and took the last stool along the counter, hooking my