of me on why I didn’t immediately slap his fingers away.
Jonah Collins took my hand with those strong fingers—while I sat there like a dumbass—flipping it over in the blink of an eye, so that my palm sat upward on my desk, and then set his own palm on top of it. His hand swallowed mine, making it seem a lot smaller than it actually was. The same way it had so long ago.
Before he’d left.
Before he’d changed my life for the better.
And also pissed me off in a way that was beyond fucking words.
I jerked my hand out from under his.
Fisting my hand, I set it on my thigh for a second before returning it to my desk because fuck it. I wasn’t going to hide shit from him.
He was the one who did the hiding.
Those honey-colored eyes were still on me, and I could see the deep, drawn breath he took in. I didn’t care if I hurt his feelings. He’d hurt mine enough. And he was real fucking lucky I was being this mature. That I was willing to let him be here in the first place.
But before I could say anything else, his shoulders pushed back and his chin went up again in that way I had only seen him do on the rugby field… pitch, whatever it was called. Like he was pumping himself up to deal with me. I ignored how that might have made me feel.
“Have lunch with me,” the Fucker said softly in that accented voice that I wasn’t attracted to anymore.
I said “no” instantly.
His shoulders stayed back as he tried again. “Brekkie?”
Breakfast? Why was he doing this? “What the hell do you want, Jonah?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. The man let his eyes drift over my face slowly, and I was pretty sure he held his breath. “I understand that you’re mad—” That was as far as he got before I stopped him.
“Mad?” I snapped before I could remind myself that I needed to keep it cool. “You think I’m mad?”
If anything, the word pissed would be more accurate for how I’d felt a year ago. Months ago, even. But not now.
He sat up just a little, but just enough to make those big, flat muscles flex under the long-sleeved white T-shirt with a tiny Adidas logo that was gripping his shoulders for dear life. The asshole made sure he was making total eye contact with me, keeping that fucking face nice and even as he responded way too calmly, “Yes. I can see you are, Lenny. You have that face you make when you’re bothered, squinty eyes and all,” the man from New Zealand answered in that way that was so second nature to him, I couldn’t believe I had liked the shit out of it in the past. “I want to talk to you about it. Explain.”
Why the hell was he acting like… like… it was just a matter of talking? Like I’d want to pick back up on the way we had been with each other where we teased each other? This asshole was going to make me burst a fucking blood vessel.
Breathe, Lenny. This isn’t about you. Be decent. You don’t have to shit out sugarplums for this dipshit.
With a breath in through my nose and right back out, I managed not to bite down hard on my back teeth as I got my shit back together. Again. “Unless it’s about something relating to Maio House,” I told him carefully, “or about what you still haven’t wanted to bring up on your own, there’s no reason for us to talk, Jonah. I’ve said everything I needed to say already. I told you how I feel about anything you might want to explain.” I paused. “I don’t care.”
His tongue poked at the inside of his cheek as he shifted his weight around. He fisted his hands again as he leaned forward, managing to keep his voice and features even, like this wasn’t going downhill and I wasn’t shooting down his bullshit. “I understand you don’t want to hear it.” Those eyes my favorite color in the world moved over my face again, slowly, so, so slowly it made me uncomfortable. “But I need to explain,” he said, never blinking, or breaking eye contact or doing anything but laser-beaming that gaze on me. “I want to tell you what’s happened.” He swallowed. “I need to tell you.”
To give him credit, everything about his body language, from the way the tendons