the urge to flare my nostrils. “I’m sorry, but I’m leaving in a minute.”
Jonah straight-up frowned, but I ignored it as this terrible idea settled into my brain—revenge, it was revenge because I was a petty shit—and it took everything inside of me not to smile at it.
“But,” I continued on, “Grandpa is staying. You can stay with him if you don’t mind him shooting ugly faces at you and being sarcastic and a little rude.”
The look the old man sent me would have me rolling in private later on when he couldn’t see me losing it.
I wasn’t sure what it said about Jonah when he thought about it for all of a second and then ducked his stubble-covered chin. “If he’ll have me, sure.”
“He will not—” Grandpa Gus started to say before I cut him off.
“It would be his pleasure,” I finished, shooting Grandpa a smug smile before eyeing the book in Jonah’s hand again for a second.
He knew firsthand payback was a bitch. Just as well as I knew that he was going to scare the living shit out of me in revenge when I was least expecting it. But whatever. Then I’d scare him back, and our vicious cycle would continue.
“Lenny, are you ready to—” Peter started to call out as he ducked his head into the kitchen before blinking. “Oh. Hello, Jonah.”
“Peter,” the biggest man greeted him.
Peter’s eyes slid to me. “Change of plans?”
“Nope. Jonah is staying with Lestat here.”
Peter pressed his lips together, and his eyebrows arched up a little too.
“You’re going with Peter?” Jonah asked.
I lifted a shoulder.
His shoulders dropped maybe a quarter of an inch and his mouth made a little O for a moment before he said, “If you made plans, you should go.”
I agreed. You shouldn’t go back on your word. Plus, I hadn’t thought about canceling on Peter period.
“If you’re sure...” Peter trailed off, warning me it was a bad idea that we were leaving these three alone, but it amused him anyway, and he was trying to not show it. “Ready?”
Grandpa puffed out his cheeks, confirming yet again that Peter had said something to get him to calm down on the comments.
“I’m ready,” I told him, before dipping down to give Mo a kiss on each cheek and one on her forehead. “I love you. I’ll be right back, booger. Be good.”
Her answering babble probably claimed she was always good. That, or she was telling me to fuck off because she knew what she was doing.
I made a face I wouldn’t call a smile at Jonah, even though he gave me a real one, and gave my grumpy grandfather a kiss on the cheek. “Good luck and behave. Mo and I won’t go visit you in jail.”
I didn’t miss Grandpa Gus’s snicker as I followed Peter out the side door and around his car. We had barely gotten buckled in when he burst out laughing, tossing his head against the headrest. “That was cold, Lenny.”
“That’s what he gets.”
He snorted as he held his palm out to me, and I smacked it.
“He’s not comfortable enough standing,” I told Peter on our way back home two and a half hours later.
My father/uncle/friend figure nodded as he steered us down the street that would spit us out closer to our neighborhood. “I know. I’ve talked to him about it over and over again. I’ve talked to his striking coach too, but they aren’t working on it enough. He’s relying too much on takedowns when he isn’t consistent enough with them either. His submissions are weak. He relies too much on brute strength and doesn’t think enough. I might ask Gus to come see what he thinks.”
It sucked when fighters from our gym lost. I felt like I lost when they did, and I hated losing. It happened. It was a part of life, but it still sucked.
Yet, I could safely say that we knew a minute into the amateur MMA fight that Carlos, who I was fairly certain had ratted me out to Noah, was going to lose. All the yelling Peter and I had both done—so much that my throat felt raw and his sounded hoarse—had been ignored. Every “Elbow!”, “Watch the arm!”, “Grab the leg!”, and “Level changes!” had been ignored. Every. Single. One.
I almost felt bad for the kid. Peter was going to rip him a new one tomorrow for not listening. I knew some fighters totally zoned out everything going on around them, but in MMA especially, you