you like that. You sure you don’t deal with arseholes like that regularly?”
I wished he didn’t suddenly sound so concerned, especially when that tone he’d used and that face he’d made were still so fresh in my head. “Not often. Every once in a while.”
He didn’t exactly look like he believed me.
But I still couldn’t help but eye him as my bitch-ass ovaries decided to stretch out right then and remind me they were there. Awake. Listening. Paying way too much attention.
Ah, fuck it.
“I don’t know how to tell you this without it coming out wrong….”
“All right….” He trailed off too, beginning to give me a smile that seemed nervous and wary and curious at the same time. “Should I be worried?”
I shook my head, still fucking eyeballing his face, seeing the cheeks slowly, slowly turning pink on their own. “Here I’d been thinking this whole time that you were so nice and sweet and too good to be true, and now you just used that I’m-gonna-kill-you voice, and you were looking at him like you might hurt him, and….” Honest to God, I sighed as his eyebrows went up and that mouth tipped up a little higher in reaction. “You’ve got a little bit of an alpha thing going on in that polite-ass body, buster.”
His face definitely went pink then, but his voice remained playful. “Only a little?”
“Is there more in there? Because I don’t think I’m ready for more anytime soon. I’m still in shock.” I rocked back on my heels, peering at him and all that tan skin and white scars and sun lines and that blushing fucking face that shouldn’t have belonged on that body.
His palm went up to scrub at the cheek that was already beginning to get bristly this early in the morning, and I could barely hear him as he coughed, sounding almost fucking shy or maybe embarrassed, “I’d like to think so.”
I snickered and couldn’t help but smile at Blushing Pants. “I think I’m going to have to start watching your rugby games again if that’s when Jonah with a capital J comes out.”
That palm went over his face again as he tipped it back, and I could see him press his lips together. I was pretty sure I heard him snort before replying, “I suppose you should. I don’t want you thinking I’m Jonah with a small j all the time.”
I laughed.
A sense of longing hit me, reminding me of the friendship we had built up so quickly. The friendship that had turned into something more just as quickly. I had liked this man. I had liked him a lot.
This was the asshole I had missed. The one who had given me a reason to be so pissed off when he’d left. I had missed that guy.
“I like Jonah with a little j too,” I told him honestly, letting that easiness of how well we got along fill my heart and remind me yet again that I had done the right thing letting him be here. “I knew there was a reason you’re the one I had a baby with, Jonah with a capital J.” And then I took a step back, because it was easy being friends with him, but I didn’t need to confuse the rest of me by feeling things that could change that. “Thank you for scaring him. You’re the first person to stand up for me like that in about twenty years. It was nice, and I appreciate it.”
He blinked and the very tall man, who I had mistakenly thought was all teddy bear but really had some honey badger DNA in him apparently, smiled at me with that gentle, sweet smile that I really did like a little too much. More than the serial killer one, if I had to pick. “Anything for you, Len.”
And there he went.
I took another step back and didn’t totally have to force my next smile. What was the last thing he’d said? About having lunch? “I need to go get Peter some water. Come get me if you want to eat later… if you still want to have lunch with me without Mo around. I brought my food, but it’ll be good tomorrow.”
He nodded, and I was only a few feet away when he called out, “I wasn’t inviting you to eat to see Mo, Len.”
I fought a smile as I went to the break room and filled up a bottle of water before heading back to the cage.