Filed to story: The Best Thing by Mariana Zapata
“It’s me. Lenny. I really need to talk to you, so stop being a prick. I’m going back to Houston soon, and we need to talk. We don’t have to see each other. Just a call. Text. Whatever. I don’t give a shit. Please.”
I wasn’t even a little surprised that when the doorbell rang, everyone was in the living room, watching television. Or at least pretending to.
But it wasn’t like I would have expected any different. And it wasn’t like I wanted them to be any different than the way they were: nosey and loyal. If anything, the only thing I was surprised by was that Grandpa hadn’t called Luna to invite her in on the action.
It almost let me down.
I’d have to text her tomorrow to give her an update.
Rolling onto my feet from where I’d been lying on the floor with Mo as she shook the toys in her hands from side to side pretty violently, I headed toward the front door and unlocked it, swinging it wide, not even bothering to look through the peephole.
I stared at the Fucker. The Still an Asshole who was in the same clothes he’d been in earlier: a long-sleeved shirt that was almost a size too big and dark jeans. The only thing different were his eyes. They looked suspiciously puffy and tired instead of stricken and surprised. Mostly hidden in his big hand was a small stuffed bear he seemed to be holding onto tightly.
Whatever.
I still didn’t even bother with a “hi.” I settled for waving him and that enormous body in. “Come on, we can talk in the kitchen.” Which was just far enough away and had a nice swinging door, where the rest of the house couldn’t easily eavesdrop. Not that I honestly thought that would stop my gramps.
He didn’t say a word as I closed the door behind us and waved him again to follow me down the long hallway. I didn’t glance over my shoulder to see if he looked into the living room, where my two favorite men and my favorite girl were still hanging out, like the nosey asses they were. And if he slowed down to look at the baby playing with her toys on the floor, I had no idea either.
It wasn’t like it mattered.
He was here, trying to talk to me, and that’s what we needed to do.
Only seventeen months late.
I waited until the swinging door shut before I gestured toward the stools around the island. Then I went for it. “You said you had questions. Ask.”
I could have said that a little nicer, but… I didn’t feel like it. Not when this uncomfortable feeling settled in my chest as I confirmed that his eyes were puffy. I still couldn’t stand him.
The Prick straightened in the stool he’d taken, his chest expanding with a deep breath before he set the stuffed animal down on the counter, laced those long, solid fingers together and set them on the island in front of him. The damn bear had on a tiny T-shirt that said HOUSTON on it, and I had to force myself to stop looking at it. Those eyes, which were beautiful regardless of how hard I’d punch him in the kidneys if our lives weren’t so entwined, met mine and he asked, very, very calmly, very, very quietly in that way I had liked when I had first met him, “Who did you reach out to? To tell me.”
We had already covered this, I thought. But okay. Here we went again.
“I reached out to your brothers and your sisters to get in contact with you. None of them responded to me, even though I sent them each a couple of the pictures I had with you.” I kept going. “I can pull up phone records if you want. I got a new phone six months ago, but I can still turn on my old one if you want to see the messages I sent. I didn’t delete them. I tried contacting you. Maybe not as hard as I could have, but I did try. I reached out to Arnie and Akira, and they promised to pass my message along to you but….” I tipped my head to the side.
Jonah visibly winced, and I sure as hell didn’t imagine the way he swallowed hard before saying, “Akira played for Japan this past season, and Arnie went back to Dunedin. They boxed my things and left them at the team’s office. I haven’t seen either of them since.”
Since his Achilles shit? I pressed my lips together and raised my eyebrows. “That’s convenient. But you can ask them if you want. I’m not lying about any of it. Maybe your brothers and sisters remember my passive-aggressive private messages on Picturegram.”
“Yeah, nah,” he replied quietly, his palm already centering over the middle of his forehead. “I believe you.”
That’s why he’d asked again? Okay.
“How old is she?” he asked after a minute.
“Eight months old.” She’d been conceived toward the end of when we’d known each other.
He must have had his questions ready in his head because he shot one out right after the other with only a bob of his throat. “What day was she born?”
“May 2nd.”
If he was trying to figure out the dates in his head, I wasn’t going to overthink it. I mean, I would ask too if our roles were reversed. I already thought he was a dickhead.
“Her full name?”
“Madeline Hema DeMaio.”
That he reacted to. I could see it by the way his fingers flexed and by the way those round, wide eyes flicked to me in surprise. “Hema?”
If he hadn’t come here, and the day came that she asked whom her dad was, I would have told her. I wouldn’t have hidden his name from her, or the fact she shared it. It was just everyone else that I was keeping that secret from. “She’s yours,” I explained, only barely managed not to add “dipshit” to my answer.
The hand he’d had on his forehead fell away. “Not Collins?”
“You weren’t around. If you decide you want to be part of her life, I’m not opposed to changing it. She’s a DeMaio regardless of what’s on her birth certificate,” I told him, hearing the gruffness in my voice, the question: but are you staying or are you going?
Jonah eyed me seriously… cautiously, and I kind of liked it. “You’d consider it?”
“Yeah. You are her dad,” I answered. “All I wanted was for her to know she’s loved. That she belongs. I didn’t want her to feel any different just in case we were all she ever knew. And if you wouldn’t have shown up, I never would have told anyone you were her dad, at least until she asked.” I swallowed around the lump in my throat and the ball of anger that was there too. “Like I said, nobody knew about you, not even my grandpa or Peter. Not Luna. Well, no one but my roommate back in Paris, but she wouldn’t say anything to anyone. We’ve barely even talked since then.”
He watched me. The problem was, I wasn’t sure what his silence meant. What I did realize though was that it didn’t matter what it meant; what mattered was what was going to happen from here on out.
“I don’t know why you’re here,” I told him. “You said you didn’t know about Mo, and I don’t know why else you would have come, but I need you to make a decision at some point, sooner or later. If you’re right and you did up and disappear because of whatever reasons”—you’re still an asshole, I thought but didn’t say—”then I’m sure this is a shock to you. You can’t make a decision about whether you want to be a dad or not in just a couple hours, and I don’t expect you to.”
Even though he should since this was involving a child’s life. His child’s life. Anyone who wasn’t a deadbeat would already know what they were going to do, but maybe I was being unfair. Hadn’t I had to do some serious thinking in the weeks after I’d taken those tests? Yeah, I had, and I wasn’t enough of a hypocrite to claim otherwise.
I kept going. “But she needs you to make a choice. If you want to be a part of her life, then do it. I know we don’t live down the street from each other, and this is going to be complicated, but I’m not worried about that. I just need to know if you even want to make the effort in the first place.” Or if you’re a piece of shit and don’t.
I made sure to pin him down with a look, but it was totally unnecessary. He was 1000 percent focused on me. Everything about him was. Jonah was thinking big time.
So I didn’t stop.
“If you don’t think you can make her a priority in your life, every day until you die, then we’re going to need you to go. She’s little now, but she isn’t going to stay little, so you have to decide because it’s going to be a lifetime commitment. I don’t want her to ever feel like she’s not important. She’s going to have enough people who try to make her feel that way when she’s older. But I’m not going to let a father figure do that too.”
I held my breath and met his eyes, giving him what my old coach had called my Michael Myers face. Because that’s what I would turn into if he fucked with my chunky monkey. She wasn’t ours yet. He didn’t have the protection of being family to me or Grandpa until he made a choice, and we would both do some sketchy shit without question if we had to. “If you break her heart, I will make you regret ever thinking about playing rugby. So I want you to understand that before you make a decision because there aren’t any takebacks or refunds.
“I will never, ever ask you for a cent if you don’t want to be a part of her life. I won’t ask anything of you. I don’t need anything from you. You’re free to go if you want to go, but you have to make that choice, and it’s a final one unless she decides she wants you around when she’s older,” I finished telling him, fisting my hands at my sides because I could feel them start to get tingly. “You have to go in ready for this, living in another hemisphere and all.” I raised my eyebrows at him. “When you want something to work, you make it work. You’re in or you’re out, Jonah. I just need to know sooner than later. Once you’ve had a chance to think about it.”
You’re in or you’re out. Bam.
We stared at each other. Eye to eye. My dark gray ones trying to burn into his honey-colored browns. Like we were having a competition. A competition that I sure as hell wasn’t going to lose at. Not when Mo was at stake.
Grandpa Gus had been a great white shark for me. Peter a fucking hippo that killed more people on the down-low than a lion. And they had raised me to believe in myself. To defend myself. I’d been called Lenny the Lion for half my life for a reason. I’d turn into Freddy Kruger if I had to. I had no problem being someone’s worst nightmare.
So when his gaze didn’t stray for even a second… I had to narrow my eyes.
And shit got even more real when he kept on looking at me as he let out a deep exhale and spoke in a voice I had never heard from him before. A voice that didn’t belong to the smiling, soft-spoken man I had met who hadn’t known any French and had basically blushed when I had translated for him.
Jonah Collins said, gaze unflinching, “There’s no choice, sweetheart.”
It was my turn to swallow, and it had nothing to do with that dumbass term of endearment he’d used.
“If you say she’s my daughter, she’s my daughter.”
Something hard thumped inside my chest. Something I didn’t want to look at too closely.
“I’m sorry, Lenny,” Jonah said. “I’m sorry I didn’t know.”
My ears started to buzz like they were debating whether or not to believe what he was saying.
As if he knew what I was thinking, he continued on. “I’m sorry I’m just now getting here, but I know now. There’s nothing for me to consider. I’ll be a part of her life, if you’ll let me,” he ended in a voice that had, word by word, started to sound more like him… the intensity in his eyes didn’t waver for a moment. Like we were back at this game, and he was intent on not losing either.
If he was trying to get on my good side… it wasn’t working.
I knew why he was here, and that was the last bond left between us. So I wasn’t going to think about that. Nope.
“There’s quite a bit we need to talk about, I know, but I’d like to start with seeing….” Jonah swallowed, and those nearly almond-shaped eyes widened again. “Seeing my daughter.” He took a breath. “My Mo… if that’s all right.”
Seeing his Mo. His daughter.
I hated his accent. I really did. Him too. More than ever especially when my heart went whack with the way he said those words.
His voice had definitely wobbled, and I told my chest it better not be a bitch and wuss out on me. So he was getting emotional. He wouldn’t be getting emotional if he had just called me back.
If he hadn’t been such an ass.
What I wouldn’t have given to hear those words out of him while I’d been pregnant, even if he didn’t want to be together. I would have settled for that. I would have been okay with just knowing he would be there, instead of leaving this weight around my shoulders that had made me angry and rejected. It wasn’t like we had actually been boyfriend and girlfriend… officially… back in France. We had been together, but I’d never thrown around a title, and neither had he. I would have understood if we’d drifted apart eventually. But at least he wouldn’t have been cut cold turkey from my life.
I wasn’t going to think about that.
“Of course you can see her, but I’m not joking. I need you to be committed to her if you’re planning on being a part of her life. You’re not buying a car you can trade in later on,” I repeated, needing him to understand.
I would kill him myself, and if I didn’t, I knew people who knew people.
And Grandpa Gus was a straight thug sometimes, and I didn’t want to know the people he knew.
But Jonah didn’t hesitate. “I am,” he confirmed with a tip of his chin.
Well….
I wasn’t going to hold my breath that he wouldn’t change his mind. As much as I wouldn’t have minded insulting him by reminding him that he didn’t have the greatest track record, I kept that to myself. At least for now. He could have that much.
This was about Mo. She was young, and if he bounced in the next few weeks, she would never remember. I was fine with giving him a shot now. Better now than later. Because he wasn’t going to get another one if he fucked up, and I’d warned him.
“Come on,” I said, thinking we needed to go ahead and get over him meeting Grandpa Gus.
I wasn’t sure how it was going to go but… tough shit.
He nodded as he got up, following me as we headed back to the living room. All three of them were still there, except Peter had made his way to sit on the floor where I had been, and he was watching her roll from her back onto her stomach and bouncing her butt, hands slapping the floor. She was going to crawl any day now, I could feel it. And that made me smile, even though the silence was stifling.
There was no way I was the only one who sensed the tension in the room.
But there was a reason why I loved Peter and thought the world of his morals and, unfortunately, a reason why I had liked Jonah so much.
“Mo! Say hi!” Peter said. “Hi!”
I could see Mo’s eyes widen either at Peter’s tone or at the man who was then standing right next to me as she moved her head to look in our direction.
I wanted to keep looking at her but decided to focus on the dumbass who had participated in creating this beautiful, perfect child. This child who was going to take ten years off my life but that I loved so much. So fucking much.
Jonah’s eyes went wide, which didn’t surprise me. But the hard swallow he had to take sent something I wasn’t going to inspect too closely straight to my gut. If that wasn’t an emotional gulp, I didn’t know what was. I noticed right then that he was carrying the little stuffed bear and holding it against his thigh.
But the Still an Asshole swallowed hard again as he asked, “Can I… can I touch her?”
I had to settle for answering him with a nod since I didn’t trust myself.
Jonah was still staring at the baby who had stopped trying to roll over to watch him instead, as his voice’s volume took a nosedive, and he said something that had me side-eyeing the fuck out of him. “It’s been a bit since I’ve held a baby, but I suppose it can’t be too difficult to remember, eh?”
Ugh. It wasn’t going to work. This innocent bullshit.
“It’s not that hard,” Peter responded to him. I was pretty sure he was side-eyeing him discreetly too. Measuring him up or something.
I held my breath and forced myself to be decent. For Mo. Damn it.
“I’m sure Grandpa Gus dropped me on the head a few times while he figured things out again, and I turned out all right,” I got myself to say, but only Peter looked over with a smirk that was still tense.
Grandpa Gus grunted though—not taking the bait he would have been all over normally over me being dropped—his eyes glued to the man I still hadn’t introduced him to standing in his living room.
Peter lifted Mo up, and I could only watch as Jonah set the bear he’d brought on the side table, took a step forward and then another, before those big hands went to that not-so-small but still growing and fragile and soft body, and he took her. Hands curled under her little armpits as her feet dangled in the air, looking smaller than usual in comparison to the biceps barely flexing as they held her up for inspection.
Ten fingers. Ten toes. Dark haired. Adorable as fucking shit. I’d wiped her down after speaking to Jonah on the phone and put her in her pajamas: a long-sleeved onesie with the Cookie Monster on the chest.
Jonah took Mo… his daughter… and he said, very softly, very gently, and with just the slightest hint of a tremble in his voice, “Hello, Mo.”
The happiest baby in the world smiled before she replied in her own language.
She passed out in Jonah’s arms.
I wasn’t overthinking it. Mo didn’t know a stranger. She loved being fawned over and didn’t give much of a fuck who paid her attention as long as someone did, which according to Grandpa Gus was exactly the opposite of how I’d been. He claimed I came out of the womb bitch-facing people and had clung to him for dear life like someone was going to try and steal me away. It was only Peter that I had taken to immediately.
But my little nugget had passed right out in her father’s arms thirty minutes after meeting him. Totally and completely out. Peter had taken her then, settling her right back down when she started to fuss at being moved, and headed up to her bedroom. To give me a chance to talk to this dipshit, I guessed.
“When can I see her again?” Jonah asked me as we stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching Peter go up, slowly, shh-shh-shhing the entire time.
It only hurt me a little to answer that. “Whenever you want.”
He nodded, and I could hear the deep breath he took before he turned and lowered his gaze to me. I was five foot eight, but he was still a lot taller than I was.
Not that it mattered. I didn’t know shit about tackling, but I had a purple belt in jiu-jitsu. I had learned a long time ago not to be intimidated by people bigger than me. I wasn’t about to start now. To be fair, his expression as he looked at me was probably almost as intense as the one I’d given him when he first showed up, but I didn’t even think about getting all meek or anything.
He didn’t either apparently. “We need to talk.”
I didn’t want to talk to him, but I nodded. If he was committing, that was one thing. It didn’t change the fact we were going to have to figure out the details of making this work as we went along.
“Have lunch with me tomorrow.”
No.
But for my girl, I would, so I nodded.
“What time are you available?”
I shrugged and heard the distance in my voice. “Whenever.”
His eyes moved back toward the living room, where my grandfather was sitting, more than likely shooting daggers dipped in poison at him with his eyeballs. To give him credit, after Mo had smiled at him, Jonah Collins had shaken Peter’s hand and officially introduced himself. Peter had been polite, but I could tell it was just manners and compromising. For us.
But Grandpa…
He’d taken one look at the hand that Jonah had extended toward him and didn’t move an inch to take it, despite the blatant-ass cough that Peter had aimed at him. Jonah had tucked his hand back in after realizing he wasn’t going to get a handshake and still told him it was nice to meet him with a nod. Grandpa didn’t say a fucking word.
All in all, for my gramps, that hadn’t been so bad.
“Thank you for letting me see her,” Jonah Collins said, still watching me with those clear light brown eyes that were so striking on his tanned face.
I wanted to dislike him, I really did. I wanted to think he was full of shit, but honestly, I didn’t know what to think about his reactions all day. Maybe he was telling the truth or maybe he wasn’t. I was willing to put it aside and just steep in that in private. But at the same time… fuck him. Obviously he didn’t feel that guilty over shit, so why should I spend the rest of my life bitter over someone who hadn’t cared about my feelings in the first place?
Once I thought about it like that… well, since when did I give anybody that kind of power? I was going to live my best life for me, not for somebody else. It made me mad just to think that I’d do otherwise.
I was not going to waste my life being pissed off at someone. I had better shit to do. People didn’t give enough credit to what not giving a fuck could do for you. It was freedom.
“Uh-huh.” I bit the inside of my cheek. “I’m off tomorrow. If you aren’t here by one, I’m not going to wait to eat.”
He nodded tightly.
We made it to the door before he called out over his shoulder, “Lenny.”
“What?” I asked, reaching around his hip to undo the lock and ignoring the side of the tight, high butt inches from my forearm as I did it.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
My hand froze for a second before I brought it back to my side. “Okay.”
He turned around then, aiming that annoyingly intense face at me, looking down in a way that had me wishing for maybe the first time in my life that I was taller. That he didn’t have the ability to have that tiny advantage over me. Once upon a time, I had liked how jacked he was.
But that had been once upon a time.
And I remembered now that I had never been crazy about fairy tales in the first place.
And even with those thoughts, I still wasn’t prepared for all that size and mass focused solely on me as he said in a voice that had lost all traces of uncertainty and choking emotion, “I didn’t mean to leave like that. I swear. I didn’t know.”
I didn’t say a word. I wasn’t going to brush this off and make it seem like him leaving or not knowing was not a big deal. But I didn’t need to bring it up every three seconds either, I realized. You didn’t help an injury by aggravating it constantly. And it wasn’t like I was ever going to forget what happened.
Maybe he knew that… maybe he knew it was the best thing to let me keep my silence… because he opened the door then and stepped out. It wasn’t until he turned around and reached inside to grab the handle while I stood there that he said it again, “I’m not leaving, Lenny.”
I wasn’t holding my breath, and I was pretty sure he knew that.