And if my little heart fawned all over him being so… aware… I wasn’t going to fault that bitch either. Meticulousness, giving a shit, that was attractive. Paired up with that body….

I’d swear he had been made to ring every single one of my bells.

This guy who had to fucking leave.

An hour later, after spending all of five minutes pushing Mo on the toddler swing before she started hanging over the edge like she was measuring the distance to the ground for a dive, we loaded her up into her stroller and decided to make a walk out of it.

I’d spotted Jonah and Sarah both taking pictures of Mo on the swing, happy and excited, talking nonstop, and acting like she didn’t have a care in the world.

Because she didn’t.

Because she had people who loved her and would shoulder every burden so she didn’t have to until it was necessary.

I couldn’t help but glance at the person walking right beside me, a big man whose size alone caught the attention of most people we passed by.

That was when he decided to glance down at me, as his mom pushed Mo in the stroller a few feet ahead of us. “What’s that look for?”

“Just admiring the weather,” I lied.

He knew because he made a face.

“You haven’t been here long enough, but this is pretty nice.” Mid-sixties and blue skies? It was.

His hand went to his head, but he didn’t exactly look like he believed me. “What’s it like during the summer?”

Shit. “Hot and a little humid.”

He didn’t even try to keep himself from wrinkling his nose.

“What? New Zealand doesn’t give out pleasant doses of humid air and heat so bad that you can burn bare thighs on leather seats?”

He was still wrinkling his nose, still being just fucking adorable, when he replied, “Ah, no. It’s not too hot or too humid compared to here, sounds like.”

“And the winter?”

I didn’t miss the pause he took, but I didn’t think much of it either because he hadn’t lived there in years, maybe he’d forgotten. “It’s pretty great in the winter too.”

All I could do was “huh” him. “Better than France in the winter?”

He flashed me a funky smile as he nodded. Then he kept going, not letting me linger. “It’s summer back home now.”

Home. That was a fucking word. I fisted my hand at my side and asked, “Do you miss it?”

He didn’t instantly nod, but when he did, it was heavy. Direct. “Yeah, I do. When I think of home that’s where it is. I’ve moved quite a bit, but that’s where my family is. Mum, Dad. Natia. Two of my brothers; the oldest lives in Aussie. My sister’s in Melbourne too. My nan, granddad, aunties, and uncles… they’re all home. I was planning on seeing them, but….” He trailed off.

He wasn’t sure what his plan was now.

Because of Mo. Me too technically.

And I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. Just a little when I thought about how long his season was. How short his time to relax and refresh himself was. And he was staying with us now.

If it was me who didn’t get to see Grandpa Gus and Peter on the regular and only had three months to spend with them when I loved them so much, and then I didn’t get to see them when I more than likely had looked forward to doing so all year….

Family was responsibility. Family was family. At least when you had a good one. And mine might be small, but it was the best. His might be a lot bigger than mine, and I might be on the fence with how I felt about his mom, but it was clear he loved them.

And he was sacrificing his only time with them to be here.

Fuck.

But most importantly, I knew we had to have this conversation, finally. We had put it off long enough. I had put it off long enough.

But I had to go one topic at a time first.

“Jonah….” I forced a smile onto my face as I nudged his hand with the back of mine. “You should probably go see them before your vacation is over.”

The lids on his light brown eyes slowly lowered. “You want me to go?”

“I don’t want you to go, but I’d understand if you did. You said it yourself that you had plans to see them, didn’t you?”

He didn’t respond, which confirmed that yeah, he’d had plans.

Of course he would. More guilt stirred up my chest.

“They’re your family. My soul would probably die if I didn’t get to see Grandpa or Peter every once in a while. And you’ve been in France, what? At least since you were cleared to play again? So what’s that been? At least five months?” I forced another smile onto my face. “You should go. I get it. Mo will understand.”

Jonah gave me a long look over his shoulder before nudging my hand back with his. “I was planning on going home to help at my granddad’s farm,” he finally said. “It’s what I do for a few weeks every holiday, Lenny. And you’re right, family is important. Family is the most important.” He glanced at me again, the edge of his mouth tilting up as he made a noise that sounded a hell of a lot like a sigh. “But you and Mo are my family too.”

Should the f-word out of his mouth have felt the way it did? Like a sharp, thin knife sliding straight into my gut in a good way? Was that normal?

“I’ve told you. I’ve missed too much time.” His hand nudged mine again a moment before his fingers wrapped around mine loosely. “Too much, love. I’ll make it up to them for missing out on this holiday, but they would want me here. They would understand why this is where I need to be.”

This is where he needed to be.

Here.

I hated him as much as I didn’t hate him. That was the truth. The annoying truth.

All right, I didn’t hate him at all.

And because I would never admit that, I reached forward, trying my best to ignore the ache in my chest, and tapped the knuckle of my index finger against his forehead.

One corner of his mouth went up. “What was that?”

I dropped my hand. “I’m making sure it sounds like you have a human skull in there and you aren’t some kind of perfect fucking cyborg that killed off the original Jonah and now you’re here to take his place and planning to kill me in my sleep in twenty years.”

Those long lashes fell again, and he asked very slowly, “What are you talking about?”

I didn’t even bother not groaning. I groaned. “You’re too perfect, numbnuts. You’re too good of a person, and you’re too good with your words, and it annoys me.”

That earned me another blink and the slowest, creeping smile I’d ever seen in my life. So slow that I was mostly prepared for the huge, blinding one he aimed right at me. His eyebrows had crept up too, lighting up his face that much more. “Is that what you think? That I would wait twenty years to kill you if that was my plan?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, probably. But I know there has to be something wrong with you. I bet you’re totally tone deaf and can’t sing to save your life.”

This asshole cocked his head to the side, dimple popping, and said, “Nah. I’ve been told I have a lovely voice.”

“If your mom said it, it doesn’t count.”