Chapter Twenty-Four

Jonah

“That’s three for three,” Jonah said, feeling a little full of himself.

“It was the treats, wasn’t it?” Evie asked. She was sitting in the break room at Grinder with her laptop opened, a stack of spreadsheets covering the table.

“I feel like Willy Wonka has moved into my house.”

“I went big-girl potty,” Waverly said, proudly running to Evie and putting her hands in the air.

Evie lifted her onto her lap and snuggled her into her arms. The picture it made caused something in his chest to pinch painfully.

“You must be so proud of yourself. I know I am.” Evie pressed a kiss to Waverly’s fine hair, which was secured into two uneven pigtails. But the hair was up and out of her face, her bows were matching, and she’d actually used a big-person toilet.

He’d take the win.

“I wants cookie,” Waverly demanded, all innocent and mischievously.

“By the chocolate lipliner, my guess is you already ate your cookie,” Evie said. Her eyes met Jonah’s over his daughter’s head and—bam—it was like a sledgehammer to the chest. Every detail of the other day came rushing back. And not just the naked part. It was the way she had felt in his arms and how her lips had melded against his as they’d kissed for the better part of an hour. They’d kissed until his legs went numb and his lips were swollen from her playful little nips. They’d kissed until they’d heard a car pull into the drive and then they’d laughed as he’d struggled to get back into his shorts with a raging hard-on and sneak out the back door.

He’d actually had to hop the fence like some horny teen boy who’d snuck into his girlfriend’s bedroom late at night. Only she wasn’t his girlfriend, not his real one, and he needed to remember that. Especially in these moments when the feelings were connected to his kids—who she was great with, by the way.

“She had two,” Jonah said, and Evie laughed.

“Sucker.”

“You said make it rain chocolate. I’m making it rain and getting results. She hasn’t been sent home from school once this week,” Jonah said.

“You haven’t?” Evie directed the question to Waverly, then pulled her into a hug. “What a big girl you’re becoming.”

Waverly puffed her chest out a little, but then her body sank into Evie’s as if taking in every ounce of female connection. He couldn’t take his eyes off them, nor keep his thoughts from going to a dangerous place.

He’d seen Evie hold Waverly hundreds of times over the past two years, but this time was different. He was different. Jonah didn’t know how, didn’t like it, but it was the truth.

“If it’s okay, you and I can go have a little tea party, Way,” Lenard said from the door, only he wasn’t looking at Waverly; his gaze was trained on Jonah. Laser sharp and filled with warning.

Jonah wasn’t sure what his expression had said, but it was enough to throw Lenard into waiting-on-the-porch-with-a-shotgun mode. Jonah knew that both their families had bought the story hook, line, and sinker. Not Lenard. He’d been suspicious from the word beau.

“That would be great,” Jonah said. “That will give Evie and me some uninterrupted time. To go over the books,” he added quickly.

“Uh-huh,” Lenard said, then held out his hand to Waverly, who took it with a gleeful squeal. Jonah watched the two of them walk out the door, but not before Lenard shot him another look.

Hurt her and I will break your face.

It was a ridiculous threat coming from a five-foot-nine, buck-fifty of a man who wore silky Tommy Bahama shirts. But Jonah’s stomach hollowed out anyway. He wanted to say that Lenard was directing the threat to the wrong person, because if anyone was bound to get hurt it was not going to be Evie.

Oh no, Evie had been MIA since that day in her kitchen. The only way he could pin her down today was that they were going over the shop’s accounting. He wasn’t ashamed to use his number-prowess to get some alone time with her, only she’d picked a time when she knew Waverly wouldn’t be in school. Well, it looked like she was losing her travel-sized shield and would have to deal with him one-on-one—and he intended to use this moment to his advantage.

“Thanks, Lenard,” Jonah said.

“Uh-huh,” Lenard said again as he disappeared around the corner holding Waverly’s pudgy little hand.

The door closed. Silence fell.

“I’ve been going over what you put together. I can’t believe you did all this work. It must have taken you hours,” she said, not meeting his gaze.

“It’s no big deal.” He got up and walked around the desk, taking the seat next to her.

“It is. It can really help, maybe even get the shop into the black.”

He knew what game she was playing. She wanted to make this about the arrangement. About a favor for a favor.

“I mean, sourcing the coffee beans from a different vendor is an interesting idea.” She finally met his gaze, and he saw the genuine concern there. Realized how much pressure she was putting on herself to make everything work smoothly. Maybe she hadn’t been avoiding him. Maybe she was just that overwhelmed.

If she needed to make this about work, then he’d give her the space she needed.

“But Dad’s been buying from the same guy for thirty years.”

“He’s charging you twenty percent more than going direct.” He rustled through the papers to find the invoice from their coffee supplier. “You could get it at Costco for less.”

“Costco isn’t authentic Italian beans.”

“No, but this guy is.” He located the spreadsheet of vendors he’d already vetted and pointed to the next line. “And this company supplies cups, lids, and containers for a fraction of the cost if you order in bigger quantities.”

“This is great. It really is, and I appreciate all the time you put into this, but it’s not going to move the needle enough to make enough of a difference.”

Her fingers were in her lap, knotted in her apron. He reached over and rested his hand over hers in a supportive gesture and the air crackled between them. For the first time since they’d been left alone she met his gaze and, whoa baby, crackle didn’t even begin to describe the electricity sizzling between them.

“You got this,” he said with velvet confidence. “Just trust your gut.”

“My gut isn’t all that reliable. Just look at my life,” she whispered, and not for the first time, he wanted to punch her ex in the face. It wasn’t that he’d just left her to figure it out on her own, it was the constant minefield of problems that she was forced to wade through to make sure Camila wasn’t hurt in the process of him “figuring out” his life.

“You are a smart businesswoman. It’s how you managed to run a professional organizer business in such a competitive market. You know what to do, it’s just hard to see the answers when you’re treading water.” He flipped her laptop around and clicked until he found the new business model he’d come up with. “You already identified the biggest solution and that’s expanding your customer base.”

“I’ve identified it, but I can’t figure out how to make it happen. My mom thinks Get Grinding gratitude cards and bake sales are the answer.”

“That could be a part of it.”

“Seriously?”

“Not those exactly, but with a twist. What if you expanded what you offered food-wise? Like a larger selection of muffins, scones, and breakfast sandwiches? You can do gratitude cards, where for every ten coffees a customer gets a free breakfast sandwich. It encourages them to come to Grinder and gets them to try one of your new items.”

“I can barely afford what I’m buying now. Why would I want to increase my costs and give things away?”

“I know this seems counterintuitive, but the only way to reach a new level is to level up. Find new customers by asking local businesses to hand out your Grinder gratitude cards, maybe even do a cross promotion with a few,” he said. “I doubled my portfolio by offering a gratitude present to clients who referred friends and family. I reached out to life insurance companies and offered a finder’s fee for every customer they sent my way. That’s how I ended up with so many retired clients who needed help investing their spouse’s life insurance policy. They were some of my favorite and most loyal clients.”

“I didn’t know that’s what you specialized in,” she said with a softness to her voice that got to him.

“After my dad died my mom received a life insurance payout. She didn’t know what to do with it, didn’t understand how she could make it work for her and live off the interest, and ended up burning through the money in a few years. She struggled a lot after that.”

He didn’t say the rest. After his dad died, he pretended to be the man of the house, a scared and confused ten-year-old who put on a show for the world that he could carry the burden of suicide. That he could be the strong one his mother could lean on. In doing so, he denied himself the opportunity to grieve—to unpack the anger and resentment and sorrow in a healthy way.

So when Amber unenrolled from the test study, he’d allowed himself to feel all the emotions so he could deal with them and not cling to them like the side of a cliff. But in letting go he’d somehow managed to fall so far that he began to wallow in it. Maybe it all ran together and became one entire shitstorm of grief that he’d drowned in.

Evie must have sensed some of the thoughts in his head. She turned her hand over and laced their fingers. “I am so sorry.”

Jonah shook his head. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, like I was saying. I might wear a suit now, but as a kid I was lucky to get a new pair of shoes every year. I started my own business fixing old computers out of my garage and selling them for a profit when I was sixteen. I sold it to a larger computer repair shop when I turned eighteen and used the money to put myself through college.”

“Sounds like you were really driven,” she said quietly.

“Don’t sound so shocked.”

“I’m impressed.”

“I know it doesn’t seem like it, considering I let my life get to category-five status and my yard being the storm wreckage that everyone can see.”

“Do you feel like the storm has passed?” she asked, but he knew they weren’t talking about his life. She was asking about his heart. Was asking him where he stood—where they stood.

He tugged her until she scooted onto his lap. Sitting sideways, her legs dangled between his. He wrapped one hand around her waist, the other cupping her cheek and turning it so that she was looking at him. “Honestly, I feel like I’m in the middle of another kind of storm.” One he could easily be swept up in. “But I think you already know that.”

The way she swallowed hard told him that she did. It also told him that maybe he wasn’t the only one getting swept away.

“This is just for show,” she said.

“What we did the other day wasn’t for show. It was about us.”

“It was runaway hormones taking over the decision-making cortex of the brain.”

“Maybe the first fifteen minutes, but the rest of it? You can’t tell me that was just hormones.”

Her face said that it wasn’t, and that gave him a flicker of hope. “Which is why it can’t happen again,” she said.

Her statement should have extinguished any remaining hope on contact, but the fact that she was staring at his lips did the opposite. She might not want to want him, but she wanted him all right.

“How about this?” he asked, kissing the side of her jaw. “Can this happen again?” He moved his lips to the other side, skimming her cheek as he went. “Or this? I know, how about this?”

He feathered a kiss right beneath her ear and he felt a shiver take over her body. He took her lobe between his teeth and bit down.

“Jonah,” she whispered, “anyone could walk in.”

“You’re right.” He gave her a chaste peck on the lips.

“Can you turn a little to the left so I can get a better angle?” someone asked from the doorway.

With a squeak, Evie leaped off his lap like her pants were on fire. Fitting, since her face was the color of a fire hydrant. Julie, however, looked exceptionally pleased with herself.

Phone aimed at them, she was videoing the entire encounter. It made Jonah wonder just how much she’d heard. Evie must have had the same fear, because she said, “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to see that hot little neck kiss,” Julie said to Evie.

“You better not post that,” Evie said.

Julie smiled like it was Christmas morning, then punched her cell’s screen. “Whoops. Too late.”