She raised a brow in curiosity. “What do you mean?”
“After my mom died, I became the opposite of a mature kid. I ran away from everything, tried to forget all about my life here in Boston, to pretend like nothing bad had ever happened to me. It was the real-life equivalent of sticking my fingers in my ears and going ‘blah, blah, blah, I can’t hear you.’”
Vic laughed, then softened her expression into a knowing smile. “Your mom died too?” Then she put a hand to her mouth and gasped. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to smile over that. It’s just—I don’t know anyone else who’s lost their mom. Well, besides people who are a lot older than me.”
I ignored the age comparison because the last thing I wanted to think about was how close in age I was to the daughter of the man I’d just had sex with. But still, I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “She died when I was just a couple years older than you are now.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That sucks.”
“It’s okay,” I assured her. “It was a long time ago. I’m—”
I’m what? Over it? That’s not true.
“I’m dealing with it,” is what I ended up saying.
She looked like she was going to ask a follow up question when we both heard the sound of feet coming down the stairs. I turned to see Jonah walking down the hall with a huge smile on his face. “You snuck out of bed so quickly I hardly—” Then he spotted his daughter standing behind me and his demeanor seemed to shift from flirtatious to cautious. “Oh, Vic. You’re home already.”
“Grandma dropped me off just a little bit ago,” she said.
“And you’re drinking coffee I see,” he said, looking at her mug.
She smiled. “This woman offered it to me, and when I told her my dad didn’t let me drink it, she basically forced the mug into my hand!”
I gawked and looked at Jonah, horrified. “Jonah, no, that’s not—”
He put a hand up to stop me. “You’re fine,” he said. “This is Vic’s idea of a joke.”
His daughter laughed and after the shock wore off, so did I. Soon, all three of us were chuckling, then Vic handed her dad the mug, put her cereal bowl in the sink, and headed down the hall. “I’m going to get ready for school,” she called over her shoulder. “Nice to meet you, new mommy!”
Again, I felt my muscles tighten with surprise, but once I saw Jonah laughing, I knew this was yet another joke. I relaxed, but not completely.
“Sorry about that,” he said once we were alone. “I didn’t know she would be back this early.”
“It’s not a problem,” I said. “But I do have to get going. Tell Vic I said thanks for the coffee, and I guess I’ll… see you at work.” I put the mug down on the counter.
He smiled. “Yeah, I’ll see you at work.”
There was an awkward moment where it seemed like we should hug or shake hands or something, but I worried about what might happen if I let myself get too close to him. If I let myself breathe in the scent of him or feel his skin against mine in any way, I might not be able to control my desires, and there was simply no time for round two.
“Right, well, I’m going now.” I took a step back from him so there was no way for him to naturally make physical contact, and then headed for the door. He walked me out and stood on the porch as I ran to my car, the cold air serving as just the wake-up call I needed. Jonah waved as I got into my car and I waved back, but then pulled away from the curb as fast as I could and drove back to my apartment in a confused flurry of mixed emotions.
* * *
I closed all the blinds in my office so that I couldn’t even see Jonah if he walked by.
I wanted to isolate myself, so that there was at least a slim chance that I could get some work done. I had a message on my phone waiting for me when I got in, from the CEO of Lolli, telling me that they were ready to make a deal, which meant I had to dig my way through a significant amount of paperwork. I wanted to have the deal sent over before mid-day, that way all the forms could be signed, and the matter could be put to bed before the day was over. Tomorrow was Friday, and I was hoping to have a light workload, so that I might even be able to leave early and start what I hoped would be a relaxing weekend sooner rather than later.
Shortly after noon, someone knocked on my office door, and I felt my heart skip a beat.
I wasn’t ready to see Jonah. I hadn’t figured out exactly what I wanted to say to him yet, or how I wanted to play this whole thing going forward. For a second, I considered just ignoring the knock and acting as if I wasn’t in the office. But that struck me as childish, which wasnothow I wanted to come off, so I got up and went to open the door.
My brother was on the other side, smiling and holding up two coffee cups.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“Always,” I said, stepping aside to let him in. He took a seat on the other side of my desk and placed the two cups down. I sat and took a sip of what I then learned was a vanilla latte. It was delicious, and I told him so.
“I didn’t make it,” he informed me. “Just got it from the café in the lobby. But yeah, they do good work down there.”