Page 100 of Lies and Lullabies
“Wow. I’m sorry. I had no idea he was coming.”
“It was fine. Maybe it was better that way, you know? He didn’t get a chance to chew me out before I could stick a beer in his hand and make nice with his granddaughter. He loves Vivi.”
“He does, indeed. So maybe he’ll cut you a break because you contributed half her genetic material.”
“Maybe.”
We lapsed into silence while I finished my plate of food, and Jonas turned off the baseball game. The glass he’d brought me contained a beer. “Thank you for feeding me,” I said, setting the plate down on the coffee table.
Jonas reached over and gave my knee a squeeze. “Do you know how many times you fed me? I want to take care of you.”
“You do?”
“All the time.” His smile was wistful. “Come over here, will you?” He opened his arms.
I hesitated for about two tenths of a second before I did exactly what he asked. I let him fold me into a hug.
“Last time I saw you, I tried to tell you that everything would be easy, but that was wishful thinking. My tour lasts a long time. Next we’ll head south, and then we’ll finish on the West Coast. Flights get canceled. My best friend is suffering, and I have to figure out whether I can help him.”
“Mmm,” I said, trying to listen. The feel of Jonas’s heartbeat against my own was distracting. It wasn’t just sex that I’d been missing—simple affection was a luxury I’d rarely had from a man.
“But you matter to me. So much. It’s going to take me a few months to figure out how I can spend chunks of time with you. So I need you to be patient with me. I needyou, Kira.”
I tucked my face into his neck and took a deep breath of him.
“Say something. Tell me where your head is.”
My head was nestled against the soft collar of his T-shirt. “When we’re in the same room, it’s easy to say yes to you. When you walk out, it’s harder.”
He ran his fingers through my hair. “Should I go out on the sidewalk and phone you? Because I love you just as much when I’m on the road, Kira. I don’t know how to convince you that it’s true.”
I lifted my head from his shoulder. “Spending time with you has always been…”Just admit it already. “Magical, okay? But then you leave again, and I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”
He gave me a sexy smile. “Magical. I can work with that. Me and my magic wand…”
I gave him a playful slap on the chest. “Don’t laugh at me, okay? I’m trying to answer your question.”
His face got serious immediately.
“I think about you out there, doing your thing. All those people screaming your name. And I wonder why you’d want Vivi and I to pin you down. I just don’t trust it.”
“You don’t trust it,” he repeated with a wince. “You don’t trustme.”
“That’s not what I said…”
He held up a hand. “It’s fine, Kira. I’ve never given you a single reason to trust me. The first thing I ever told you about myself was that I was a jackass who never loved his ex-girlfriend. Then I went away for five years. I had a lot of growing up to do. But I’ve come a long way.”
“So…” I cleared my throat. “I still don’t know how it could work. I need to be in Boston. Adam is not okay yet, and I think he’s afraid I’ll leave him. I could never do that. Not after he’s done so much for me.”
Jonas gave me a squeeze. “Can I be with you in Boston? I asked Ethan to look for a real estate agent who works in this neighborhood.”
I raised my head. “Really?”
“Really. I’m going to take some time off after my tour. My life gets easier then. Can you wait ten weeks for me?”
I could. And more than that, I wanted to. “All right. We’ll have to make time to talk on the phone.”
“Do you have a calendar? Like, a paper one?”
