The wind was chilly outside the stifling heat of the packed bar. I tugged my leather jacket closed in front of me and shuffled in my two-inch black pumps to Jonah’s sleek navy blue Mercedes. Although it was a couple years old, it was new to him this year. Jonah was a responsible adult and didn’t buy brand-new cars. But it was so fancy on the inside and looked pristine because he was anal-retentive when taking care of his things.
This thing especially. Everything seemed to light up at my touch. And the seats were butter soft. I’d only been in it a handful of times, but every time he gave me a ride, I felt like I was in something that belonged in the future.
He was waiting with a friendly smile as I slid in and closed the door carefully behind me. I wanted to slam it. And then slam it again. But for Jonah’s sake, I was gentle.
I tried to match his warm optimism, but the weight of dealing all wrong with Will was crushing me.
His brow furrowed, and he frowned. “What’s the matter?”
At his question, hot tears pushed at the corners of my eyes. I forced them back, refusing to let them fall. This wasn’t something to cry over.
It was just that... his kindness was so unexpected. Between Case and Will, I had been wound tight, and I was ready to fight someone. I wanted snappy words and sharp claws. But here was Jonah, soft and sweet and ready to catch my mess.
I ignored the familiar fluttering in my gut. It belonged to a long-buried butterfly that had been with me as long as Jonah had been in my life. It used to demand a whole lot more attention. But that was years and years ago. A different life, practically.
A different me, definitely.
“Will can be really annoying,” I told him with a tired sigh. “I know he’s like your... ride or die or whatever. But he bugs the bejeezus out of me.”
His lips twitched on one side. “I don’t know what you mean by ride or die, but I know he can be a total asshole when he wants to be.”
I bounced back against the seat in a huff, releasing a whoosh of breath. “Has he told you he’s thinking about opening a second bar?”
His eyes about fell out of his head, and his mouth opened in a way that was so dramatic for him and so un-staged that I knew my answer. “I had no idea. A second bar? Are you serious? Did he tell you this?”
I already regretted opening my mouth. Because Will hadn’t actually told me this. And while the information had come from a very reliable source, it wasn’tthesource. So that made this gossip. And maybe totally needless and unnecessary gossip. But I had been stewing on it for twenty-four hours, and despite Claire’s encouragement that I talk to Will, I hadn’t.And Jonah knew Will better than anybody.
“Ada overheard him and Lola talking about it. I guess he was picking her brain and figuring out logistics.”
He bounced back against his seat too, staring ahead through the windshield. “I told you she was no good.”
I slid him a sideways glance and watched his lips do that twitchy thing again. “I doubt it was her.” That fateful drunken night when Will confessed all his secret pre-bar plans to me played through my head like a record stuck on repeat.
It was his turn to shoot me an unbelieving look. “You really think Will would go behind your brother’s and your backs and open a bar with his girlfriend? Whom he has known for a total of three months?”
It was much more than three months, but I wasn’t going to argue with him. At least not tonight when I wanted it to sound as improbable as possible.
He added, “Will would never do you dirty like that. He’s spent his entire life looking out for you and Charlie. He’s not going to quit now even if he’s dating an evil witch.”
I shouldn’t have laughed. I really did like Lola. And, apart from this new thing, I was really happy for Will. She softened him. She gave him a broader purpose than simply living and breathing Craft, something he’d been lacking in his life. And she seemed to genuinely love him. And Will had not had enough love in his life.
But that said, Jonah’s total dislike for her was so surprising it was hard not to be entertained by it.
So I laughed, and I felt lighter and less agitated afterward.
“You’re probably right. Next time I see her, I’ll throw a bucket of water her way and solve that problem real quick.”
His gaze narrowed on the road. “You make jokes, but when she flies away with your brother tied to the back of her broom, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The stress and tension I’d been drowning in melted into something soft and squishy, warming my entire body. I took a deep, relaxed breath and settled deeper into the car seat and this happier mood. “Where are you taking me for supper?”
He took a series of turns before answering. “Well, my original plan was sushi. But I feel like we need comfort food after Will’s mutiny.”
I hummed my approval. Jonah had a lot of things going for him and had won my loyalty in about a hundred different ways. Still, his ability to feed my food mood was his best quality. It was a knack he’d always had. And I wasn’t sure where he’d gotten it from.
His mother was far from maternal, and he wasn’t exactly a chef—at least not like his other friends. But he had this instinct with food that was close to a spiritual gift level of miraculous. When I was in high school, I would come home after a bad day, and he would quietly get up from playing video games or working on homework with Will and make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. After a really hard, long day, they are still the thing I make.
When my dad died, while we were planning the funeral and Charlie and Will were fighting about everything, he snuck me out of my mom’s house and took me to get waffles at this shitty little diner my dad used to love. Two years ago, after I’d gotten dumped for the third time that year—it had been a mix of bad taste in men and being too dedicated to the bar to make any of the relationships serious—he’d brought chocolate milkshakes and my favorite chicken fingers and french fries with a big side of gravy to the bar and locked us in my office until I was three hundred pounds heavier and no longer depressed.
