The Best Thing

by Zapata, Mariana

  Why the hell was he acting like… like… it was just a matter of talking? Like I’d want to pick back up on the way we had been with each other where we teased each other? This asshole was going to make me burst a fucking blood vessel.

  Breathe, Lenny. This isn’t about you. Be decent. You don’t have to shit out sugarplums for this dipshit.

  With a breath in through my nose and right back out, I managed not to bite down hard on my back teeth as I got my shit back together. Again. “Unless it’s about something relating to Maio House,” I told him carefully, “or about what you still haven’t wanted to bring up on your own, there’s no reason for us to talk, Jonah. I’ve said everything I needed to say already. I told you how I feel about anything you might want to explain.” I paused. “I don’t care.”

  His tongue poked at the inside of his cheek as he shifted his weight around. He fisted his hands again as he leaned forward, managing to keep his voice and features even, like this wasn’t going downhill and I wasn’t shooting down his bullshit. “I understand you don’t want to hear it.” Those eyes my favorite color in the world moved over my face again, slowly, so, so slowly it made me uncomfortable. “But I need to explain,” he said, never blinking, or breaking eye contact or doing anything but laser-beaming that gaze on me. “I want to tell you what’s happened.” He swallowed. “I need to tell you.”

  To give him credit, everything about his body language, from the way the tendons at his neck were straining to what looked like anguish flicking within his eyes, said he was being genuine. He genuinely thought he wanted to talk to me. He wanted to tell me whatever it was that he felt he needed to say.

  He believed his words.

  But just because he believed them didn’t mean that I did. Because I didn’t. He’d had his chance. Chances. I had given him more than enough time to do something as simple as email or text me back, and he hadn’t. Sure I blocked his number, blocked him on every social media website possible, but I hadn’t blocked his emails… and they still hadn’t shown up.

  “I don’t care about why or when or how anymore, Jonah. What I want is to know what you’re doing here.”

  “I’m here to talk to you.” He set that big hand back on the top of my desk, just inches away from my keyboard. “Give me a chance to explain. Please.”

  What was it that he wanted to explain? Why he had disappeared? Why he hadn’t called me back? Why he hadn’t wanted to be part of… my life? Why he’d decided to come back now?

  Did he think I was a fucking mind reader? Because I wasn’t. Of course I wasn’t.

  His fingers slid half an inch closer, his fingertips touching the edge of my keyboard. I couldn’t help but take in those endless, brown fingers with their neat, short nails, and the scarred and forever slightly swollen knuckles. He slid it even closer to me. “I know I’ve made a mess of things, but I want to explain—”

  I tore my eyes away from his fingers. “There are a lot of things I want that I know I’m never going to get. That’s how things work sometimes.” I shoved my chair forward even though I was already as close to my desk as I could get. “I have a phone call I need to take in a minute, so…” I glanced toward the door to give him a clue. Get the fuck out.

  Jonah opened his mouth just as the phone literally started to ring—I didn’t know who was calling, but whoever it was was my new favorite person—and then shut it. A breath later, he got to his feet, bringing him up, up, up so that he towered over my desk. And then he irritated me even more with his next words.

  “This conversation isn’t over, Lenny.”

  And before I could tell him that it sure as hell was—at least until he told me what the fuck it was that he wanted—he was gone.

  But I hadn’t missed the expression on his face or the tension in his shoulders as he walked out.

  I couldn’t stand him. I couldn’t fucking stand him, I thought as I picked up the ringing office phone and brought it to my ear. “This is Lenny.”

  “This call is from the IRS. Don’t hang up—”

  I rolled my eyes and hung up, still feeling more than a little grateful. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to be ready to deal with him… but I wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to know what he was doing and what he was planning on doing.

  What I did know right then, without looking at the clock, was that there was a conversation I desperately needed to have. One of the most important conversations of my life. Even if I was dreading it more than I had ever dreaded anything.

  Then, after that talk, I really did need to get an answer from Jonah the Jackass about what the fuck he was doing.

  I eyed the clock on my computer for a second and got to my feet. I couldn’t put it off anymore. Now or never.

  Fucking shit.

  Grabbing my phone off the top of the desk, I dialed the number from memory as I headed around my desk and picked up my backpack from where I left it leaning against the coat rack that was older than I was. I could do this. The phone rang three times before the man on the other end picked up.

  “Want to meet up for lunch again, child of the corn?”

  “Hey, Grandpa. Yeah.” I pulled my keys out of the backpack pocket and headed out of the office, wiggling a finger at the people standing at the edges of the mats while they waited for their turn to do whatever it was they were training. “I’d rather come home for lunch though. Do you want something specific?”

  He made a funny little cooing noise that wasn’t meant for me, telling me he wasn’t totally paying attention before replying with, “Double of whatever you’re bringing.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there in thirty,” I told him, shouldering the outside door open.

  “What’s wrong?” Grandpa Gus asked suddenly, and it didn’t escape me the fact that he asked what was wrong, not asking if something was wrong.

  He knew me too well.

  And, God, he was going to lose his shit after we had our talk. Fuck.

  Knowing that made it hard to keep toeing that line. “Nothing life-or-death. I’ll see you in a little bit.”

  I didn’t like the way he said “okay,” but if I didn’t like it, I deserved it.

  Fuck!

  * * *

  Thirty-five minutes later, I opened the door to the house I had lived at on and off my entire life, holding a bag of burritos and tortilla chips in one hand.

  And I was sweating my damn ass off despite the fact it was in the high forties outside.

  But as I went through the back door connected to the kitchen that had been completely remodeled a few years ago and then through the hallway that led to the living room of the house that Grandpa had bought a thousand years before I’d been born, I listened.

  Everything was quiet. Too quiet. Usually the television was on, or there was something playing over the speakers in the living room, or somebody was making some kind of noise, but there was none of that.

  Hmm.

  I kicked off my shoes and started creeping down the hallway, clutching the bag of burritos and hoping the paper bag wouldn’t make too much noise.

  Still, there was nothing.

  I narrowed my eyes and peeked into the living room to find it empty. I held my breath and listened. And that was when I heard it. Just the slightest, most quiet little noise…

  “I know you’re there. I can hear you breathing,” I called out with a snort.

  Nothing.

  I rolled my eyes and climbed up on the love seat, one of the two couches in the living room, and hung over the back of it. Then I reached down and smacked one of the two bony butt cheeks sticking up in the air. “Get up before you can’t,” I laughed at my grandfather, who was on his hands and knees. Hiding. To try and scare the shit out of me.

  He grunted and looked up with a frown. “You heard me?”

  “Your sinuses are acting up. Your nose is wheezing.” I peeled my jacket off and dumped it on the armrest of the couch.

  He muttered something like “damn it” under his breath as he stru
ggled, just a little, to his knees and then up to his feet. At seventy-five years old, his bones only reminded him every once in a while that he was closer to a hundred than twenty now, but it wasn’t enough to make me sad. He had barely slowed down over the years, and he sure didn’t look his age. Grandpa was a vampire and would end up outliving me.

  I got off the couch with a snicker and shook my head again as he came around. “How long have you been down there?”

  “I heard you pull in,” he replied, still frowning at being caught as one hand went down to rub a circle into his left knee.

  Because this was our game.

  Hiding and scaring the crap out of each other. Or at least trying to. We’d been doing it for so long that we could both usually pick up on signals that said something was up. Example: the silence.

  With a snicker, I dropped the bag of burritos on the coffee table and spotted the paperback sitting on the surface. It wasn’t just any book, but one with a bare-chested firefighter—or two—on the cover; I couldn’t tell from this distance. And just like always, it fucking made me laugh even though my stomach was knotted up at why I was home.

  Because my seventy-five-year-old, four-time world champion boxer of a grandfather loved the hell out of romance novels, and it tickled the shit out of me. It always had and always would. And it was a perfect example of what made up his personality: a mixture of a thousand what-the-fucks.

  “How’s the book?” I asked him, hearing the weirdness in my voice and pretending like I didn’t, as he lowered himself to the couch and opened the bag of food. I didn’t need to give him more reason to be suspicious.

  “I just started it. It’s about two firefighters right after 9-11. I’ll let you read it before I return it.”

  Yeah, I wasn’t sure that was going to happen after this upcoming conversation. “How long have you been down here?” I watched him pull out the container of guacamole and do a little shimmy in place.

  Good. It was working. Guacamole always put him into a good mood. I’d bought it on purpose.

  “Thirty minutes,” he answered, setting his treat aside. “I think we’ve got ten or fifteen more max before ‘The General’ is up again.”

  The General.

  Right.

  I held my breath as he handed me over one of the burritos without glancing at my face, fortunately. I thought my plan was working. I thought I was buttering him up before I lit the firework that was his temper. I thought I knew what I was doing.

  I didn’t apparently.

  Because he let me get as far as ripping the foil off from around my veggie burrito and get all of two bites in before he turned to me as he chewed, raised his graying light brown eyebrows lazily, and went straight for the kill.

  “What’s going on?”

  Of course he’d known.

  I wasn’t a coward enough to slow down eating to drag out the time, so I swallowed what I had in my mouth as quickly as I could without being too obvious. I took a peek at him, planning on making eye contact, but he was looking at the guac. So I did it. Just like when I was a kid, I counted to three and went for it: one, two, three.

  “Have you heard of Jonah Collins?”

  I would never admit it to fucking anyone, but my heart started beating faster as soon as I said his name out loud to my gramps.

  He, on the other hand, didn’t stop eating, but he did narrow his eyes as he chewed, his expression still on the guacamole. “No,” he said after a moment, finally glancing at me in this squinty little way that confirmed he was getting wary. “Why?”

  Yeah, he was on to me.

  I didn’t know how to answer his question without just blurting everything out, and that wouldn’t be a good idea with Count Dracula next to me. I had to feed him information. Ease him into it. The guacamole he was currently dipping his chip into had been the lube to ease us into this just a little.

  I dug through my purse and pulled out my phone and did a quick search, my fingers feeling heavier than normal as they moved. My heart was still beating too fast, but I ignored it. Once the search results came up, I held the phone out toward Grandpa Gus so he could look at the image on the screen.

  He took the phone from me with his free hand and brought it closer to his face. “He’s a soccer player? No. He’s too big. Football? No. He’s not wearing pads or a helmet—”

  Shit. I had to do it.

  “Look at his eyes,” I cut him off, ignoring the nerves bubbling up in my stomach.

  Grandpa stared at the picture for a few more moments, his chewing slowing, and I could see when something in him clicked. I knew when those gray irises shot to me for a moment before going back to the screen. This man who wasn’t just my grandfather, my dad, my brother, and my best friend all rolled into one body, typed something on my phone with one hand, then started swiping at the glass. Over and over again.

  I knew what he was doing. It was the same thing I would have been doing if our positions had been switched. It didn’t help that I was too much of a chicken to say the words that needed to be said.

  He recognized the eyes on the screen. I’d been counting on it. He had seen them even more than I had. He had watched them change over the months from a greenish hazel to the lightest brown that reminded me of raw honey with its flecks of yellow and gold in them.

  The most beautiful eyes in the world, I thought.

  My favorite. Grandpa’s favorite too, I would say. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were Peter’s too, now, even though he was partial to DeMaio gray.

  “This is him?” Grandpa Gus asked after another moment in that tone I had only heard a handful of times in my life. Usually when he was furious. Which the last time that had been was… sixteen months ago. Yay.

  I nodded, not that he saw it because he was staring at the phone. “Yeah, Grandpa. That’s him,” I confirmed, wincing at the squeakiness in my voice.

  Lord, he was breathing in and out through his nose already. I needed to get this over with, quick, quick, quick. Now.

  “I didn’t think I would ever see him again,” I started to explain. “I tried reaching out to him over and over again but never heard back. I just thought he didn’t want to have anything to do with… us.” Maybe that comment didn’t help, but… it was the truth.

  Jonah hadn’t bothered trying to call, period. If he really wanted to get in contact with me, he would have found a way. He would have found someone to pass a message along. He could have called me from a different number. He could have set up a fake account and messaged me. There was always a fucking way if you needed or wanted something. Always.

  And since reappearing, there had been breaks in his schedule. Bye-weeks. He’d had opportunities. But there had been fucking nothing.

  Instead, all I had gotten were those four random postcards at first.

  Grandpa’s fingers flexed around my phone, and I watched as his mouth opened to stretch his jaw and then closed. Fuck. I knew, I knew, he was seconds away from losing his shit.

  “Who else knows?” Even his voice was hoarse. Just five minutes ago, he’d been hiding behind the couch, trying to scare the hell out of me, and now he was trying to sound like Batman. Before I could answer, he shot out another question. “Why are you telling me now?”

  Now or never.

  “Peter knows. I told Luna earlier. We talked about it—no. Calm down. Quit getting riled up. Your face is getting red, and you know it looks ugly when it gets red,” I told him, hoping teasing him would work.

  It didn’t. I’d lost him. I could tell.

  “And I’m telling you because he showed up at Maio House,” I rushed, but it was useless.

  The old man shot up to his feet, his face hitting tomato red. “He’s not getting anywhere near—”

  I sighed and grabbed the leg of his olive pants. “Calm. Down. Jesus, Grandpa—”

  “Calm down?” he shouted, making me roll my eyes.

  “Yeah, calm down. You’re about to burst a blood vessel, and I’m not driving you to urgent car
e if you do.”

  Yeah, he wasn’t calming down. He wasn’t calming down at all. The redness was creeping down his throat. I knew I had to keep going. “And you know that’s not fair for you to say that. I don’t want him around either, but I’m not going to be the jerk here, and you’re not either,” I said to him, hoping he could hear the reason in my words because, surprisingly, saying those words hadn’t been as hard as I would have expected.

  They were the truth. They were a necessity. I had to keep going. “If he wants to be here and is going to be responsible and do what he should have been doing, then he has every right—”

  All right, that sentence had been hard as hell, but not as hard as the choke Grandpa Gus let out.

  The drama queen, who was red from his hairline down to his neck, threw his hands up over his head. “Right my—”

  I had to set my burrito down, knowing I wasn’t going to get any more in my belly anytime soon and curled my fingers tighter into his pant leg because I already knew he was about to start stomping around the room if I let him. “He does, and you know it. I don’t like it any more than you do, but it is what it is,” I tried to reason. “You know you’d be telling me the same thing right now if we were talking about anybody other than your best little buddy, and you know that.”

  His best little buddy and my best little buddy. The best thing in my life. The best thing, period.

  Grandpa Gus started shaking his head the second the fourth word was out of my mouth. If I thought I was stubborn, this man was the original outbreak monkey. I should have brought him a cannoli too to blackmail him into behaving. Too late now.

  “No. Stop shaking your head, nothing is changing. He’s here, and he deserves to be. We can’t force him to leave.” I didn’t want him to stay, but this wasn’t about me either, was it? No, but…. “He can stay if he wants to do the right thing. If not….” I held my hands up at my sides and shrugged, even though he didn’t see me do it because he was glaring at the ceiling.