In the six years we’d known each other—even before I left South Carolina and moved to Palm Beach—I’d been a pro when it came to masking my emotions. Especially around my fake nemesis, Jonah.

  But this avalanche of shit was too much to process and just kept snowballing into even more shitty realizations.

  I was twenty-eight. Damn near friendless. And living in a city that I didn’t actually love.

  I’d only moved here to be close to my brother, a plan that sounded great on paper but wasn’t exactly panning out the way I expected.

  My life was…a disaster. I was doing whatever the opposite of thriving was, and there was no end in sight.

  Whenever Derrick asked me if I was okay, I just lied. Made my voice brighter than I’d felt in months and told him I was just tired from work when he asked a follow-up.

  Since most of our interactions happened over the phone, he believed me.

  Well, I thought he had.

  But since Jonah was here, apparently I wasn’t as good of an actress as I thought.

  “Is it your boyfriend, Alexander?”

  Snapping my head in his direction, I frowned. “Who?”

  “That lowlife you like, Axel or whatever.”

  “His name is Aaron. And he broke up with me, thank you very much.” Four months ago, but it still stung.

  Something dark but unreadable passed over his face before he gave a tight nod.

  “And to answer your question, it’s that. But that’s not the only thing. I just—”

  Words failed me and I huffed in frustration.

  “You just what?”

  “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

  “It’s clearly not nothing if it has you hibernating in your room, skipping meals, and ignoring your phone, Ericka.”

  Shit. My phone.

  I couldn’t remember the last time it’d been charged.

  “I have a brother. You don’t have to come here and pretend to care.”

  I knew from our last text that Derrick had boarded a plane this morning and would be home in South Carolina for two weeks, selling one of his properties. His absence from Palm Beach was supposed to be a break from holding up the facade, but Jonah was clearly intent on making that impossible.

  “I’m not good at pretending, Ericka. If you knew me at all, you’d know that.” He placed a soothing hand on the back of my head and just let me be. “When’s the last time you went to work?” Jonah asked.

  Another question I didn’t want to answer.

  “Um, last Thursday.”

  “…Okay,” he said carefully, and I could hear him fighting back the urge to pry.

  “I got approved for six weeks of FMLA,” I volunteered, saving him the trouble. The last two of those weeks would be unpaid, but it was the last thing I cared about at the moment.

  Without saying a word, Jonah tightened his arms around me, giving me a hug I didn’t know I needed.

  God, I really hated how good it felt being held. For the last week, I’d been telling myself I didn’t want to be around anyone. But here I was, soaking this shit up. Breathing him in, I got notes of vanilla and tobacco. He was the only man I knew who could pull off that scent, and he did it so effortlessly.

  “Six weeks,” Jonah finally echoed lowly.

  This time, I fully expected him to pry. To demand answers as to what could possibly be so bad that I needed to take a step back from the career I’d worked so hard for.

  But he didn’t. He sat there, holding me for what felt like hours. In silence.

  Then, without speaking, he let me go and stood up, retrieving his mason jar from the edge of my cluttered nightstand.

  “I’m gonna get you something to eat.”

  He was gone before I could protest.

  It was only then that I looked around my room and noticed the complete disarray.

  It wasn’t exactly dirty, but I hadn’t been putting things in their rightful place.

  The space looked exactly how I felt, and knowing that Jonah would be back didn’t magically fill me with the energy to correct it.

  Something heavy sat on my chest, refusing to move, and the weight of it threatened to take me under every time I was awake for more than a few minutes.

  It hadn’t stopped in over a month.

  Not when I went to work. Not when I went to dinner with my brother and Devyn. Not when I watched all my favorite shows and tried to do all my favorite things.

  It was just there. Always fucking there. Snuffing the life out of me until I just…stopped fighting, stopped showing up.

  I was still staring at the same spot in front of my closet when Jonah returned. I didn’t know how much time had passed. Was it twenty minutes? Maybe an hour?

  The aroma of the food he’d brought swayed my thoughts to sustenance, and I sat up to investigate what he was holding.

  Tears pricked my eyes when I saw that he’d taken it out of the carryout bag and placed everything on a tray. There was a small bowl, napkins, and a glass of something pink.

  Presumably pink lemonade. My favorite.

  “Come on, you don’t have to get out of bed. But you do have to eat. At least a little bit.”

  Jonah set the tray across my lap and hovered over the side of my bed.

  Four bites later, I was stuffed. The loaded potato soup was always a comfort meal, but tonight the food felt like lead in my stomach.

  “I’m done,” I said quietly.

  Jonah shifted beside my bed, stared down at the almost-full contents of the bowl, then looked at me. Whatever he saw reflected in my eyes silenced the comment he was about to make.

  Instead, he nodded, collected the tray, and walked back to the kitchen. I wanted to ask him about the nasty red marks marring his knuckles, but I didn’t have the energy. Maybe another time.

  ◆◆◆

  That’s how it went for the next week.

  Jonah showed up and disrupted my attempt to rot into nothingness.

  He always brought food. And he always hovered over me like a helicopter to make sure I at least ate some of it.

  Friday, he brought pho.

  Saturday, it was chicken tenders.

  And Sunday, it was a Publix sub the size of my arm. We shared it, eating in silence as he watched me like a hawk.

  Every day, I told him I was fine and to leave me alone. And every day, he ignored that request and stared at me with an emotion I couldn’t name clouding those beautiful smoky eyes.

  Every. Single. Day.

  He never pushed me to talk. To explain myself. He just wanted me to eat something. To take care of myself through this one small act.

  So, I did. Because having him there made the task feel less monumental. It was becoming a routine.

  By the fifth day, I was finishing more than half of my food.

  And that weight that had been sitting smack dab on the center of my chest? Slowly suffocating me from the inside out? Well, it was still there. But it felt less like a mountain now and more like a really heavy rock.

  Week two

  2. ERICKA

  The sun was shining bright as hell.

  Why did I know the sun was shining bright as hell?

  I hadn’t opened my blackout curtains in weeks. Any sunlight that seeped into my bedroom came from the hallway if I was too lazy to close the door.

  But today, all the sunlight I’d shunned was glaring down on me with a vengeance.

  What the hell?

  “Morning, sunshine.”

  I grumbled, pulling my comforter closer to my neck. “Don’t call me that.”

  “Funny—your brother says the same thing.”

  “What are you doing? Why are you trying to blind me?” I squinted against the intrusive light.

  “We’re getting some sunlight today,” Jonah told me, suddenly at my side.

  I got an up-close view of his washed-out Levi’s as he stood there expectantly.

  When I didn’t move to get up, he extended his hand in my direction.

  “I’m not leaving the house, Jonah. I don’t want to.”

  “Who said anything about leaving? We’re going to your sunroom. I got something for you.”

  Against my better judgment, I placed my hand in his and allowed him to gently pull me to my feet.

  It’d been a week, and Jonah was just as jovial as he was the first day he showed up. An easy smile was always on his lips. Even if I was scowling at him. Especially if I was scowling at him.

  He took it all on the chin and let me get whatever it was I had to say off of my chest.

  A few minutes later, we were seated on the wicker chairs in my sunroom, watching the iguanas that terrorized my neighborhood jump from one tree limb to another.

  Thanks to Jonah, my favorite drink—pink lemonade mixed with iced green tea—was in my lap as I kept my eyes straight ahead and said the only thing on my mind. “You know I’m not going to kill myself, right? You can stop hovering if you think that’s what you’re preventing.”

  There was more ice in my voice than I intended, and I couldn’t bring myself to look over at him to gauge how my words had landed.

  “I’m not here because I think you’re going to do that,” he said, his voice rough. “here because I want to be. And it doesn’t matter how much you try to push me away, I’ll keep coming back. Because you deserve someone who won’t give up on you just because you’re having a hard time.”

  I couldn’t even sip my drink because the tears clogging my throat would make it impossible to swallow.

  Jonah and I were not what I would call friends.

  We had one thing in common—my brother.

  But he was a nuisance I’d learned to endure over the years.

  A know-it-all, sometimes flirty, but mostly annoying nuisance.

  All that being said, he was still familiar. As close to family as I would get outside of South Carolina. And having him here, right now and for the past two weeks, felt like a blessing I didn’t deserve.

  That feeling was exacerbated when he would gently nudge me to do something I needed to do.

  Some days it was washing my face.

  Other days it was brushing my teeth.

  There was never an air of teasing or judgment when he watched me do it, either.

  I was starting to believe he was my guardian angel. Nothing else would explain the way he so effortlessly stepped in and made sure I was good. Over and over again.

  Jonah started talking without preamble.

  “My mom always told me that it’s easier to extend the grace you deserve to other people. It’s easier for us to be compassionate when the person on the receiving end of that compassion isn’t ourselves. It was something I had to come to terms with when I fucked up my MCL that second time and my career ended. I was so hard on myself for getting hurt. For failing. But nobody around me felt that way.”

  I saw his hand move to his jaw and finally looked in his direction. The anguish radiating off of him told me he was reliving the experience.

  “And it low-key pissed me off. I wanted someone to shame me for my body failing so I could feel justified in bashing myself. All the endorsements I lost. All the championships I would never win.”

  Shit. I never thought of it like that. And that made me feel guilty. Why hadn’t I thought of it like that?

  His career ending was so different than my brother’s that sometimes I forgot Jonah had lost everything he’d worked for too. Just because he’d built something great with his security firm and Tactical Edge didn’t mean it’d been easy for him to start over. To give himself grace and find another way to thrive despite the hand he’d been dealt.

  “Anyway,” he said, interrupting my thoughts. “I brought that up to say that I’m sure you have the same struggle. You’re a nurse. You show up for everyone when they’re in crisis, but I don’t think you’re used to having people show up for you. Or maybe you don’t let them when they do.”

  There was total silence after that. There was nothing I could say to refute what he’d said, and I didn’t really want to anyway. Because he was right. So right I felt a pang in my chest processing his words.

  “I know we have our petty spats, but you are an extension of someone I care about beyond football, beyond business partnerships. Beyond this life. I told you the first day we met in that courtroom that I would always have you if your brother had to go sit down for a few years.” He cleared his throat. “Even though that never happened, I’m not wavering from that promise.”

  A tear slid down my cheek, and I swiped it away.

  “So, have your tantrums. Say what you gotta say to process whatever you’re feeling. Just know I don’t scare easily.” He smirked. “You should know that after watching me deal with your brother for years.”

  I couldn’t do anything but watch his profile as we both fell silent. I didn’t know what to say to his declaration, and something told me words would ruin the moment anyway.

  So, I just watched him. With my knees pulled to my chest and my head resting on top of them, I took him in.

  Jonah was so damn handsome, even with the rough sandy brown scruff lining his jaw and his slightly overgrown buzzcut. Something about him was so classically handsome, with a certain amount of hometown charm I couldn’t explain. His face had the right dose of everything, and the only imperfection was the slight crook in his nose from years of playing football.

  I liked that he’d never fixed it. Somehow, it only made him more handsome. If I didn’t know him and someone told me he was a runway model, I would have believed them.

  From the pictures I’d seen of Jonah’s parents online when he was a player, he was the perfect mix of both of them. His mom was petite with beautiful hazelnut skin and an easy smile. Jonah had inherited the kindness in her dark brown eyes. His were just blue. His dad was taller than him, White, and somewhat hard to read from the pictures. But he had to be alright if he raised a man like Jonah.

  An alarm sounded, startling me out of my haze. Jonah looked down at his Apple Watch.

  “It’s been twenty minutes,” he announced. “Are you ready to go back inside?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “But you can leave. I swear I’m fine.”

  I didn’t want to admit it, but feeling the sun on my skin had charged me with more energy than I’d felt in months.

  I wasn’t itching to get back in my bed. Just being out here watching the iguanas and the birds was more entertaining than staring a hole into my wall.

  Jonah nodded, shifting beside me, and kept his eyes straight ahead. “So we’ll stay out here. Whatever you want, E.”

  Week three

  3. ERICKA

  I was in the living room when he arrived today. Instead of being asleep, I actually heard the rumble of his pickup truck pulling up in my driveway. And the surge of butterflies that assailed my gut was unacceptable.

  Was I excited to see Jonah Kincade?

  If the way my heart rate accelerated when he opened the front door was any indication, I was most definitely excited.

  In three short weeks, he’d managed to get me hooked on his visits. He never stayed for longer than an hour, but that hour was what I looked forward to most every single day.

  He was spoiling me with consistency, and I didn’t know what I was going to do when this was over. When I got my shit together and went back to work.

  How would I deal with his absence? The most “productive” thing I’d done today was take a shower and wait for him to visit me. What was I going to do when it stopped? Because I was a realist, and I knew it would stop. It had to…eventually.

  Shaking the thought away, I heard him punch in my passcode and let himself in.

  And when he walked in, and I saw the way those burgundy slacks stretched over his legs, accentuating his toned physique, I knew something was wrong with me.

  It was one thing to admit a man looked edible—damn near fuckable. It was another thing to admit those things about Jonah.

  But here I was. Having a revelation, hesitant to move from the sofa as he shot me a look and walked straight to the kitchen with his arms full of paper bags.

  “I got you something different tonight,” he said as he began unpacking the bags. “Come here and eat it while it’s still hot.”

  When I got to the kitchen, I was tugging at the long sleeves of my sweater, covering my hands to resist the urge to touch him. For some reason, that urge had grown stronger with each passing day. I never gave in to it, but I was aware all the same.

  This was dangerous. I was playing with fire, begging to get burned, and I wasn’t looking forward to the fallout.

  “Here.” Jonah pushed a plate toward me, and I noticed the birria tacos for the first time. Reading the front of the bag, I saw my favorite Mexican food truck printed in block letters. They had a food truck in Lake Worth and a brick-and-mortar location in West Boynton.

  “I love this place,” I said before I could stop myself.

  “I know, and I had to pass through Lake Worth to check on a client before I got here, so I stopped by their food truck and got them.”

  Every day he let me know he paid attention to me in ways I never noticed, and each and every time I was overwhelmed with the sudden urge to cry.

  Why was he so sweet?

  “I’m gonna let you eat. But I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  My head snapped up, and my eyes locked with a pair that reminded me of dense morning fog.

  “What? Aren’t you staying to eat?” It was another one of those things I’d grown accustomed to. After the first week, Jonah always ate with me. It was usually in complete silence, but something about having him there while I forced myself to nourish my body was comforting.

  And tonight I couldn’t have that?

  “I have a meeting in Broward in an hour, so I don’t have time.”

  Now that he said something, I noticed his fresh haircut and clean-shaven jaw.

  The burgundy suit looked great against his fair skin, and the diamond stud in his left ear winked at me under the fluorescent light of my kitchen.

  He looked good.

  “What? Do you want to spend the night out with me instead?”

  I lifted my chin on a defiant tilt and said, “I mean this with absolutely none of the love in my heart, so listen carefully.”

 

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