It Started with a Dog, page 17
“You know what I mean.”
It annoyed him that Andy and Allen did not understand what he was trying to convey.
Spring was on his mind for another reason. Jonah’s boss had called to check in. “How’s it going?” Edgar asked jovially. He was a big man with a military crew cut and hands like baseball mitts. He was always joking around, but the man was brilliant when it came to aerospace dynamics.
“Good, Edgar. How about you?”
“Doing good, Jonah, doing good. Hey, I got one for you—how do astronauts throw a party?”
This was classic Edgar—he loved bad jokes as much as he loved engineering. His office was filled with engineering jokes and quips taped to the walls. How do you tell the difference between a mechanical and civil engineer? Mechanical engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets. Or another one—I can explain aerospace engineering to you. But I can’t understand it for you. “I don’t know, Edgar. How do astronauts throw a party?”
“They planet. Ha! Get it? They plan-et.”
“I get it.” Jonah chuckled.
“Had to share that gem with you,” Edgar said jovially. “So hey, buddy, have you given any thought to our offer to head up the deep space satellite project?”
“I have given it a lot of thought,” Jonah said. “I want it, Edgar, I do. But I’m still trying to work through these family issues. I can’t bail on them yet. My dad is better, but he’s still not recovered from the chemo.”
“And you’re the only man for that job?”
He wasn’t the only man for the job, but he was the only man who was willing to stop what he was doing and help. “For the time being. This place has been my family’s livelihood for decades, Edgar. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t try and help figure it out while my dad is recovering.”
He could hear Edgar drumming his thick fingers on a desk. “I hear you, Jonah. How much longer do you need?”
“A month. Six weeks, tops,” Jonah said, and winced, waiting for Edgar to say that wouldn’t work.
But Edgar didn’t say that. He was unusually silent on the other end. Jonah couldn’t hear anything but the squeak of his office chair. He imagined Edgar twirling himself around to face the windows and the traffic on Highway 183.
He expected this to be the end, and he felt a hot rush of sorrow—a deep space project like this would set him up in his career for life. But he wasn’t sorry—some things were more important. A family legacy was worth more than a spectacular work assignment.
But oh, God, how he wanted that work assignment. He wanted it so bad that he could taste it.
“Tell you what,” Edgar said. “The partners and I really want you, Jonah. No one understands in situ particles and CME transients as well as you. Or attitude orbit control systems, for that matter.”
Jonah closed his eyes for a moment. He opened them again. “Edgar . . . thank you. If you can give me a little time, I would really appreciate it.”
“Let me see what I can do. I’ll see if we’ve got someone who can do preliminary work until you’re ready. I’ll check with the partners, but I think we can work around it. This is a big project for us. We need you on it.”
The effect on Jonah’s mood was instantaneous—he could have cried with both relief and joy at once. “Thank you, Edgar. I owe you, man. I appreciate this more than I can say. I really want that project.”
“Well, do what you need to do there, but make it fast. We’ll work with you to the extent that we can. In the meantime, your folks are lucky to have a kid like you. Hey, by the way, have you ever heard of Den City?”
Jonah suppressed a sigh. “You mean mass over volume?”
Edgar laughed loudly. “Density! I’ve told that joke before?”
“At least a thousand times,” Jonah assured him.
“It’s a good one.”
“It is,” Jonah agreed. He thanked his boss again and promised to keep in touch.
* * *
Jonah and Harper were both so busy the rest of the week that he saw her only twice. He was taken aback by how much he missed her—he wasn’t usually the type to pine. When the two of them finally caught up for burgers near the end of the week, he made some excuse about needing to feed Truck and enticed Harper home with him.
Truck was so excited to see Harper that he lifted his leg as if he intended to mark her, but Jonah stopped that in the nick of time. So Truck tossed his massive body onto the ground and presented his undercarriage to Harper. She obliged him with a two-hand belly rub, and that was it—Truck would be devoted to her for the rest of his dog life.
Jonah gave her a quick tour of his house. It was definitely a bachelor pad, but he’d hired an interior decorator when he’d bought the place. He’d always thought the furnishings and window treatments were too color coordinated. He wasn’t a great housekeeper, but he didn’t like clutter, so there wasn’t much of a mess, save his running shoes, his basketball, and a skateboard he hadn’t used in ages propped up against the entry wall. He had a few books on the shelves, mostly science fiction and engineering books. But what he had in abundance were pictures. Framed pictures of his family through the years, of his friends. There he was in a baseball uniform standing next to a birthday cake at the Lucky Star. There he and Allen and Andy were handing out cups to runners in the Austin marathon. There were his parents, their arms around each other, dancing in front of the fireplace in his childhood home. There was Amy with her glasses shaped like old-fashioned television sets, making an espresso behind the counter.
“Wow,” Harper said as she slowly examined the shelves, her fingers trailing along the edges as she took in all the pictures. “It’s your whole life.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
“How lucky you are.”
He showed her his lovely brown houndstooth upholstered couch, and how one of the cushions was missing its stuffing. “I need to get that fixed.”
“Truck?”
“I didn’t actually see him do it. And he claimed no knowledge. But I found him lying in the middle of the chewed pieces of foam. And he pooped foam for two days.”
“Hmm,” Harper said, and smiled at the dog, who was standing next to her. “Sounds pretty circumstantial to me. You can’t convict on circumstance. Isn’t that right, Truck? Isn’t that right, big boy,” she cooed to the dog.
Truck lapped it up, leaning against her leg and looking up at her with big brown cow eyes.
Truck had left the two armchairs alone, Jonah said, because he was too big to fit in them. There was a dark brown wooden coffee table, one leg gnawed.
Jonah showed Harper down the hall, past a spare bedroom and into the master bedroom. He thought this room was well done by the decorator. Not too froufrou.
He pointed out the large picture window and the wooden blinds that were destroyed about a foot up from the bottom.
“Separation anxiety?” Harper asked.
Jonah snorted. “I was asleep right there when he did it. He just likes to chew.”
They returned to the main living area. He went into the kitchen and picked up a bucket, filled it with water, and poured it into an enormous water bowl on a rubber mat. The floor around the rubber mat was perpetually wet. Truck couldn’t drink without slinging it around.
Jonah opened the pantry door, and Truck began to scramble away from Harper’s side, knocking into a barstool and jumping up and down to show his excitement. Jonah caught him and braced his giant head in his hands. The dog looked up at him adoringly, his long pink tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. “Listen, buddy,” Jonah said, and Truck’s tail began to thwap thwap thwap against the door. “Take it down a notch. I really like Harper and I don’t want you chasing her off with your slobber and your drool and your bad manners.”
Truck panted louder. The velocity of his tail ratcheted.
It was hopeless.
They fed Truck, and then tried to find something on TV to watch. But they were more interested in each other. “This is boring,” Jonah announced, and traced a line from Harper’s chin to the top of her shirt. “I’ve got a couple of ideas for something else we could do.”
“What?”
“I have to show you. It’s in the bedroom.”
A slow smile lit her face. “Sounds pretty interesting. But what about Truck? Because I get the sense he thinks he should be included in everything.”
“Your senses are accurate. Truck is about to get a very large bone,” he whispered.
Truck’s hearing was amazing—they heard him start panting as he jumped up from his dog bed, and they listened to the click of his nails as he hurried to see about said bone.
Jonah kissed Harper’s ear and whispered, “Here’s what we do. I’m going to get up and slowly advance to the kitchen.” He kissed her neck.
“Okay.”
“You very carefully and quietly tiptoe to the bedroom.” He kissed her cheek.
“Okay.”
“Shut the door, but don’t lock it. And no matter what you hear . . .” He slipped two fingers under her chin and made her look him in the eye. “No matter what, Harper—do not open that door.”
She giggled. He kissed her, but Truck tried to climb in his lap, as the promise of a bone had been given and he would not rest until he had it.
“Ready?” Jonah asked as he pushed Truck’s body from between them.
“Ready.”
“Go!” He sprang up and over the back of the couch and raced for the kitchen. With a squeal of glee, Harper ran toward the bedroom. And Truck? Truck barked and tried to go both ways at once. But the moment he saw the bone, he forgot everything else, and was happy to settle down on his dog bed with it. Jonah took his cue—he walked briskly away from his dog, slipped into his room, and shut the door behind him.
“Did he fall for it?” Harper asked.
“Works every time.” Jonah grabbed her up, and the two of them fell onto his bed, laughing about Truck in between kissing and hands roaming.
Sixteen
If Harper had known sex could be this fantastic, she would have engaged in it more frequently, starting a long time ago. Jonah kissed her into that sizzling space of oblivion, but they slowed down from there, taking their time, exploring and fondling and enjoying the ride, their damp skin pressing together, their breathing shallow.
She wondered, as his mouth moved around her body, if she ought to say something, if she ought to remark that absence made the heart grow fonder, or maybe, I really missed you. I am shocked by how much I missed you this week. How did we get here, how did we become so completely enthralled with each other?
But she didn’t, because he had turned her to jelly, and she was incapable of speech. All of her libido had revved into overdrive and was pulsing at the surface of her body—every place he touched her, she expected to explode with pleasure. He pressed his hardness against her, caressed her with one hand. The heat between them escalated quickly—they were on his bed, and her clothes were coming off, and all Harper could think about was how she wanted his mouth on every bit of her naked body. She felt out of control, unwilling and unable to contain herself, caught up in the whirl of a physically electrifying blender, and they were only getting started.
His hands slid up under her shirt to her breasts and then down, sliding into the waist of her skirt, his fingers digging into the flesh of her hips. Her nose was filled with his scent—an aphrodisiac of coffee and cardamom.
Jonah pressed against her and Harper pressed back. She forgot about their competition, she forgot how she’d had that single moment of wondering if she ought to end this because of it. She forgot about everything but Jonah Rogers, and how sexy and virile he was, and how she was probably ruined for anyone else.
His hands swept up to her breasts again, squeezing, and Harper wrapped her arms around his neck, holding on in the storm they’d created in this bed.
He reached behind her and unhooked her bra and, with two fingers, slid that undergarment down her arms. He drew a shallow breath as he looked at her bare breasts, and with the palm of his hand, he pushed her back as he skimmed her abdomen, and down. They stared at each other for one highly charged moment, each of them taking in the other, and then at last their eyes meeting. It was an unspoken check-in, and maybe he was asking if they were going to give this relationship a go, or maybe he was just asking if he could proceed, but either way, the answer was yes, yes yes.
He began a gentle descent over her body with his mouth and hands. Harper closed her eyes and sank into the sensations that washed over her, riding the wave as his mouth and tongue dipped and slipped on her and in her until she was pulling his hair and crying out.
Jonah rose up, reached across her to a bedside table to get a condom. A moment later, he was inside her. He began to move, and so did she, meeting him, pleasure reverberating in her body with each stroke. The end came for both of them with such an explosion of light and color in her head that Harper was momentarily discombobulated. But then Jonah was kissing her neck, and her shoulder, and her mouth.
So this was what people meant when they talked about great sex. Her adoration for this man fizzed in her veins. She caressed his cheek, rough with new beard growth. She wrapped her arms around him. She’d given it her all, had let him know how she truly felt about him, had left it all on the field for him.
They were frivolous and light at first, talking about childhood heroes and favorite shows—her hero had been Sabrina the Teenage Witch. His favorite show was Breaking Bad. “With Walter White? The guy who started making meth?”
“What can I say? He turned a bad situation into a . . . okay, a worse situation. But he learned a lot about himself along the way.”
They took turns recalling commercial jingles from their youth and making the other one guess. Harper sang, “It’s a lollipop, without a stick! A ring of flavor you can lick—”
“Ring Pop!” Jonah shouted so loud that Truck barked. He’d apparently moved to the other side of the closed door. “Go to bed, Truck!” Jonah called.
Sometime later, they let Truck into the room when the whimpering got too loud. As usual, the dog acted as if he’d been stranded on an island by himself for a year and rewarded their generosity by leaping onto the bed and draping his huge body across both of them. There he remained until Harper said she couldn’t breathe and Jonah made him get down.
They did not speak about the coffee business. They didn’t mention the reality of their lives. It was as if both of them wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened at all, as if they were just continuing on as they had from the moment their phones had gotten mixed up—happy, laughing, the world at bay.
* * *
They spent the weekend together. Harper ignored texts from Soren and Olivia, responding with a Busy, call you later. They walked Bob and a new dog, a dachshund missing a leg. Her name was Lulu and she had attended the same Eager Beaver School of Bad Dog Behavior that Truck had attended. The only difference was that little Lulu with only three legs was manageable. She kept trying to engage Bob, but Bob growled at her and motored ahead with his lopsided gait and ears. He had things to smell, places to mark, and had no time for a dog half his size.
Harper made caprese chicken for Jonah on Saturday night. He made pancakes for her on Sunday morning. It rained most of Sunday, so they stayed in, each of them on the opposite end of his couch, sharing a blanket, reading books and talking.
She told him about her solitary childhood. “You make it sound like your parents were never around,” he remarked.
“They were around. But they were usually reading. Or taking off for a show or afternoon at the museum.”
“But what about school activities, or having friends over, or all the things kids do?”
Harper shrugged. “Olivia lived next door. I did things with her family.”
Jonah was frowning.
“Hey,” she said, nudging him with her toe. “They were good parents in their own way. I learned how to fend for myself.”
“Yeah, I’m beginning to understand where you get your drive.”
“Okay, so I was a lonely kid. But I meant it when I said you were lucky. I’ve known people who don’t get along with anyone in their families. You do. You have a great family,” she said, and waved a hand in the direction of his framed photos.
“I was lucky. We are a tight-knit group. But it could be a little stifling, to be honest.”
Harper laughed. “Too many sleepovers?”
Jonah nodded. “Definitely that. But what I mean is, they needed me too much.”
Harper looked up from her book. “How so?”
“It’s hard to explain. I just . . . I always had this feeling growing up that I was making up for Jolie dying. Like I had to stay close and help them in any way that I could because her death had left them so vulnerable. I remember my grandfather telling me once that my dad had never been the same after Jolie died, and how glad he was that I was there for my parents. And then I felt like my grandfather needed me to be the son he’d had before Jolie died.”
“That’s heavy. I can’t imagine.”
“No one could. You can’t imagine how the death of a child can echo for years. But you’re right, Harper. I am very lucky—we’ve stuck together and I think we all genuinely like each other. That’s why I’m reluctant to take the new job. They need me.”
“And I guess, over the years, you’ve made yourself indispensable to them.”
“Exactly. Sometimes I wonder if they realize just how much they rely on me.”
Harper felt for Jonah’s dilemma. At the same time, she was mildly envious. She would love to know what it felt like to be needed the way he was.
On Monday morning, Harper was showered and dressed by the time Jonah woke. She was strapping her watch to her wrist when he groaned and rolled over. “I have to jet. You would not believe my day.” Or rather, he would not believe how guilty she was feeling for having turned a blind eye to her job for a full weekend.
