Space (Laws of Physics #2)(37)

Don’t ask about her.

I promised myself I’d stop asking about Mona, but I’d been startled to see her after two full days of self-sequestration. She looked sick. Had she been eating?

Leo paused outside of the door to the mudroom, readjusting the pulley and drawing me out of my thoughts. “I don’t want Charlie to get his hopes up is all. It’s obvious he’s really into her, but she’ll shoot him down, ’cause she’s always shooting everyone down. And when she does it, it’s hard to watch. Brutal.”

“Is that why you’ve never introduced us? You thought I’d make a move and she’d shoot me down?”

He shook his head. “Nah, man. I’m not worried about you. But I’ve lost friends before. Or acquaintances, I guess. Guys it would have been good to know, keep in touch with. I get it, she’s beautiful, unique, interesting. Everyone wants to meet her. That’s why I don’t talk about her. And I don’t want Mona making things bad between me and Charlie.”

“Leo, that’s bullshit. Mona wouldn’t be the one making it bad. It’s on him. It’s not her job to make your guy friends—or acquaintances—feel good about themselves.” I was repeating a general sentiment my sister and her friends had said to me on many, many occasions.

Leo smirked, like he thought I was funny, and then he laughed-coughed. “Yeah, you’d be surprised how many guys don’t see it that way. But that’s why I’m not worried about you. You know better. You’ve been taught. You have a sister, you know what it’s like.”

“Not having a sister is a shitty excuse,” I mumbled.

“Hey. I agree.” Leo’s eyebrows lifted high on his forehead, he sniffed again. “But that’s the way it is. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying you don’t make people better by telling them to be better without real life examples, and then it has to be relevant to them, meaningful in some way. Important. Relationships, interacting with someone who has a different point of view, using a mistake as a teaching moment, that’s how you make things change. But just saying, ‘People should be better. Now, why aren’t you a better person? Didn’t I just tell you to be better?’ That’s just lazy.”

I laughed. Leo’s tangents sometimes reminded me of stand-up routines.

He wasn’t finished. “It would be great if stuff worked that way, but it Just. Fucking. Doesn’t. It’s like saying, ‘People shouldn’t rob other people. Now why are people still robbing people? Didn’t I just say to stop robbing people? Why hasn’t this robbery shit magically corrected itself?’ Or ‘Don’t be poor. Now why are you still poor? Didn’t I just tell you not to be poor?’” He was laughing too.

“You’re comparing being poor to committing a crime?”

“No, man. But, you know, society does. Rich people are good people just because they’re rich? Hell. No. I know better. I have a lifetime of knowing better. And that’s another thing—”

“Okay. Okay. I get it.” If I didn’t stop him now, he’d be ranting all day while we stood outside the mudroom.

Leo shook his head, smiling at me. “Sorry, sorry. The point is, no. Mona shouldn’t let Charlie use her sled. He’s a dummy about women, and it’ll send the wrong message. She’s smarter than he is, she’s smarter than all of us, and that means she has more responsibility. That’s just the way it is. The greater the gift, the greater the burden.”

I could not believe my ears. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

He shrugged, as though to say, that’s just the way it is.

I scoffed, shaking my head in disgust. “You should win the Brother of the Year Award, really. Nice job.”

Leo glared, lowering his voice. “What do you want me to do? I mean, I could talk to him, but then I’ll sound like an overprotective older brother and he’ll assume I don’t like him. I don’t want to lose an old friend, I’ve known Charlie forever. So have you.”

“You’re an asshole, Leo. And you make no sense.”

“Fuck off, Abram. What’s the big deal? She should just shut him down now so he’s not hoping later. She’s going to do it eventually.”

Seething at my friend, I walked through the door into the mudroom, too pissed off to say anything else. Charlie was his friend. Leo should be the one to step in and set him straight. It shouldn’t be Mona’s job. Leo, we, all of us weren’t even supposed to fucking be here.

At first, I was so frustrated, I didn’t notice the other people in the room. I moved to the far wall and set down the pulley, trying to get control of my temper. But as I calmed down—or forced myself to calm down—I glanced around. The women were pulling on their gloves, talking animatedly, laughing. Unsurprisingly, my attention immediately sought and found Mona. Or more correctly, Mona’s ass.

She was bent at the waist, adjusting her boot, the coiled rope was next to her on the floor, and her pants were definitely not baggy. They looked like yoga pants, just thicker, and fit her perfectly, though they changed the fit of mine.

I didn’t have to use my imagination at all. But I did. Just a little.

Tearing my eyes away before Leo—or anyone else—noticed me staring at the curve of her perfect and gorgeous rounded bottom, I left the pulley by the wall and crossed to the closet to retrieve my coat, gloves, and hat. While I was pulling them on and trying to get control of my blood pressure, Charlie burst through the door.