The Slow Burn Page 32

  “The only thing that sucks about that is Dad never knew she was such a monumental bitch,” Johnny remarked.

  “Yeah,” Toby agreed.

  “Tobe.”

  Toby looked to his brother.

  “Moving on,” Johnny said.

  Toby tipped his beer toward the door. “I still don’t get why she showed.”

  “Maybe ’cause her husband’s divorcing her and she can’t live without attention? Or he’s pissed she made him wait twenty-six years to get married and he’s sick or fading, and she found out he’s givin’ all his money to his girls? Or maybe she does give some kind of fucked-up shit she left us behind and wanted to get to know us and instead of simply saying, ‘I made a mistake, I wanted another man who was not your dad and I kept making mistakes after,’ she screwed that whole thing by bein’ her? Who knows, Tobe? Who gives a shit? She screwed that whole thing by bein’ her. I’m not interested in a new mystery involving Sierra. It’s over. I’m just done.”

  “All right, so what if somewhere down the road, Addie and Iz’s dad shows and it’s about as pleasant?”

  Johnny moved to reclaim his beer, answering, “Only thing I know about that shit is, if it happens, we’re sure as fuck not gonna be hangin’ with Margot and Dave, waitin’ for them to show and share how it went down.”

  “Word,” Tobe replied.

  Though he hoped like fuck their father didn’t show, because Toby putting his foot down neither he nor Johnny was out of their space when their father was in it after making both of them do that when their mother showed was not gonna go over easy.

  Both him and Johnny downed some beer.

  “We better get to Margot and Dave’s,” Toby muttered.

  “Yeah,” Johnny agreed.

  They moved to get their coats from where they’d thrown them on stools at the island.

  Toby was shrugging his on when Johnny called his name.

  He looked to his brother.

  “I change my mind. The only good thing about that was Dad never knew what a monumental bitch she is and she’d left him for a man with more money,” Johnny said quietly.

  “Yeah,” Toby replied in the same vein.

  “Sucks that, in the end, it’s good he pined after a memory that wasn’t real. But still, it’s good. I think it’d be worse, he knew he made the mistake of makin’ a family with a woman like that.”

  For Lance Gamble, that would be worse.

  “Yeah, Johnny.”

  Johnny started moving to the door.

  Toby went with him.

  “Life is fuckin’ whacked,” Johnny said, opening the door.

  Tobe stopped to look him in the eye and repeated one last time. “Yeah.”

  Though he wasn’t sure he felt that way.

  He was beginning to think that shit worked out the way it was supposed to.

  Toby dropped the side of his fist on Johnny’s shoulder twice before he moved out the door.

  Johnny slapped him on the back twice as he moved out the door.

  The brothers jogged down the steps.

  They got in their trucks.

  And they drove to Margot and Dave’s.

  “I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not surprised that awful woman was a gold digger,” Margot proclaimed.

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” Addie chimed in. “If I see that awful woman ever again, I’m gonna do what I wanted to do. Slap her across the face. Then I’m gonna key the fuck out of her fancy-ass beemer.”

  “Adeline, language,” Margot admonished softly.

  “Okay, key the ef outta her fancy-dancy beemer,” Addie amended.

  “I’m still stunned,” Izzy announced. “I mean, what was the point? At Christmas no less!”

  “Her husband’s shot of her,” Margot decided. “She’s over the hill and can’t sink her hooks into a fresh one. So she decided to try something new. Her problem, she couldn’t fake being a proper mother and didn’t realize my boys were raised to be savvy, so they wouldn’t buy her bull-hockey and sent her on her way.”

  “Margot, you said bull-hockey,” Izzy noted in surprise.

  “Well, that woman is full of bull-hockey,” Margot retorted.

  “What’s ‘bull-hockey?’” Addie asked.

  “Bullshit,” Johnny answered.

  “Johnathon!” Margot snapped.

  Johnny grinned at her then lifted his bottle and threw back some beer.

  “Can we stop talkin’ about Sierra and bull-hockey and start talkin’ about food?” Dave asked. “I’m hungry. I’m gonna order from that new Chinese place. They deliver.”

  “David,” Margot started pertly. “We are not ordering Chinese.” She made a move to get up. “I’ll make lasagna.”

  “Mom,” Lance, the only one of her kids left in town (though they all had plans of coming back . . . frequently), cut in, “you’re not making lasagna.”

  “Bunny,” Lance’s daughter, Edie, was wandering in the room, “I want Chinese.”

  “Then Chinese it is, my darling girl,” Margot declared, reaching an arm out to the nine-year-old.

  Edie moved right in, climbed up on the couch and leaned against her grandma.

  Dave moved out, hopefully to get a phone and menu. Toby was starving.

  Addie leaned into Toby where they were sitting on the couch and whispered to him, “I hope Edie didn’t hear me say the F-word.”

  Dawn, Lance’s wife, who sat on the other side of Addie from Toby, leaned into Addie. “If she did, then she’d think you ran in her father’s circles, and I wish I could say I was immune, but these lips are not F-word virgin.”

  Addie grinned big at Dawn.

  Dawn winked at her.

  Dawn also straightened.

  Addie stayed leaned into Toby.

  But he’d find this wasn’t to offer support after that shit with his biological mother.

  It was to be closer to Izzy, who was sitting in the armchair kitty-corner to them.

  She got even closer, leaning all the way across the front of him.

  “You up for a troll of hotels around Matlock?” she asked her sister. “I haven’t keyed a car in years, but I don’t think it’s a skill you lose.”

  “After Chinese, I’d be up for that,” Izzy replied.

  Good fuck.

  Dawn leaned back into Addie. “I would too.”

  Jesus.

  “You women aren’t keying any cars,” Toby ordered.

  Addie tipped her head back to look at him. “I’m really good at doing stuff and not getting caught.”

  “She really is,” Izzy put in.

  “You are not keyin’ any freakin’ cars,” Toby repeated.

  “Killjoy,” Addie muttered, pushing back to sitting properly in the couch, and since she did, Dawn went with her.

  Toby looked to Johnny who was slouched back on the arm of Izzy’s chair.

  “What? I don’t mind they key her car,” he said.

  “No committing any felonies,” Margot ordered.

  “It isn’t a felony,” Addie informed her. “It’s a misdemeanor.” She paused before she finished, “If you’re caught.”

  A pad of paper went sailing across the room and hit Lance in the chest.

  “Write down orders, would you, son?” Dave asked, returning to the room.

  “’Spose I will,” Lance replied, his lips twitching. “Though I need a pen,” he said, pushing up from the couch opposite them.

  “I want chow mein,” Dave called at his departing son.

  He then offered the menu to his wife.

  She waved at him, refusing the menu. “David. You order for me.”

  “Shrimp fried rice, chicken with garlic sauce and some of them dumplin’s!” Dave yelled at the door.

  “Hang on, Dad!” Lance yelled back. “I’m finding a pen!”

  “I’ll help you find a pen, Dad!” Emmett, Lance and Dawn’s eleven-year-old son shouted from somewhere in the house.

  “Here, child, you pick,” Dave murmured, reachi
ng across the coffee table to hand the menu to Dawn.

  She took it.

  Addie snuggled deeper into Toby’s side.

  Now that was for support.

  Or maybe it was just because she kinda liked him.

  Toby felt something, looked to the couch facing them and saw Margot’s gaze on his woman.

  It shifted to him.

  She gave him a soft smile.

  He returned it.

  Then she lifted her hand, snapped her fingers at her husband, and demanded, “Order some egg rolls, David. Lots of them. Everyone likes egg rolls.”

  “Egg rolls, Lance!” Dave yelled.

  “Got it, Paw!” Emmett yelled back.

  “Thanks, boy!” Dave returned in another yell.

  “Lord,” Margot muttered.

  Toby chuckled.

  “Lord!” Brooks screamed.

  Toby looked down at the floor to see him on his ass, clapping poorly and wobbling because he was giggling to himself.

  “That’s on you, sweetheart,” Dave declared, smiling at his wife.

  “Lord,” Margot repeated.

  “Lord!” Brooks yelled.

  And at that, everyone burst out laughing.

  It would be at Margot and Dave’s dining room table, where Margot made them sit as a family to eat Chinese, just after Toby took a huge bite of an egg roll, when Addie leaned into him yet again.

  “Are you really okay?” she whispered for only him to hear.

  He turned his head, chewed, swallowed and replied, also quietly, “Yeah.”

  “You sure?” she pressed. “You’re not disappointed?”

  “Honey,” he started, “how can I be disappointed?” He indicated the table with the remains of his egg roll. “I’m with my family. The family I wouldn’t have if Sierra stuck around.” His focus shifted, he reached with his free hand for a crab wonton before they all disappeared and muttered before he shoved the last of his egg roll in his mouth, “Shit works out the way it’s supposed to.”

  “It’s a journey,” she said.

  He turned his head to Addie again.

  “Life,” she continued. “A journey to find your place. Your people. You always had your place, your people. You just . . .” she hesitated, “realized it.”

  “Yeah,” he said softly, giving her an “I’m okay” grin.

  She returned a “love you, glad you’re good” smile.

  Then she reached for a crab wonton.

  The month-long Christmas food orgy, his woman was filling out again.

  Back to Addie.

  All good.

  In fact, in that moment, at that table, life was as it should be.

  Just as it was supposed to be.

  Toby was in his place.

  With his people.

  And his Addie.

  Richest Girl in the World

  Addie

  Five Months Later . . .

  I MADE THE turn into Toby’s lane, hit the garage door opener on my sun visor, drove up and coasted into Toby’s bay of the garage, which was now my bay at his demand, since it was closer to the door to the house.

  I put the Focus into park and cut the ignition.

  Then I did the usual drill.

  I turned to the passenger seat, grabbed the mail I’d picked up from the mailboxes at the front of the complex and my purse.

  I got out, throwing the strap of my bag over my shoulder, then went around the car to the back-passenger side.

  I opened the door.

  Brooklyn looked up at me from his car seat and said, “Mommy, peezza.”

  “We’ll see, baby,” I replied, unstrapping him, juggling mail and my son to pull him out and put him on my hip.

  I used the other hip to slam the door and walked to the garage door panel.

  “Hit it, bud,” I said.

  Brooks reached out and hit the button.

  The garage door went down.

  I took my son inside.

  Dapper Dan greeted us.

  I set down my kid, who walked on much steadier legs to the area under the stairs where there was a low, wide chest.

  I bent and gave Dapper Dan some scratches behind his ears before I moved to the back door, opened it, and Dapper Dan rushed out.

  I closed the door and walked to the chest where Brooks was, flipping it open.

  He reached in and pulled out some toys.

  Me and the pumps I was wearing avoided crashing to the floor as Barbarella rubbed against my ankles, and I skirted the massive dining room table that now sat in what had been a massive open space in the middle of his great room, but Toby had filled with that table.

  With the leaves in, it sat ten.

  Right now, without the leaves, it sat six. This meant there were four chairs under plastic covers as well as the two leaves (also under cover) on hooks on a wall in the garage.

  I argued a table that huge was overkill.

  Toby told me when all the Usual Suspects were together, we already had seven people, counting Brooks’s highchair. His argument was that for that table to be useful for years to come, considering the fact Deanna had shared the week after Valentine’s Day that she was pregnant, he should have bought one that seated twelve.

  He had a point.

  I’d given in.

  I dumped my purse and the mail on the island counter, opened up my bag and pulled out my phone.

  I engaged it and made my call.

  “Hello, child,” Dave answered.

  “Hey, Dave. You good?” I asked.

  “All good, Addie. You good?” he asked back.

  “Yeah. Need anything?”

  “No, darlin’. We’re fine.”

  “You and Margot coming to the festival tomorrow?”

  A pause before, “I don’t think so.”

  Shit.

  “You up for company after we get done eating our way through it?” I asked.

  “We’d love that,” he answered.

  A garage door could be heard going up.

  “Daddy!” Brooks shouted and started running toward the garage door.

  This was new, and probably had a lot to do with his friends and their fathers at daycare.

  I’d discussed it with Toby. I’d then discussed it with Eliza. Toby and I had finally discussed it with Margot and Dave.

  And we’d decided to let it stand.

  In the time since getting the news that Perry had changed phones, I’d called his friends repeatedly and then Toby had worked some magic on his laptop and found his address.

  I’d sent a letter, heard nothing.

  So I’d sent a registered letter, which was received.

  And heard nothing.

  I then sent another registered letter, which was refused.

  In the first two letters I made no demands, just shared about Brooklyn, sent him some photos and told him the door was open if he wanted to see his son.

  The final refusal said it all.

  So everyone agreed that Toby Daddy was the way to go.

  If Perry ever came back, he’d have to figure that out.

  But Toby had helped teach Brooklyn how to use a spoon and fork. He was helping Brooks learn his ABCs. He was helping to teach him colors and shapes. Not to mention the difference between Dapper Dan, Ranger, Dempsey and Swirl being dogs, Barbarella, and Iz and Johnny’s Sabrina, Jill and Kelly being cats, Iz’s birds, Wesley and Buttercup being canaries and Serengeti and Amaretto being horses.

  If Perry wanted in, he would have to catch up.

  And he could be Daddy number two.

  But for me, that ship had sailed, and as far as I was concerned, he was just Perry.

  “Toby’s home,” Dave said in my ear, obviously having heard Brooklyn. “I’ll let you go.”

  “Okay, Dave. We’ll text and give you time before we show tomorrow.”

  “That’d be good, child. See you then.”

  “See you, Dave. Love you.”

  “Love you too, Addie.”

  We hung up abo
ut five seconds before the garage door could be heard going down and the door to the house was opened.

  “Daddy!” Brooks cried again.

  Then he was swung up in Toby’s arms.

  “Hey, bud,” Toby greeted.

  “Ay!”

  “Good day?”

  “Yah!”

  Tobe grinned at him, kissed his neck, Brooklyn laughed (our boy liked the beard too), then Toby walked him to the mess he’d made with his toys on the floor by the chest, set him on his feet and started to me.

  Those toys would be scattered all over in about fifteen minutes. They were only tidy because that was housecleaner day.

  Toby’s decision.

  Before Brooks and I had moved in the month before, Toby and I sat over beers at Home and made the decisions that worked for us both.

  He dealt with the mortgage. I bought all the food.

  We traded monthly paying utilities.

  And Toby paid housecleaners to come in every other week to clean because he hated cleaning. I was considering going to an online school to become a paralegal, and if I did, I wasn’t going to have a lot of time, and the renovations at the shack were in full swing. So most weekends we drove down there to check the progress and have family time.

  He got the short end of that deal.

  But . . . whatever.

  “Hey,” he said to me.

  “Hey,” I replied.

  His eyes moved the length of me, lingering at my ass in my tight skirt and at the high-heeled pumps on my feet.

  He made it to me, and his hand glided over that ass and his beard went into my neck where he said, “Love it when I get home before the pumps come off.”

  “We’re so totally playing boss and secretary,” I replied.

  His beard came out of my neck, I turned my head, and he looked into my eyes.

  His were smiling.

  “Tease. You keep offering, all I ever got was one night with the sexy cop.”

  “Your bed doesn’t have any way to handcuff you to it.”

  His smiling eyes got closer as his smiling lips hit mine.

  He gave me a peck, then moved to the fridge.

  “Beer?” he asked.

  “I’m all classy in pumps and skirt,” I returned. “Wine.”

  “Gotcha,” he muttered. “Call Dave?”

  “No on the festival. Yes on the ‘they’re okay.’ Yes on a visit after the festival.”