The Hookup (Moonlight and Motor Oil #1)(73)

“That’s very succinct,” I noted carefully.

“So it aptly describes her tenure as a mother,” he returned.

“Honey,” I murmured.

“I don’t miss her and I don’t think not having her made me miss anything. I don’t feel loss. I had Dad and he was a great dad. The best. I had Margot. I had Dave. I had Toby. Toby’s a wild one but it’s not because he missed having a mom or was acting out, wondering why she didn’t give a shit enough to stick around. Dad also didn’t spoil him and Lord knows, Margot didn’t. No one would say it to his face, but we all think it. He got a piece of her. But he also got a lot of Dad, so even though he hasn’t yet found his way, he will.”

“I hope so,” I said softly.

“He will,” he replied.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“Guiding fishing expeditions in the Florida Keys?” he asked, like I could answer him. “Training to be a ranger in Alaska?” he asked another question I couldn’t answer. “Employed as a flight instructor in Phoenix? Who the fuck knows?”

“He can fly planes?”

“Toby can do anything.”

“But can he, well . . . actually fly planes?”

“Yes. And speak German fluently since he had more of Grams, because I was in kindergarten when Mom left and shortly after, full-time school, so he had more time with her and she talked German to him all the time and kept doing it until she died. I would have lost half of what I had if Toby didn’t try to get one over on me by speaking to me in German. Dad spoke it too, since Grams taught him, so he’d call him on his shit as well. Toby was captain of the football team, quarterback, and he got caught banging the homecoming queen in the locker room after the big game. The coach chucked him off the team. The town went nuts. So they ended up suspending him for two games. The only two games Matlock lost that season.” He paused then said, “Golden boy.”

He shook his head and any sting he might have felt about the next he said was taken away with his rueful but also admiring grin.

“No matter how much he’d fuck up, and he was a master at it, he’d come out smelling like roses.”

“Did you play football?”

He nodded his head. “Tight end.”

“But not captain?” I asked warily.

He looked confused. “Well . . . yeah.” Then he grinned again. “And I was dating the homecoming queen and already banging her, so I didn’t have to sneak a go in the locker room.”

I rolled my eyes and reached for my wine.

After I took a sip, he said, “Dad was the shit.”

I put my wineglass back and prompted quietly, “Yes?”

“He wasn’t sunlight and moonshine and kitten fur, sp?tzchen. He was motor oil and beer and NASCAR racing. He didn’t miss a single one of our games. He gave us the talk and told us he’d break our necks if we disrespected a woman. Then he gave us condoms. He also gave us Margot and Dave, and their sons were older than us so he gave us three older brothers and big Thanksgivings and Christmases and Easter dinners. He wept when his father died and sobbed when he lost his mother, but way before that he told us only stupid men hide emotion. There’s strength in being who you are and feeling what you feel and not giving a shit what people think. He said one of the worst things a man could be is inauthentic. He told us never to willfully break a woman’s heart because there’d come a time when a woman would break ours and we’d feel what we’d made her feel and we wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt. He loved us and he showed it. He was proud of us and he showed it.”

He looked to my wrist and slid his forefinger between my skin and my mother’s bracelet, turned his hand and gently curled it around the inside of his first knuckle.

“And I wept when he died and every year on the anniversary, I take some of his ashes to the first place he took Toby and me fishing and I put them in the creek and feed the fishes in the moonlight,” he finished.

“That’s beautiful, Johnny,” I said softly.

He turned his head to me. “I should have taken you with me. He woulda liked meeting you.”

As my hand rose of its own accord, my body swayed forward the same way, and I curled my fingers around the warm, firm skin at the side of his neck and I pressed my lips against his.

I pulled back but I didn’t go far.

“So I wish I’d had your mom and I wish you’d had my dad,” he murmured.

“Instead, we found each other,” I murmured back.

“Yeah,” he said.

“She would like you but she would not like you grilling a chicken breast and a steak for five people,” I informed him.

The white of his teeth cut through his beard. “Don’t know how to grill tofu, babe.”

“You sadly will never have the chance to eat one of her homemade veggie burgers. You might swear off beef for the rest of your life.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“They were really good.”

“You didn’t swear off beef,” he pointed out.

“Mm,” I mumbled.

He started chuckling.

He cupped the side of my head, kissed my mouth and leaned away so my hand dropped.

He took a sip of beer.

I took one of wine.