The Hookup (Moonlight and Motor Oil #1)(77)

A slow, white smile spread across her beautiful face.

“Baby girl, I knew that a long time ago,” she replied.

And as was her way, with a successful parting shot, she swayed out of my office.



I lay in bed on my side, the covers up over my hip, my eyes on the little daybed in the raised alcove to the side of my bedroom where one of the windows was.

On that daybed were three pairs of men’s pajama pants. They weren’t threadbare but they were downy with use.

I sensed movement behind me and rolled to my back to watch Johnny emerge from the bathroom wearing another pair of pajama bottoms.

We’d found we had a new talent in bed.

We could be quiet and it still was spectacular.

His eyes roamed me in the pale-pink fitted, ribbed, knit camisole with the lace edging at the top, which I pulled on after we were done and he’d gone to the bathroom. His lips hitched before he put a knee to the bed, pulling the covers up and spying the all-lace, white panties I’d put back on after he’d taken them off.

He slid under the covers beside me and then claimed me, doing this by pulling me to him, gliding a hand down my spine, over my bottom and between my legs from the back in a way I had no choice but to glue my front to his front and hike my leg over his hip.

I looked up into his eyes. “I can’t be without panties with my sister and Brooks in the house, unless, of course, I’m having sex.”

The white slashed through his beard and he muttered, “Baby.”

He lightly stroked the gusset of my panties and I squirmed.

I also whispered, “Are we gonna make love again?”

The white stayed in his beard as he answered, “No. Just like feeling the wet you give me.”

“Oh.”

His brows went up. “You can’t take even this without starting to light up for me?”

I tucked my face in his throat.

He cupped me between my legs and said, “Okay, sp?tzchen.”

I nuzzled his throat.

“Your internal alarm clock wakes you up, you wake me up, Iz.”

I tipped my head back again. “Sorry?”

“I’ll take care of the animals, make you breakfast. You just take care of what you gotta do to get ready for work.”

“You don’t have to do that, Johnny.”

“Right,” he said, shifting his hand out from between my legs, up and then down inside my panties where he gently cupped a cheek of my behind. “We’re here again so I’ll give it to you. I’m that guy as well. You got an hour-long commute. I got a ten-minute commute. It takes you six times the amount of time to get ready for work as it does me. It isn’t that taking care of animals is man’s work, which, babe, just to say, I’m that guy too so for me it is. But for me as the man in the life of the woman you are, it’s about doing shit I do not mind doing so you can have an extra half hour of shuteye or just an easier morning. So when I wake up in this bed, Iz, I take care of the animals and breakfast. You take care of you.”

I stared at him.

“We straight about that?” he asked.

I nodded.

“You good with that?” he went on.

I nodded again.

“Good,” he said. “Tomorrow night, I’m letting you be with your sister. Maybe if you have some concentrated time with her, she’ll open up about whatever’s going on with her.”

I didn’t want concentrated time with my sister.

I did, of course I did.

I still wanted time with Johnny.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Maybe,” he repeated after me. “We can hope.” He looked deep in my eyes. “She’s degenerating.”

I was surprised.

“You noticed that?” I asked.

“All spark and fire, better to hide she’s dying inside. Now, she’s just dying inside.”

I pressed closer to him, loving that he caught that but hating he was right.

Addie was slipping into a state of despair with each passing day. She was becoming less of herself, more withdrawn. The only time she lit up was for Brooks. The rest, for her, was going dark.

“I’m more worried about her now than ever,” I told him.

“Yeah. You don’t hide that. She just isn’t responding to it.”

“Maybe concentrated time will help.”

“That and I’m taking you two to a pizza joint in Bellevue Friday night. If you haven’t been, you have to go. If you’ve been, you’ll want to go back. I’ll ask Margot and Dave if they’ll look after Brooks, and if Addie is down with them doing that, we’ll drop him off and go have pizza. Don’t know what she’s doing while you’re at work but a lot of time alone kicking around your house with nothing but her thoughts and no contact with the outside world isn’t helping. She needs to get out. Live life. Eat good pizza. Be a woman without her kid attached to her hip. I know she loves him but every parent needs a break. We’ll come back to town, go to Home, throw a few back, get loosened up. Try to get some life back in her.”

I was back to staring.

“That a plan?” he asked.

I nodded and told him, “She came into the city to have lunch with Deanna and me today, Johnny. And that didn’t help.”

“Well, she’ll get a dose of just her sister tomorrow night and more of us showing we got her back Friday. She’s the sharp edge to your soft touch. She’s nearly as pretty as you, you look like sisters, but she couldn’t be more different. Though deep down, she’s got that iron you talked about that your mother gave both of you. We just gotta find ways to remind her of it.”