The Slow Burn (Moonlight and Motor Oil #2)(10)

“Just to let you know,” Addie called after him. “My attorney already has three appointments to get sworn affidavits next week. And that bitch you were banging while my son was in the next room got served a subpoena, so she’s one of them.”

She didn’t even know his name, but Toby wanted to bump fists with her for being so fucking badass.

That or kiss her.

At that juncture, the second option was seriously inappropriate.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t want to do it.

“Kiss my ass, Addie,” Perry yelled, not breaking stride.

“The time you get that from me, baby, is long gone,” she returned in a loud drawl.

Only then did Toby wrench his eyes from her so he could watch her hopefully soon-to-be-official ex slam into his car, make it roar and then reverse and peel out in a shower of gravel and a cloud of dust.

Toby twisted back when the other blonde started carefully, “Addie—”

But Addie turned and raced down the side of the house, disappearing at the back.

The second woman raced after her.

Toby felt his brother’s eyes and tore his away from the area where the women had disappeared, doing this fighting running after them, and put them to Johnny.

“Welcome home, brother,” Johnny said.

God.

Johnny.

Toby felt lips hitch.

“I’m Johnny,” Johnny said to the black dude.

Say what?

They didn’t know each other?

“Charlie,” the guy replied, lifting his hand Johnny’s way.

Johnny shook it, let go and introduced, “This is my brother, Toby.”

“Toby,” Charlie said, offering his hand to Toby.

“Charlie,” Toby replied, taking it.

When they were done shaking, all three men hesitated, then when Johnny started down the side of the house, Toby and Charlie trailed with Ranger, Johnny’s dog, walking with them.

So rumor in town was true.

Shandra, Johnny’s ex-bitch who destroyed him was back in Matlock, because there was Ranger. The dog he’d given her to look after her after she’d kicked his brother in the teeth (this being about a nanosecond (slight exaggeration) after their father died) and took off.

But Ranger was here.

With two blondes and a cute-as-fuck house with ugly drama playing out in the side yard.

Jesus.

So Johnny walks his ass into that kind of drama, setting himself right up to be the hero, which Tobe so totally knew Johnny would wait about an hour to do.

And when Toby had tried to intervene with some chick whose brother had some medical bills she was trying to help pay, she decided he was her prince charming. She then rented some hall for their reception when he had no intention of buying her a ring. And when he tells her that last, even though he goes gentle, she loses her mind about losing her deposit and takes off in his truck.

Johnny found the righteous blondes who’d go to the mat to take care of their kids.

Toby found the nutcases.

Good to know things didn’t change.

They walked in the back door hearing Addie saying, “No, Iz. Just put the queso under the broiler and let’s get this party started.”

But her eyes hit Toby’s brother when he entered then they went behind him after Johnny cleared the door, and Tobe and Charlie crowded with him into the small kitchen.

She was holding an adorable baby tight to her and hovering in a corner of the kitchen like the two women in it had her caged in (the blonde, clearly Eliza, who everyone in town was talking about being the girl who mended Johnny Gamble’s broken heart) and an African American woman, who probably belonged to Charlie.

Though, to Toby, they seemed to be giving her space.

It was then Addie said, “Great. As if that drama being played out in front of Clubber McHotterson,” she indicated Charlie with a flick of a hand, “and Magnus McHotterson,” she indicated Johnny with a jerk of her head, “wasn’t bad enough, now we got Talon McHotterson here to enjoy the show.”

All the drama with that dickhead outside and she was cracking jokes.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Toby again couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“Maybe we should go upstairs and talk, baby girl,” the black lady said softly.

“About what?” Addie asked. “About how Johnny’s changed more of Brooklyn’s diapers after knowing him for a week than his father has after knowing him seven months?”

Yeah.

That was Johnny.

And it just sunk in that her kid was called Brooklyn.

Kickass name.

“Doll, how about you let Johnny and Charlie look after Brooks and we girls get a bottle of wine and—?” Eliza tried.

“I saw you two,” Addie said, her voice hoarse, and Toby, already alert to everything about her, went more so. “In the stable. I saw Johnny doing you against the wall.”

Well, shit.

That he did not have to hear.

“Oh Lord,” the black woman mumbled.

“Shit,” Charlie muttered.

“Hell,” Toby murmured.

“He never gave me that, what you two had in that moment,” Addie told the woman who had to be her sister, they looked so much alike. “I could have walked right up to you and neither of you would have seen me. I didn’t exist, nothing existed. Nothing but him for you and you for him. He never gave me that, Iz. How did I never see that?”