The Slow Burn (Moonlight and Motor Oil #2)(108)

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.