The Slow Burn (Moonlight and Motor Oil #2)(21)

It’d take more in gas to drive to and from Bellevue than a few cards by her register would earn.

“I have a full-time job and a baby, Macy,” I reminded her. “I’d need that to be worth my while to drive all the way out to Bellevue.”

“All the way out to Bellevue” was maybe, at most, twenty miles.

This was probably one of the reasons Macy got that look on her face a lot of people got when they looked at me after I hit Matlock radar and within weeks my son had been kidnapped.

A look that was even worse than the look I’d catch Mom getting all those times she took us out, clean and dressed and groomed, but it wasn’t like you had to be a buyer at Bergdorf’s to know our clothes and shoes were cheap and our haircuts happened in our kitchen.

Macy snatched up a piece of scrap and offered, “I’ll jot down her number. Give her a call. I told her how popular they are. Maybe she’ll make a large order.”

I wondered how popular my cards actually were at Macy’s.

Or if she told them that poor Adeline Forrester girl who worked at Matlock Mart and had her baby kidnapped right out of the daycare center had made them, and people bought them because they felt sorry for me.

Right.

So they did.

And I made a buck fifty off some card I spent forty-five minutes on and they took it home and threw it in the trash or gave it to that cousin they didn’t know very much or like very well.

That buck fifty paid for over a half a gallon of gas.

Whatever.

She handed me Carol’s number, I took it on a muttered, “Thanks,” then promised, “I’ll be in Monday with more cards.”

“Thanks, Addie,” she replied. “Now give your little boy a snuggle for me.”

“Will do, Macy.”

I left, posthaste, mostly because I was in a foul mood, only had a half hour for lunch, of which probably twenty minutes was gone, and I needed to down the half-priced nearly expired salad I bought from the produce section and get back to my register.

I headed down the sidewalk, hunched into my jacket that was over my highly unattractive burgundy smock, which had yellow stitching over the breast that said Matlock Mart, mentally inventorying the bits and pieces and paint and cardstock I had and wondering if it was enough to start an Etsy store as I hustled back to work.

I’d crossed the street to the next block and was nearly to the store when I jerked to a halt after I heard barked at my side, “I said yo.”

I turned to see Toby halting beside me.

God, that beard.

Perry could not grow much but scruff.

He’d sell both his testicles to grow that thick, long beard.

It was trimmed into a fantastic wedge, done perfectly.

Hell, the sweeping mustache on its own was a thing of beauty.

Perry might even give his guitar for facial hair that awe-inspiring.

“So, what, now you’re ignoring me?” he asked, his question yanking me forcefully out of my beard trance.

“Sorry?” I asked back.

“Adeline, been callin’ your name since you left Macy’s.”

Oh.

I looked back at Macy’s, which was a block and a half away, a block and a half beyond that was where Gamble Garage stood.

I looked again to Toby.

“I didn’t hear you,” I told him.

“Bullshit,” he muttered, glowering at me.

Excuse me?

“I didn’t hear you, Toby.”

“You’re pissed at me,” he stated.

“No, I’m not,” I denied.

“And I’m shouting your name a half a dozen times, chasing you down the street, and you’re not pissed at me, you just didn’t hear me?”

“Yes, like I said, I didn’t hear you.”

“You were pissy when we hung up the other night.”

“That was the other night.”

“And you were pissy through your texts after we hung up the other night,” he reminded me.

To tell the truth, I was also pissy right then, and getting pissier at his attitude.

Except “pissy” wasn’t the word for it.

“I’m not a big fan of the word pissy,” I shared.

“Sorry, babe,” he said sarcastically. “Ticked. Irate. Fuming. In a snit.”

“I don’t fume, Tobe. And I’ve never in my life been in a snit.”

“You’re in a snit right now, Lollipop,” he pointed out.

“Okay, maybe I am,” I retorted. “And that’s because you keep telling me I’m pissy when I’m not. I just need to get back to work and I have things on my mind.”

More muttering when he said, “I’ll bet you have things on your mind.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

With no hesitation, he laid it out there.

“Right, Adeline, you’re in a situation and you’re a Forrester Girl, which means you got too much pride to ask for help getting you out of that situation.”

Excuse me?

What was up his ass?

“What do you know about Forrester Girls?” I snapped.

“My brother’s marrying one.”

“Yeah, and you met her seven months ago, and he’s living with her and sleeping with her, you are not. So Johnny knows her, you do not.”