The Slow Burn (Moonlight and Motor Oil #2)(3)

Yeah.

Well, sure.

Johnny was awesome.

Everyone knew Johnny was awesome.

Everybody.

Even Toby, and sometimes Tobe wanted to hate his big brother, but Johnny was just that guy.

You couldn’t.

No one could hate Johnny Gamble.

“And Tobias . . .”

Toby perked up.

“He has no idea his potential . . .”

Right.

His potential.

“But when he learns . . .” she trailed off for a sec before she carried on. “I find myself struggling with him. Do you rein in all that audacity? Is it right to try to stop a boy from devouring life? He’s so bold, Judy, it sometimes takes my breath away. In another time, he’d be the first to walk on the moon. The first to corral fire. Johnathon will find a sweet girl, make babies with her, work in his father’s garages and live a good life, quiet and happy. Tobias will find a spitfire who challenges him and drives him insane, and they’ll go off and tear through the world, running with the bulls in Pamplona or uncovering hidden treasures in Egypt or something.”

Toby blinked in the sun.

Margot thought all that?

About him?

“And then what do I do?” Margot asked her friend Judy (who did not make cookies as good as Margot’s, but they were all right). “My last, not born of me, but my last boy? How does a woman handle her baby trekking through the Amazon or deep-sea diving to explore sunken pirate ships? I fear I’ll spend the rest of my life waiting for the phone to ring just to hear he’s all right. Lord, I hope he finds a woman who can communicate. At least she’ll check in.”

Without him telling it to do it, Toby’s body slid down the siding of Dave and Margot’s house.

All the way down.

Until he hit his rump.

Because she thought all that.

About him.

“And Sierra doesn’t get that,” she continued. “She doesn’t get the solidness of Johnathon or the fearlessness of Tobias. She’ll never know that. She’ll never hold the grandchildren Johnathon will give her in her arms. She’ll never hear the breathless excitement of Tobias’s children over the phone when they call and share what their father’s up to now.”

Toby felt something hit his stomach, and it wasn’t what usually hit it whenever anyone mentioned his mom.

It was something a whole lot different.

“So I suppose I should thank her,” Margot declared. “Because she left and I got all that. She left and that became mine. And I suppose I shouldn’t be angry with Lance for breaking it off with Rachel. Because if he found a woman, she might claim those boys. Because what woman, outside Sierra, who’s no woman at all, wouldn’t claim those boys? And then where would I be?”

Again, without him telling it to do it, his body got off its rear, took its feet and turned right to the screen door.

Margot never missed a trick.

So even though she was standing at the kitchen counter with the wall phone, with its long cord, held to her ear, her side to the door, she sensed him and turned.

Toby didn’t move.

He just stared at her with her pretty light-red hair and her big eyes, wearing one of her nice dresses (she was always in nice dresses) and he felt that feeling in his stomach.

“I have to go, Judy. Tobias is home from school and if I don’t get him an after-school snack, his stomach will eat through him.” She paused. “Okay. Yes, of course. See you then. Ta, Judy.”

With that, she hung up the phone.

But all Toby could think was she’d said he was “home.”

And he was.

He had three homes.

His dad’s.

His Grams and Gramps’s.

And Margot’s.

And she’d make him a heckuva after-school snack.

She always did.

Anytime he came to her for as long as he could remember.

His mom gave him that. All of that.

And she did it by leaving.

Unmoving, he watched her walk to him.

He only shifted when she pushed out the screen door.

She held it open, stood in the door and studied him.

“How much did you hear, darlin’?” she asked quietly.

“A lot,” he answered.

Her pretty face got that soft he liked so much before she whispered, “Child.”

Toby said nothing.

“I know you liked Rachel, Tobias, but—” she started.

“I like you.”

She stopped. Blinked.

Then her hand crept up in front of her to cover her throat so he wouldn’t see it move as she tried not to cry in front of him, because ladies did not give in to tears or hysterics in front of others. It was rude.

According to Margot.

“When I find a woman, she’s gonna be like you,” Toby told her.

“My beautiful boy,” she said quietly.

“Though she’s gonna hafta be able to wear pants if she’s gonna run with some bulls or somethin’.”

Her face got even softer, but she said, “Something, Tobias. Don’t drop your ‘Gs.’ You’re not a hillbilly.”

“I’m totally a hillbilly. Everyone from Kentucky is a hillbilly, don’t you know.”

Her mouth did that thing it did with him a lot. It got all shaky, like she was trying not to laugh, before it got stern.