The Slow Burn (Moonlight and Motor Oil #2)(32)

“The city isn’t far away, but I love having you guys close.”

I sat back. “I know you do, and I love it too, and so does Brooks. But sometimes in life you don’t get what you want, honey.”

My big sister looked down at her joyful Christmas card paraphernalia all over my—no her—cute, squat, white coffee table.

I knew why she did this.

Because we both knew that sometimes life didn’t give you what you wanted.

We knew that well.

But in the end, she’d gotten what she wanted, she worked hard and found it, not only in Johnny, but in having a degree, a good job that paid well, good friends and a beautiful life.

And even though I didn’t have the degree, but I’d worked hard, I hadn’t found it.

And she hated that for me.

“Iz,” I called.

She turned to me.

“I still have a cushion from the stuff I sold and what I’d saved when I was in Tennessee,” I shared. “It’s dwindling. But Margot helping out and Johnny being cool about me taking some time off the loan will mean I can push it out further. I’m not gonna ask you to pay the mortgage, and for a while, with those changes I won’t have to move, and I’ll be able to cover it. But I’ll need to find something in the next three or four months, and once Christmas is over, I’m gonna have to be all about that.”

“I understand.”

I knew she would.

I knew she didn’t like it. She’d bleed and fight and die for me.

But she’d done her time taking care of her baby sister. Latchkey kids so Mom could work, and without Mom having anyone to help out, Eliza had looked after me since I could remember.

I was going to ask for help, because Toby was right. For my son, and for myself, I had to.

But I wasn’t going to ask it of Izzy.

Though, that said, she was sitting in a house that was not her home doing her Christmas cards without music or TV, looking out for me.

If I let it, that could crush me.

But that was about pride, I now understood, because she wanted to do it for me, and if the roles were reversed I’d be pissed as hell she didn’t turn to me.

God, it freaking sucked that Toby was right, and more, just how right he was.

I really should tell him.

However, that wasn’t something you said in a text, and I was beat.

I needed a hot bath, and if I rallied, I needed to get down to making a few cards, and then I needed to sleep, not have the kind of phone chat with Tobe I needed to have, that being sharing I’d been a bitch, he’d been right, and then apologizing.

He’d be around tomorrow, and fortunately he was coming when no one was going to be around, so I could tell him then.

Fun.

Ugh.

“I know you don’t want to ask, but I want to make sure you know it’s always out there,” Izzy said, gaining my attention, “I’m here for you, Addie.”

“I know, honey,” I replied.

We held each other’s gazes.

I saw my beautiful big sister, but I also saw Mom.

And that was the only thing that made me able to endure losing her as we had, so fucking young—having my sister, being able to look her in the eyes and have a part of our mom staring back at me.

I wondered if she thought the same thing.

It was Iz who ended us gazing at each other.

“You probably wanna relax,” she said, turning back to her Christmas card spread. “So I’ll gather this up and let you get to it.”

What I wanted was some hang time with my sister like we used to do. Margaritas or martinis or mojitos or whatever we fancied, good food, and shooting the breeze about any topic under the sun that struck us, gabbing about it for as long as we felt necessary.

Or more, talking to her about Toby.

But I needed a bath, and I’d promised Macy a ton of cards on Monday (this before I’d taken overtime) and I had to clean the house tomorrow before everyone came, and of course talk to Toby. So even though I’d have some time to do some, I needed to get a few out of the way. This meant I couldn’t ask my big sis to stay.

Also, I didn’t have very much food.

Not to mention, my sister probably wanted to get home to her hot guy.

I walked her to the door, gave her a hug and stood in the cold of the open door with Dapper Dan sitting beside me, waving as the burgundy Murano pulled out of the drive.

Then I locked the door and went up to check on my sleeping son.

After that, I took a bath.

And I fell asleep at the desk in Izzy’s office, waking up sometime in the middle of the night with a snowman I’d cut out stuck to my cheek.

I peeled the snowman off.

And then I moved to my room, fell in bed and let myself sleep.





The Storm

Addie

GOTTA BE THERE around 10:00, if that’s cool.

I stood in my kitchen, looking down at the text from Toby on my phone.

It was eight thirty Sunday morning.

I’d already fed my kid, my dog, myself, cleaned up after that, put the clean dishes in the dishwasher away, done a load of laundry, wiped down all the countertops and buffed Izzy’s stainless-steel fridge and stove.

When you had a baby, you didn’t get the luxury of sleeping in. And even though I wasn’t putting on an amazing spread for all the Usual Suspects, so I didn’t have a lot of cooking to do (or any at all at that point), they were not going to come over to a house that hadn’t been vacuumed, dusted, and the bathrooms and kitchen hadn’t been cleaned.