The Slow Burn (Moonlight and Motor Oil #2)(82)

He didn’t offer it.

He (and I) were watching Lora laugh.

She stopped doing that, took the wine from me, and proclaimed, “No, I’m not drunk. And no, I’m not on other substances. And last, no, I’m not crazy.” She focused on Toby. “I just heard you gave Jocelyn hell for being Jocelyn, and hun, when I heard that, it was like Santa came early.”

Ah.

“Happy to be of service,” Toby muttered, sounding uncomfortable.

“Dude, do not go there,” Lora advised then pointed at herself. “She stole my boyfriend in fifth grade and my prom date my junior year.” She turned and pointed across the room. “Sheree, told everyone she had chlamydia, so the state-winning, one-hundred-meter butterfly champion didn’t ask her to homecoming.” She looked to me. “And you know those swimmers’ bods. Oowee.”

She made another turn and pointed.

“Brandy, also boyfriend theft.” Another shift of her pointed finger. “Carolyn, stole all her clothes at gym so she had to walk to the school offices in a towel. Bea,” she leaned to us and whispered, “got her fiancé blotto and blew him in a place Bea would see them three weeks before the wedding.”

“Holy crap,” I breathed.

She lifted her hand and spelled out different letters as she said, “Totally see you next Tuesday.” Again, her attention went to Toby. “When I heard you called her a bitch and said she was even bad at faking it, I think I laughed for three hours straight. She was into you in high school. She was into you after high school. You were her Holy Grail. And she got to the cave with the old dude, grabbed the wrong goblet, aged a thousand years and turned to ash. She chose . . . poorly.”

With that, she started cackling.

I couldn’t help it, I started laughing with her.

It took time, but she got control of herself (and so did I).

And then she said something for which I’d be forever grateful.

“I mean, everyone knew you were the cool Gamble brother, but with that, and uh . . . other stuff,” her gaze slid to me then back to Toby, “you proved it irrevocably.”

I felt Tobe had gone solid at my side.

“Not that Johnny isn’t cool, but I mean, you got it goin’ on,” she finished hurriedly. “When she heard you were coming tonight, Bea wanted to make you a fake key to Matlock and present it to you. Jocelyn works in the city. Rumor has it she’s looking for places up there so she can move. So, uh . . .” she seemed to belatedly read his vibe, “at the very least, let me get you a beer.”

“Great,” Toby said kind of tightly.

“Come on. There’s lots of food too,” she invited. “I’ll show you.”

We followed her, and as we did, I looked up at Toby.

He was watching the back of her head like he couldn’t tear his eyes from it.

I didn’t have the shot to ask after his state as she led us to a little dining room.

She was right. There was a lot of food.

“Wow, impressive spread,” I noted.

“I’m completely incapable of letting anyone leave my house feeling anything less than bloated, but I’m going for that dude in the Monty Python movie that exploded. That’s a warning. I mean that not just at Christmas, when it’s a moral imperative to eat until you explode, but even when I have my semi-annual Magic Mike nights,” Lora told me.

I again started laughing.

She led us to a sideboard that was covered in booze and big tubs of alternate drinks.

“Beer.” She waved her hand over a tub. “And what can I get you, Addie?”

“Beer is good for me too,” I said.

She put the bottle of wine down that I gave her and assessed our faces as she touched bottles, pulling out our preferences, snapping the caps and handing them to us.

“Koozie stash at the end,” she said.

“This is for you,” Toby told her, offering the chocolates.

“Oh no you didn’t! Yay!” she cried, taking them. “I have to hide these. Immediately! Be right back.”

Then she took off.

I turned right to Toby.

“You good?”

“Guess the mild qualms I had that I was a colossal dick to Jocelyn are gonna go away. Even I didn’t know she was that big of a bitch.”

“You had qualms?” I asked.

“Babe, I was a colossal dick.”

That was so Toby.

I leaned into him and he put his arm around me. “You’re a Christmas hero.”

“Whatever,” he muttered, his lips hitching, then he sucked back some brew.

“And you’re the cool Gamble brother.”

His eyes came down to me.

“And you so totally are,” I finished.

“Focus on the shit, gotta learn,” he said.

“Sorry?”

“You focus on the shit. The shit people say about you. The shit people feed you. And when people treat you like shit. Focused on that with my mom, focused on that with crap people would say about me. Didn’t focus on Margot thinkin’ I could do anything. Dave and Dad bein’ proud of me. Even with Johnny, when it was mostly all good, I focused on the big brother thing that was annoying the fuck out of me.”

“Even I thought that last was a bit much,” I told him. “And you know I adore Johnny.”