The Slow Burn (Moonlight and Motor Oil #2)(83)

“Yeah, but I knew who I was and what I was doin’, and I’ve always known that. Fuck anyone else.”

I leaned deeper. “Yeah. Fuck anyone else, baby.”

He grinned down at me.

“Oh God, you’re loved up,” Lora said after she returned. “I’d want to spend the rest of the night after everyone left plotting your murders out of sheer jealousy if you guys weren’t June and Johnny, that being the one with the last name of Cash. Though you have better hair,” she said to Toby. “And so do you,” she said to me. “And that’s saying something because those two could do hair.” She looked around muttering, “Your sister and your brother are Goldie and Kurt. Totally. Now where did I put my wineglass?”

“You didn’t have it when we first saw you,” Toby told her.

“Right!” She snapped her fingers in the air. “The other room! Be back.”

“You don’t have to entertain us,” I said.

“Sister, we need to talk,” she replied. “First, I open up the new year, obviously, with Magic Mike, the third Friday in January. Pencil that bitch in. It’s the official initiation ceremony for everyone in the posse and since our second showing doesn’t happen until July, you gotta come to the first one. Second, my cousin has a sixteen-year-old who is dying to buy a car, so she needs babysitting jobs. She’s a good kid. Totes responsible. Honor roll. Class officer. All that jazz. I’ll set up a meet and you can suss her out, and if you need her for your little cutie, she’d love me forever. Next, take your coats off for goodness sakes. Dump them on the bed in my bedroom, And last, I just need my wine. Be back!”

Then she took off.

“She’s making me tired,” I whispered on a smile.

“She’s fuckin’ hilarious,” Toby did not whisper.

“Do you want to take our coats off and stay awhile?” I asked. “Or down this beer and get out of here?”

“Tobe! Hey, man!” a male voice called from the room.

“Coats off. Stay awhile. Suss out a babysitter. Make a friend. And I’m eating every last one of her peanut butter cookies with the Hershey’s Kisses shoved in because I’m still not down with giving her the last of our nut clusters, and I feel the need to get mine back,” Toby replied, shrugging off his jacket.

I shrugged mine off too.

“Hey! Cool you’re here,” the same male voice said as Toby took my jacket.

Toby introduced me. Then said he had to get rid of our jackets.

Someone else came to us and took them away.

Toby introduced me to that somebody else too.

And it was then Toby stood by the drinks and held court, maybe not getting he was doing that, standing there in all his handsomeness, coolness and mystique, a treasured son of Matlock, town royalty, and simply just the guy, maybe one of all of two in the whole county who could show at a Christmas party and make a fun ’do the place to be.

And while he unknowingly did this, I stood in the curve of his arm, sipping beer, chatting, and wondering if I should tell him.

I decided to find the right time to tease him about it.

And I sipped beer in the curve of the arm of town royalty, enjoying a Christmas party.

The place to be.



The party had been fun.

And I was glad we stayed.

Even as long as we stayed.

Because it was, as I mentioned, fun.

Also because we stayed long enough to decimate Lora’s peanut butter and Kisses cookies.

Now I was glad to get home.

Have caveman sex with Toby.

Sleep by his side.

Get up, sort the apps for Christmas Eve, do my shift, and then start Brooks and my first Christmas in Matlock.

With Toby.

Okay, so I had a few presents to wrap still.

But what mom worth her salt didn’t stay up late Christmas Eve wrapping presents?

And anyway, Tobe and I had already had a present-wrapping night.

He was hopeless.

But he was good at putting his finger on the ribbon and handing me tape.

Though we wrapped presents like we did everything.

Addie and Toby style.

This meaning not to the strains of Bing.

But to Rammstein.

I’d done it.

What Izzy had done.

I’d worked hard.

And built the life I wanted for me.

So, it was a work in progress.

But so far, it was working for me.

Seriously.

“Jesus, shit.”

The words were said and then I felt the mood in the cab turn oppressive right before Toby braked to a halt almost at the end of his drive.

“Jesus, shit,” he repeated.

I stopped gazing out the side window, ensconced in my happy thoughts on my way to imminent orgasms, and looked to him.

He was staring out the windshield.

I turned that way.

There was a car in his drive. A sedan. I couldn’t tell the color, but it was dark.

A woman was standing outside it.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Jesus, fucking shit,” Toby rumbled.

“Baby, who . . . is . . . that?”

“I’m not sure. Haven’t seen her since I was three. But I think that’s my mother.”

My head snapped around to look out the windshield.