The Slow Burn (Moonlight and Motor Oil #2)(96)
When he got that from her, he turned back to the sink and started the water again.
He’d handed her two rinsed plates when she changed the subject.
“We need to talk about Sierra.”
“We really don’t,” he muttered.
He was not surprised she ignored him.
“Although after Adeline got done with her, I have my doubts . . .”
His head jerked her way.
She was shoving a plate in, not looking at him, and still talking, “ . . . she’ll make another approach. But if she does—”
“After Addie got done with her?”
Margot looked to him. “Yes. At Matlock Mart. In the parking lot yesterday.”
He stared at her.
Then he looked over his shoulder and stared at the kitchen door.
“She didn’t tell you,” Margot murmured.
Toby turned back to the plates. “Shit got real when she got home. And then it was Christmas.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“What’d you hear?” he asked.
“Well, Francine was parked two cars down. So . . . everything.”
Francine had the biggest mouth in Matlock. Nice lady. But she was like the Matlock AP wire.
“I’m sure she targeted Adeline as she’s a mother and thinks Adeline will have some pity on her,” Margot noted.
“I’m sure she did,” Toby bit out and handed her another plate.
“Though, it’s my understanding Adeline disabused her of that notion.”
“I’m sure she did,” Toby repeated, though that wasn’t angry. He suddenly wanted to laugh.
Christ, he would have liked to have been there for that.
He handed her another rinsed plate.
She shoved it in, saying, “You boys should listen to what she has to say.”
That got her Toby’s full attention. “Say what?”
Her gaze lifted to his. “You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
“You hate her.”
She reached and gently took the plate Tobe was holding under the faucet and turned back to the dishwasher. “Perhaps I did, in the beginning, witnessing Lance’s pain, you boys’ confusion. Then I felt sorry for her, getting to watch you boys grow up and all she was missing.” She lifted her eyes to him again. “And now she sees it too.”
“I don’t want her a part of my life, Addie’s life, Brooklyn’s life. I want you a part of it.”
“I’m not saying you should forgive her, Tobias. I’m saying I know you. I know Johnathon. And I know if you boys don’t sit down and hear her out, you’ll regret it. If you do and what she has to say doesn’t move you,” she shrugged, “then that’s her lot. I’m not worried about her lot. I’m worried about your lots. And I don’t want my boys to regret anything.”
He shifted his attention back to rinsing plates, muttering, “You know, it’s always sucked, ever since I was a kid, that you knew everything.”
He heard her soft laughter.
“I’ll talk to Johnny,” he told her.
“Good.”
They got the plates out of the way and started on the silverware.
He was rinsing glasses when she said quietly, “You could decide to go to the ends of the earth, and she’d strap Brooks into his stroller and go with you.”
“I know,” he replied in her tone.
“I’m so pleased you two finally opened yourselves to one another. Pleased Johnathon stopped making it hard on you. So very pleased, Tobias, that you and Johnathon are both so happy.”
He turned his head again to her. “Me too, honey.”
She gave him a smile.
He smiled back.
They finished with the glasses and she started putting away food while he rinsed out the serving shit and shoved it in with the rest.
After that, he started the washer and they got down to hand washing wineglasses and pots and pans.
There was only one pan soaking in the sink when they left, the rest of the kitchen spic and span.
And Tobias was good.
Because that was how Margot needed to leave her kitchen.
And Tobias needed to give his girl what she needed.
For as long as he could.
Toby tossed his watch on the nightstand.
“Babe,” he called.
Addie was in the bathroom.
Brooks was down.
Barbarella was quarantined in the kitchen with food and a litter tray, safe from Dapper Dan, who was excited to have her but not used to her yet, and she wasn’t used to the house yet.
So Dapper Dan was crashed out at the foot of the bed.
“What?” she called back.
“We gotta talk,” he told her, pulling off his sweater.
“Out in a sec,” she said.
He yanked off his thin Henley and it caught on the leather bracelet at his wrist.
He looked at it.
And decided to leave it on.
He sat on the bed and tugged his boots off. Then his socks.
“Yo.”
At the word, he twisted to look toward the bathroom.
Then he froze.
That was, most of his body froze.
His cock came to attention.
Addie was standing there with her hands on her hips wearing a skintight black dress that barely covered her ass. It had short sleeves and a collar. The front came down low to expose serious cleavage at her pushed-together tits. A black belt hung low on her hips.