The Slow Burn ~ Kristen Ashley

by Ashley, Kristen

  “You’re a loser! I love you!”

  After saying that, Addie threw herself at him and gave him a hard, closed-mouth kiss.

  He took note a five-hundred-dollar Sephora card bought him a weird thank you.

  And a kiss.

  So next time he’d go for a thousand.

  She ended the kiss, smiled huge close to his face then pulled away.

  “Now my presents for everybody, because I couldn’t do much and everyone’s being so generous so I wanna get it over with,” she declared, dropping to her knees and crawling under the tree.

  She dug around with Brooklyn motoring all over the presents and through the spent wrapping paper.

  With him was Dapper Dan, Ranger and Dempsey (Johnny and Izzy’s dogs who Johnny had gone in his pajamas to get that morning while the cinnamon rolls were rising, along with their other dog, Swirl). Swirl, more mature than the other three, had had his fill of the excitement and was crashed flat out on a bed of paper and bows.

  Eventually Addie turned, shouted, “Coming in hot!” and threw a package to Johnny, which he caught.

  She turned back to the tree.

  And again around, “Iz,” she called, then tossed a much smaller package to Izzy.

  She then plopped on her ass, grabbed her kid, sat him in her lap and looked to Toby.

  “Yours you can’t open in public,” she declared.

  Brilliant.

  He grinned at her.

  She grinned back then dropped her head to Brooklyn’s ear and said, “Auntie Iz and Uncle Johnny are opening presents.” She lifted an arm and pointed to where Iz was sitting between Johnny’s legs on the floor in front of the armchair. “Watch, honey.”

  Brooklyn looked Iz and Johnny’s way.

  Then he pushed off and started crawling their way.

  “Oh no. Stop. No.”

  At the hitch, Toby turned to Izzy to see her head bent, her hair curtaining her face, a cheap white jewelry box in her hand.

  She lifted her head to look at her sister, and Toby saw her face was red.

  He’d learned the day before she was almost as pretty of a crier as Addie.

  But not quite.

  “No,” she said in a choked voice.

  “When I become a legal secretary and I’ve got buckets of cash, I’m gonna redo it with real stones. Those are fake,” Addie told her.

  “Never. Never. I don’t want a different one ever, Addie.”

  Toby looked to his brother to see Johnny had leaned forward to catch what was in the box, but now his head was tipped back and a warm look was on his face, but his eyes were on Addie.

  “Jesus, what is it?” he asked.

  Izzy shoved it his way where he was sitting in the corner of the couch, and he just caught it before she rolled to her hands and knees and hustled in a crawl to Addie to grab her into a hug.

  He looked down at the box.

  “Those are our birthstones,” Johnny muttered. “And they used to give their mom charms.”

  That explained the sizeable gold charm shaped like a heart with two stones embedded in it, some stars printed on it, and the tiny words Sometimes you gotta fall before you fly.

  “Now you,” Addie ordered, and Toby looked her way to see her and Izzy cuddled cross-legged together under the tree looking at Johnny.

  Brooklyn used Johnny’s knee to pull himself up to his feet and he banged on Johnny’s present.

  Johnny tore into it.

  He separated the box, shook out a long-sleeved tee, looked at the front then threw back his head with a bark of laughter.

  “Let’s see!” Izzy cried.

  He turned it around.

  It read,

  OFFICIAL MEMBER OF

  THE FORRESTER GIRLS CLUB

  (THE ONE WITH THE DICK)

  “You can just wear it around the mill. I won’t be offended,” Addie assured him.

  “Thanks, darlin’,” Johnny replied.

  “Okay, for right now, just one thing for you,” Addie said, and Toby turned his attention to her to see a small box sailing his way.

  He caught it just in time.

  “This doesn’t look like an awesome Forrester Girls Club tee,” he muttered.

  “You’ll get the one that says, ‘the other one with the dick’ from me on your birthday,” Izzy told him, sounding like she was laughing.

  “Obliged,” he muttered, opening his present.

  It was another cheap, white jewelry box.

  But he was thinking, with Addie, the best shit came in those.

  He opened it.

  And he was right.

  The best shit came in those.

  At first, he thought it was a kickass, narrow, brown leather man’s bracelet.

  But when he pulled it out, he saw inside it was tooled with the words, She’s Mine.

  So far, from him, she’d opened his Sephora gift card and a pair of high-heeled boots he’d seen in the city when he and Johnny were shopping for Izzy that he thought were kickass, and he’d called Iz to find out her sister’s size.

  There were two more gift cards under the tree from him to her.

  One, considering she’d been looking for office work and had mentioned she didn’t have the wardrobe for it, was for a thousand bucks at Nordstrom. And one was kind of a joke, kind of not, considering they’d be setting up house soon and he wanted her to make it her own—another five-hundred-dollars, this at Crate and Barrel.

  Her real present, Johnny and Izzy were supposed to bring over that morning, but with the change of plans, it was now at Margot and Dave’s.

  None of that shit was as good as that bracelet.

  Except maybe the real one.

  His eyes moved to her.

  “I kinda dig you, Talon,” she said, grinning sassily at him.

  Jesus, shit, he needed to fuck her.

  “Do I get time to concentrate today?” he asked.

  Her expression changed, and the way it did, he needed to fuck her even more.

  “Not until after presents, at least.”

  “Right, before you two go at each other through the wrapping paper, let’s get back to it,” Johnny said. “One for Brooks.”

  And he got up from his chair to find a present for Brooklyn.

  “Come here, Lollipop,” Toby ordered.

  She came there.

  And when she got to her knees between his legs, his kiss wasn’t closed-mouthed.

  After he ended it, she asked, “You like it?”

  “Love it, baby.”

  She grinned at him and that wasn’t an I-own-your-dick grin.

  It was just sweet.

  “How much more generous are you gonna be to me and Brooklyn?” she asked quietly.

  She’d gotten her Sephora gift card, and the rest was waiting for her, but he’d partially lost his mind at a baby store in Bellevue that had the baddest ass little boy’s clothes he’d ever seen.

  So Brooklyn had five new outfits.

  And on top of that, Eliza and Margot had given him a Brooklyn List. So there were onesies, socks, jammies, baby bowls, forks and spoons, a bucket with shapes cut out at the top and matching blocks to shove in and a stool with things to roll, open and slide and buttons to push, which played music that eventually would probably drive him and Addie insane.

  Only maybe half of this she and Brooks had already opened.

  “Moderately generous,” he answered.

  “Considering your brother built my sister a stable and bought her an engagement ring that costs as much as a car, I’m not sure the Gamble Men have the same definition of ‘moderate’ as the rest of Earth’s population do,” she replied.

  “This is probably an accurate assessment,” he muttered, watching her closely and hoping this wasn’t going to devolve into a thing.

  But she just grinned at him and said, “You Gamble Brothers, you love someone, you just can’t help yourself, can you?”

  He relaxed, pulled some of her hair over her shoulder, grinned back and replie
d, “Nope.”

  She pushed up and gave him a light kiss then pulled back, turned and sat between his legs on the floor as Brooks chanted, “Jaja, Jaja, praza, foo, foo, foo,” at Johnny.

  Brooklyn could say “broke” but he couldn’t say “Christmas” or “present.”

  Though he was trying.

  Addie had the same train of thought.

  “We should probably stop cussing in front of him. He’s talking all the time now and soaking everything in,” she murmured.

  “Yeah,” Toby agreed.

  She settled back into him as Johnny dropped to the floor, pulled Brooklyn into his lap and helped him open his shapes bucket.

  Johnny then yanked open the box and pulled away the packing material, handing Brooklyn a shape.

  Brooks looked at it then threw it across the room.

  Dapper Dan immediately retrieved it for him.

  “Well, if that’s meant to train him for the major leagues, it works a charm,” Addie remarked.

  Toby chuckled.

  She rested an arm on his thigh then her head on his knee, attention pointed to the action, as Izzy decided, “Another one for Brooks. He’s got about a thousand to get through,” and she said this handing another package to Johnny.

  At that, Toby reached for his phone because he had a feeling with Perry’s cell out of service and the fact he hadn’t contacted Addie to give her that heads up or info on an alternate way to get in touch with him that the asshole was history.

  So the adults would remember this, but Brooklyn wouldn’t, and there might come a time when he would need all the evidence he could get that his biological father might not have given a shit, but everyone else in his life did.

  Though, Toby doubted that.

  But he took pictures anyway.

  And by the end of the day the selfie he took of him, Addie and Brooks, with her still between his legs, him bent to her, and Brooklyn in her arms landing a sloppy kiss on her jaw, was the wallpaper on his phone.

  And by the end of the next week, the shot Izzy took with her selfie stick of all five of them (plus Dapper Dan, Ranger, Dempsey and Swirl) huddled together in front of the tree was blown up and framed, twice.

  One was set on the side table by Johnny’s reading chair at the mill.

  And one was set on the mantle in Addie’s family room.

  For a few of months . . .

  Then it was on the mantle at Toby’s.

  “You didn’t! I hate you! I love you!” Addie cried, turned to him, threw her arm around him to give him a tight hug and kissed the side of his neck before she disengaged, dumped Brooks, who had been on her hip, in his arms, and rushed forward.

  Toward the ginger and white, six-month-old kitten that Margot was holding.

  Her real present.

  Toby adjusted Brooklyn to his own hip and watched Addie take hold of the new member of her family and cuddle her to her neck.

  Feeling her eyes, Toby tore his from his woman who was all about her new cat to look at Margot.

  Pride.

  He never got anything but that from his girl.

  Not ever.

  “Dang, I wanna name you Chuck Norris,” Addie declared, and Toby looked back at her to see she was holding the cat away and inspecting things. She cuddled her close again. “But that appears to be out.” Her attention came to him and she cried triumphantly, “Barbarella!”

  “Lord God,” Margot, who had moved to his side, murmured.

  Toby slid his arm along her shoulders.

  She slid hers along his waist.

  He took a moment to memorize the feel of her, her touch.

  And then she spoke.

  “You should probably introduce your woman to your older brothers.”

  “Give her a minute,” he replied.

  She gave it only about a second before she spoke again.

  “That pendant Eliza is wearing is very attractive,” she remarked.

  “It comes with matching earrings. She showed in the kitchen wearing both this morning. Didn’t notice at first. But that probably explained some of her dreamy look, that and the fact Johnny gave her some, or got himself some after giving her diamonds.”

  Margot gave him a reprimanding squeeze and snapped, “Tobias.”

  He grinned.

  “Will Adeline be getting diamonds anytime soon?” she asked leadingly.

  He turned and kissed the side of her head then looked back to his woman. “I’ll need you to help me with that.”

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  He pulled her closer and held her there.

  Then she let him go, so he let her go, and he felt the loss of her touch in the depths of his heart.

  He ignored it and moved himself and Brooks forward, calling, “Babe, probably should introduce you to the rest of my family.”

  Addie aimed a stunning smile his way.

  The ache in his heart didn’t go away.

  But in that instant, seeing that smile, it didn’t hurt so bad.

  And in the next instant, when Brooks reached out with gentle wonder to Barbarella, it hurt a little less.

  “Don’t even try to kick me out ’cause I’m helpin’, no matter what you say,” Toby declared, walking into Margot’s kitchen.

  She was at the sink, piles of Christmas dishes all around her.

  Fifteen people in that house old enough to help her, she’d shooed them all to her family room with bourbon, brandy, spiked eggnog, unspiked eggnog, hot chocolate and iced Amaretto, depending on who was drinking, and disappeared in the kitchen.

  It had changed since he was a kid, though she and Dave had never done a full overhaul. Margot had updated it bit by bit. New countertops. New hardware. New flooring. New curtains. New kitchen table. New sink. New fridge, stove and microwave.

  So eventually, it all just looked new.

  “I’ll rinse,” he said, gently moving her out of the way. “You load. You’re weird about that.”

  “I’m not weird, Tobias,” she retorted. “It just takes less time to put away and makes more sense to have all the plates in a row, the little forks in the same compartment in the silverware holder, the spoons in their own. Same for the rest of the cutlery. And the bowls. Etcetera.”

  “Whatever,” he muttered.

  She adjusted from the sink without argument.

  A win.

  He picked up a plate and put it under the running faucet.

  Toby gave it a minute.

  Then, after handing her a couple of rinsed plates, he said, “You need me, I’m there.”

  “I know, Tobias,” she replied gently.

  “Dave needs me, I’m there.”

  “I know, darlin’. So does he.”

  “You don’t need me, I’m still there.”

  Her yellow-plastic-gloved hand came into the sink and her fingers curled around the wrist above the plate he was rinsing.

  He looked her way.

  “I know, my beautiful boy,” she whispered and shifted closer. “Honey, I can’t live forever.”

  He wanted to be strong for her.

  But he couldn’t.

  Not yet.

  He’d get there.

  But not yet.

  “Stop talking,” he ordered.

  “You know I can’t. No one does.”

  “Margot—”

  “I’m not young.”

  “You’re not old.”

  She gave him a small smile. “I’m seventy-two, Tobias.”

  “You’re not old.”

  She let him go, tugged off her glove, then lifted her hand and laid it on the side of his face.

  He memorized that too.

  “Whatever happens, I’m at peace.”

  “Really, stop talking,” he growled.

  “I slept beside the love of my life for decades. We raised three beautiful boys then had the honor of helping to raise two more. They all found wonderful women.” She tipped her head to the side and her beautiful, warm face got warmer, so it also got m
ore beautiful. “My grandchildren know their grandmother loves them.”

  Her hand slid to the side of his neck and there it latched on.

  So Toby braced.

  “You need to look after David,” she said.

  “You know we will.”

  “He’s going to be lost.”

  “You’re not. You’re gonna beat this so stop talking about that.”

  “Just in case, I need to know you’ll watch out for him.”

  “Even if I didn’t promise that, which you don’t even have to ask, Adeline and Eliza will be all over it.”

  She got a wistful expression on her face and her hand slid away.

  “Too true,” she murmured.

  He shut the water off and turned to her.

  “I won’t ever be ready to lose you, it happens now, or you beat this shit and it happens in twenty years. But if Dave is left behind, we got him. Just like if, God forbid, something happened to Dave and you were left behind, we’d have you. You’re not gonna be able to stop worrying about that, but you gotta focus on the battle at hand, so I want you to try.”

  “I will, Tobias.”

  He made sure she wasn’t lying by staring hard at her face.

  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.”