The Slow Burn ~ Kristen Ashley

by Ashley, Kristen

  I could see the end of her pastel green silk scarf trailing down the side of the plane as they lifted up.

  They’d gotten high in the sky before I saw it break free and a gust of wind took it, making it sail across the sky like it had wings.

  Toby flew her around for over two hours.

  In the meantime, Deanna and Charlie and their moms came and got the kids so it was only the adults who were on the ground when they got back.

  Or Toby got back.

  Margot was gone.

  David rode in the funeral car with her to the memorial home.

  Lance, David Junior and Mark with their women followed in their rentals.

  Iz held Johnny and they waited.

  They waited because Toby was wandering alone off the airstrip into a field.

  I followed him.

  He went a long way before his long legs crossed under him and he went down.

  I rushed forward, got down behind him and closed my arms around his chest, shoved my forehead in his bowed back and held tight to his hips and thighs with my legs.

  I said nothing.

  He said nothing.

  The long grass in the field around us swayed this way and that in the breeze.

  When his back stopped jarring I gave it more time.

  And only when the time was right did I whisper, “Daphne’s got her.”

  “Yeah,” he said, low and rough. Then he mumbled, “I guess hell froze over.”

  “Sorry?”

  He cleared his throat and said, “She told me she’d fly with me when hell froze over.”

  I turned my head, pressed my cheek against his back and felt my lips curl up in a slight smile.

  “She knew,” he murmured.

  “She knew what, baby?” I asked.

  “She knew, even with Dave, she knew I was the last one who could let her go. And she gave me that.”

  I held on to him tighter and said fiercely, “She loved you, Toby. She loved you so very much.”

  “Yeah,” he whispered.

  Yeah.

  Oh yeah.

  He knew.

  It was Toby who pushed up first, of course.

  And he pulled me up.

  We walked back with me turned mostly to him, my arms around his middle, his slung over my shoulders.

  When we got back to Johnny and Izzy, Izzy gave him a long hug.

  But when she let him go, Johnny caught him by the back of the neck and their arms went around each other, and Iz and I had to walk away to give them time.

  They took it.

  A lot of it.

  Toby let me drive to Deanna’s to get Brooklyn.

  He also let me drive home.

  Brooks slept in bed with us that night.

  He asked for “GoGo” for weeks.

  I knew it tore Toby up every time he did.

  It tore me up too.

  And then one day, it didn’t.

  She never left us, not even our boy, because Toby started doing something Margot would firmly support.

  He taught our son manners, saying things like, “GoGo would want you to say please.” Or, “GoGo would be ticked you’re shouting.”

  And some part of Brooklyn held tight to his GoGo.

  Because from then on, anything “GoGo said” went.

  By the way, when I married Toby, Izzy strapped Mom’s headband around our hands.

  And Johnny wound one of Margot’s scarves around our wrists.

  The wedding was just as Margot had planned for her Tobias.

  Our first Christmas Eve without her.

  “Double-purpose date, my beautiful girl,” she’d whispered to me. “He’ll never forget.”

  It was a little fancy-dancy for me.

  Still.

  It was perfect.

  And she was right, Toby never forgot our anniversary.

  Though I figured he would have remembered anyway.

  Dave fell in love again.

  Her name was Margot too.

  She was the cutest little bundle in the world.

  It got so bad, Charlie feared Dave would kidnap his firstborn daughter.

  Deanna didn’t have a problem with it.

  Toby

  “Fuck,” he said when he caught sight of Toby.

  Toby did not stop moving toward him.

  “Listen, asshole, I know who you are. You were there that day. I’m at work. I don’t need this shit,” Perry said.

  Toby pulled the envelope out of his back pocket and replied, “All you gotta do is sign.”

  “I’m not gonna sign shit.”

  “Allowing me to adopt him, meaning relinquishing all parental rights,” Toby finished.

  The guy shot straight.

  Toby slid the documents out of the envelope.

  “Addie and I got married last month. I’m adopting Brooklyn. Means for you, no support. No visitation. No responsibilities.”

  “Addie want this?” Perry asked.

  “We both do.”

  The dick smiled. “How bad you want it?”

  “I’m his dad no matter how much you feel like playin’ with us, so my question is, how bad do you like to get paid? ’Cause you don’t sign, we go for child support, they garnish sixty percent of your wages.” Tobe looked side to side. “You make good bank as a bouncer for a second-rate titty bar?”

  His face twisted. “Fuck you.”

  “You owe over ten K. And hear this, Perry, I got cake, Addie’s inherited huge, we’ll find you anywhere you try to hide.”

  “You got so much cabbage, why you need mine?” he sneered.

  “We don’t, and you’ll never hear from us again,” he lifted the papers, “you sign. You don’t, you won’t be able to escape us.”

  “Courts’d take into account you two are loaded and you’re goin’ after me,” Perry retorted.

  “As you haven’t been keepin’ in touch, you don’t know, Adeline’s the secretary to a lawyer now and takin’ classes to be a paralegal. She’s got access to good advice. And we’ve been assured that the courts don’t really give a shit about the financial situation of a mother and a stepfather. They don’t like deadbeat dads. You don’t believe me, wanna pay attorney’s fees and roll that dice?” Toby shrugged. “Up to you. You wanna quit with the hassle, for you, not me, or Addie, all you gotta do is sign your name.”

  He didn’t even take a second to think about it.

  “Give me that shit,” he muttered.

  Toby didn’t give it to him.

  He held it up to the brick wall by his side.

  Though he did hand him a pen.

  Perry signed.

  Toby put the pen in his back pocket and folded the document to slide it back in the envelope, muttering, “Obliged.”

  He then started to walk away.

  “She . . . hasn’t sent pictures,” Perry called.

  Toby stopped walking, didn’t turn back, but he looked back.

  “Not in a while,” Perry went on.

  “And?”

  “He, uh . . . look like me at all?”

  Toby turned then.

  “He’s blond-haired and blue-eyed and beautiful. So . . .” Toby smiled, “no.”

  With that, he walked away.

  And within a month, Brooklyn’s last name was Gamble.

  Because when the Gamble Men decided to stake claim to someone they loved . . .

  They didn’t fuck around.

  Addie was pounding chicken breasts between two sheets of plastic wrap.

  She was doing this snapping, “You’re not sleeping on the pullout.”

  To this, Dave returned soothingly, “Adeline, child, I’m not lettin’ an eight-month pregnant woman sleep on a pullout. So I’m sleepin’ on the pullout.”

  Toby wasn’t gonna let that shit happen either.

  They were in a bed or he was driving his woman home.

  Dave wasn’t young, but he wasn’t slowing down much either.

  And they had a foam thing for the top of the pull
out mattress. It was the shit.

  His pregnant wife still wasn’t sleeping on it.

  “You’re not sleepin’ on the pullout, Dave,” Johnny put in. “Iz and I’ll sleep on the pullout.”

  “So you want me to sleep in the bed of a woman who gave birth two months ago?” Dave asked, tipping his head to Izzy, who was bouncing a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms. “That’s not gonna happen.”

  “We can set the bassinette up down here,” Johnny returned. “Less disruption for everyone upstairs sleepin’ when we gotta get up to feed Quinn.”

  “You can sleep in the bunks with me, Paw,” Brooks offered. “I get the top, you can sleep on the bottom an’ tell me stories. Or you can sleep on the top a’ the other set a’ bunks.” He paused before he concluded, “An’ tell me stories. You don’t gotta worry ’bout fallin’ out. Daddy made sure the top bunks ’av railin’s.”

  Dave ruffled Brooks’s sun-streaked blond hair. “Now, that sounds like a plan, son.”

  “You’re not sleeping in a bunkbed, Dave,” Addie declared.

  “Why not?” Dave asked her. “We’ll make it into a fort, tell ghost stories, stay up all night, raid the kitchen.”

  “That sounds great!” Brooks shouted.

  Addie looked to Toby. “Tobias, what are you gonna do about this?”

  He’d noted he was “Tobias” a lot during her pregnancy.

  It was cute.

  And it reminded him of Margot.

  So he loved it.

  “Nothin’, baby. Thinkin’ about joinin’ ’em.”

  She skewered him with a look.

  He shot her a smile.

  “C’mon, child, let’s let your mother cook. We’ll sit out on the porch for a spell,” Dave invited, sliding his ass off the stool Addie picked and walked through the kitchen Izzy redesigned to the living room that Toby refurnished.

  Four dogs followed them.

  Somewhere in the house, four cats totally ignored them.

  “I think I’m gonna miss the grand opening of the new Gamble Garage next week,” Addie grumbled.

  “Why?” Toby asked.

  She looked again to him. “Because my hormones are screaming at me to murder somebody, and I don’t think you all would do good trade after a Gamble committed homicide on opening day.”

  Toby smiled at her again and advised, “Not sure how good the chicken part of the parmigiana is gonna be if it’s paper thin.”

  She looked down to what she was doing.

  Then she stopped whacking the chicken.

  “You’re adorable, Lollipop,” he told her.

  “It’s good you’re able to say that in company or you’d have a meat tenderizer sticking out the back of your skull,” she replied.

  “Why do you think I said it?” he asked.

  “So, tell me,” Izzy cut in. “Toby speaks fluent German, but Johnny and me are the ones who talk it, and I don’t even know it, and you two are Talon and Lollipop and Toby never speaks it at all. What’s up with that?”

  “Johnny’s a showoff,” Toby answered smoothly.

  “Toby and me are being Toby and me,” Addie said at the same time.

  “Toby and you are definitely Toby and you,” Johnny muttered, reaching out to a bowl of mozzarella that Addie had just finished grating.

  “Eat some of that, and die,” Addie warned.

  Johnny had very recently lived through a pregnancy.

  He gave his sister-in-law a warm smile.

  And did not eat any mozzarella.

  “You can have a carrot stick,” she allowed.

  Johnny looked to Toby.

  “She’s on a health kick so we’re all on a health kick,” he told his brother.

  “Worse things,” Izzy murmured, and Toby looked to her to see her face dipped close to her blinking baby and she was grinning.

  “Let’s get out of here before they gang up on us,” Johnny suggested.

  “Good idea, men on the porch, out from underfoot and out of the way of flying meat tenderizers,” Addie said.

  Shooting his wife another smile (because even pregnant-bitchy, or maybe because she was pregnant-bitchy she actually was adorable) Toby slid off his stool and he and Johnny headed out.

  They stopped at the screen door at hearing Dave say, “And that’s what your daddy found, and your Uncle Johnny. What I found in my Margot.”

  Dave and Brooks were sitting on the top step of the porch.

  Tobe looked to his brother to see his brother turning to look at him.

  “GoGo?” Brooks asked.

  They both looked back when they heard Dave’s voice was a titch lower as he said, “Yeah, son, GoGo. The Good Witch of Kentucky.”

  “GoGo was a witch?” Brooks asked in shock.

  “Yup. Bewitched me, sure as shootin’. And I didn’t mind one bit. Just like your mommy bewitched your daddy. Your daddy took one look at her, he’s big and he’s strong, but not strong enough to fight her spell.”

  “Thas good, right?” Brooks asked.

  “Best thing that ever happened to him,” Dave assured. “You ask him straight, that’s what he’ll say. Even knowin’ he’s tied tight in her spell. Now your Aunt Izzy, that girl’s got fairy powers. Dazzle and sparkle. She bound your Uncle Johnny up in pixie dust and he didn’t know his rear end from a car fender.”

  Brooks laughed.

  Toby smiled.

  “And he didn’t mind either,” Dave continued.

  “I know Mommy and Aunt Izzy got magic,” Brooks told him. “Auntie Dee says they sit out under the stars an’ soak it up.”

  “Unh-hunh,” Dave agreed.

  Brooks leaned against his grandpa.

  Dave wrapped an arm around him.

  “Mommy says when I’m bigger, Daddy can teach me how to fly.”

  “No stoppin’ your daddy, he was born to soar.”

  “But Daddy says when I’m bigger, we’re gonna go scuba divin’.”

  “You watch a dolphin, son. You can soar in water. Your daddy knows that. Gonna teach you.”

  “If Mommy’s a witch, is Daddy a wizard?”

  “Nope, got his feet on the ground. Now, listen to me, Brooks, you’re about to hear the most important thing a man can tell you. That’s what you do. That’s your job. The most important job you’ll ever have. You find a woman and you let her live with her head in the clouds. But even if you’re flyin’ a plane or swimmin’ with the dolphins, you keep your feet firm on the ground so you can keep an eye on her. Don’t ever take your eye off her, boy, don’t ever let her crash to the ground.”

  Dave fell silent a moment and his voice was gruff when he finished.

  “Let her fly.”

  “Let her fly,” Brooks breathed.

  “You get that right, won’t matter you’re a billionaire or a brick layer, she’ll be happy. Only thing that matters is, she’s happy. And you know why?”

  “Why?” Brooks asked.

  “’Cause you make her happy, son, she’ll make you the happiest man on the planet. That’s what your GoGo did for me. What your mommy gives your daddy. What your Aunt Iz gives to your Uncle Johnny. You with me?”

  “I’m with you, Paw.”

  Dave pulled Brooks closer with his arm.

  “Now how many fish we gonna catch tomorrow?” he asked.

  “A bazillion!” Brooks answered.

  Without saying a word, the Gamble Men silently moved away from the screen door.

  It wasn’t until they’d braved walking through the kitchen under the curious stares of their wives and out to the back porch before Johnny cleared his throat.

  Toby looked at the trees.

  “Good Witch of Kentucky,” Toby muttered. “How pissed do you think Margot is right now?”

  “Seriously fuckin’ pissed,” Johnny answered. “Though Daphne will probably chill her out.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Izzy asked, pushing through the screen door holding her son, her sister on her heels.

  Iz went to
Johnny, who took their boy and cuddled him close to his chest at the same time he cuddled his wife close to his side.

  Addie came to him and did what she did a lot, wrapping both arms around his middle, her baby bump with their son safe in it shoving against his side and hip.

  He slid his arm around her too.

  “Just heard Dave givin’ Brooks some wisdom,” Johnny answered.

  “And it sent you to the back porch?” Izzy asked.

  “They needed their time,” Johnny shared.

  “Ah,” Izzy replied.

  “You all right?” Addie asked quietly.

  He looked down to his wife.

  “You got a lot to thank Dave for, baby,” he replied in the same tone.

  “What’s he telling our boy?”

  “No.” He bent and touched his mouth to hers, but when he was done, he didn’t pull far away. “Always thought it was Margot,” he whispered.

  “What was Margot?” she whispered back.

  “Who taught me how to treat a woman.”

  Her gorgeous face got soft and her body pressed closer to his.

  She got him.

  “He teaching that to Brooklyn?” she asked.

  “Yeah. And he’s soakin’ it in.”

  She smiled up at him.

  Through her, their son thumped him in the side.

  Her smile got bigger then it got brighter when she saw him return it.

  Nothing his wife loved more than seeing her husband smile.

  His Addie didn’t have her head in the clouds.

  But one thing he knew was certain.

  He was the happiest man on the planet.

  “Gonna put him down, spätzchen,” Toby heard Johnny mutter.

  “Okay, häschen,” he heard Izzy reply.

  Strike that.

  He wasn’t the happiest man on the planet.

  It was a tie.

  By the by, Johnny and Izzy’s son grew up best friends with Addie and Toby’s boy.

  Like brothers.

  And Addie and Toby’s daughter grew up best friends with Johnny and Izzy’s girl.

  Just like sisters.

  Brooks happily took the role as big brother to all.

  But Brooks?

  He grew up and married a beautiful girl named Margot.

  ~ THE END ~