The Slow Burn

by Kristen Ashley

  She didn’t quite beat the smile before she replied, “Saying, Tobias.” Then she shifted aside so he could get in, murmuring, “Lord, child, what am I going to do with you?”

  “Feed me?”

  She rolled her eyes, but he saw before she did, they were smiling.

  He walked in.

  She made him wash his hands then get out his books at the kitchen table while she fixed him a roast beef sandwich with melted muenster on top, slathered in mayo with a ton of ridged Ruffles stacked on the side.

  In fact, there were so many chips, the sandwich was almost covered in them. It was like she was making him a full meal, even if he’d had lunch and it was near-on dinnertime.

  He didn’t care. It was awesome and he was, well . . . famished.

  He grinned and got down to his geometry because he knew she wouldn’t let him go home until he was done with his homework.

  Toby was half through the sandwich, had made a dent in the chips, and was almost done with geometry when he looked at Margot at the stove, doing stuff with a big hunk of meat in a pan she was gonna roast for Dave for dinner.

  Their boys were all in college. Well, Lance, the oldest one, was an engineer out in Oregon, but Dave Junior and Mark were in college.

  So it was now just Margot and Dave.

  She didn’t have all her boys to look after anymore.

  Dad had said it made her sad. And Toby’d seen that, for sure.

  And when he did, even if Grams or Gramps were home, or the mill was calling, he came after school to her, and not just because she did great snacks (Grams did great snacks too).

  Now she seemed to be doing better.

  And he was glad.

  Still.

  He was looking at her because that feeling in his stomach had turned and it did it so bad, he had to get it out.

  “Only thing I care about . . .” he started.

  Margot turned her head to him.

  “Is you not goin’ away,” he finished.

  She straightened from her beef and rotated fully to him.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Tobias.”

  “I like Rachel fine,” he said. “And I don’t care about Mom,” he lied. “But don’t you go anywhere.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, darlin’.”

  He stared at her.

  She let him and stared right back.

  This went on awhile.

  When it lasted long enough to make that feeling start to fade, he looked back to his books.

  Margot went back to her roast.

  When Dave, Dad and Johnny got home (Dave worked at the garage too), Margot demanded the Gambles stay for dinner.

  And when Margot demanded something, the men in her life did it.

  Toby didn’t mind.

  Her roast was almost as good as her cookies.

  And they all got to give her stuff during dinner and she got to pretend it annoyed her.

  Like always with his family the way it was . . .

  It was awesome.

  And like always when he was over at Margot and Dave’s he went home with a full stomach.

  And that felt good.

  Fifteen Years Later . . .

  Tobe lay with his back to the headboard of his bed, his phone to his ear, listening to it ring.

  It was late and there was a three-hour time difference.

  He knew they’d answer.

  They did.

  Or Dave did.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Dave,” Toby replied quietly.

  “Son, do you know what time it is?”

  “Tell Margot I got my pilot’s license today.”

  “Oh hell,” Dave muttered.

  Toby grinned.

  “What?” he heard Margot in the background. “Is that Tobias? Where is he? Is he all right?”

  “I’ll let you handle that,” Toby said to Dave, still quiet. “Love to you both.”

  Then he disconnected.

  He looked at his watch and timed it.

  It was one minute and twenty-three seconds later when his cell phone vibrated.

  “Hey, Margot,” he answered in a soft voice.

  “I have a mind to—”

  “I got all my hours in. I aced the test,” he assured her. “My instructor said I was a natural.”

  “When you were learning to teach golf, your instructor said you were a natural at that too,” she returned.

  “Well, I was.”

  “And when you were up in Alaska logging, your foreman told you he thought you’d been born in the north, you were such a natural logger, when you’re southern through and through.”

  “Well, there was that too.”

  She sighed before she announced, “All I can say is that I’m glad you’re not doing that anymore. Did you know that logging is the number one most dangerous job in America?”

  He did not know that.

  Though, having been a logger for two years, he wasn’t surprised.

  She kept at him.

  “And I suspect being a pilot is number two.”

  He had no idea.

  He also didn’t care.

  “You’ll be the death of me,” she declared.

  He cared about that.

  “You’re gonna live to be a hundred and twenty and bounce my grandchildren on your knee,” he said low.

  Margot had no reply.

  “Don’t tell Dad. I’ll call him tomorrow and give him the news,” Toby instructed.

  “Oh, so your father gets a phone call that’s not after one in the morning?” Margot replied.

  He lowered his voice further but didn’t pull the smile out of it. “Just makin’ sure I check in with my girl.”

  Margot again said nothing.

  “Come out to Phoenix, I’ll take you up,” he offered.

  “That will happen when hell freezes over, Tobias.”

  Tobe fought back busting out laughing.

  Though he couldn’t beat back a quiet chuckle.

  “Now that you’ve bested the skies, can I expect a call to share you’ve spent your time looking for, and finding, a special someone?” she asked through his humor.

  She wanted him settled and happy.

  Okay, maybe not settled. She liked he was a rambling man (though she’d never admit it out loud).

  She just wanted him happy.

  “Not sure that’d be a good idea, sweetheart. I’m missing green. I’m thinking of hitting Tennessee next. Always wanted a spell in Nashville. Wouldn’t be a good idea to find a woman, then expect I could drag her across the country.”

  “Dear Lord,” she murmured.

  It drove her nuts he hadn’t met anyone yet.

  Johnny had met someone.

  Of course.

  It took Margot ages to like Shandra, or trust her, and Toby still didn’t know if she really did.

  Of course.

  No one was good enough for her boys.

  Not a soul.

  Then again, as far as Toby was concerned, she was right.

  He hadn’t found anyone good enough for him.

  Because there was no one like Margot.

  Not a soul.

  “Gonna let you get back to sleep,” he told her.

  “That’d be nice,” she replied, but he could tell she didn’t want to let him go.

  “I’ll phone at a decent hour next time.”

  “That’d be nice too.”

  “Love you, Margot,” he said softly.

  She only hesitated a second, and he knew that second was to get her shit together, before she said, “Love you too, my beautiful boy.”

  Toby was grinning when he disconnected.

  “Maybe not make a phone call to check in with your girl when I’ve just let you fuck me twice and I’m trying to sleep.”

  That came at him groggy as well as unmistakably ugly.

  Toby looked down at the naked woman beside him in his bed.

  They’d been drinking (a lot) and then they’d been fucking (a lot
).

  He thought she’d passed out.

  Then again, obviously she had, though not for long since he hadn’t even turned out the lights, but also obviously she wasn’t a huge fan of being woken up and had no issue sharing that.

  She had a great ass. Nice hair.

  But nope.

  And again . . .

  Not good enough.

  From what she said, and how she said it—clearly thinking he was the kind of guy who’d talk to some other woman when he had one naked beside him in bed—she was not good enough by a long shot.

  “Maybe it’s time we get you home,” he suggested.

  She blinked and the ticked look on her face changed to coaxing. “Baby, a girl just needs some rest for round two, or, uh, in this case . . . three.”

  “Sorry. I got an early morning.” Lie. “So I’ll take you home.”

  And that, as far as he was concerned, was that.

  He shifted his legs off the bed and reached for his jeans.

  “Toby—”

  He yanked on his jeans and looked at her face.

  Pretty too.

  Still, not close to the one.

  “I was talking to my mom,” he shared.

  “Oh,” she whispered, now up on a forearm. “You call your mom Margot?”

  He was not gonna get into that, so he answered simply, “Yep.”

  “That’s sweet, I guess.”

  “You know something big happened today,” he reminded her.

  And she did.

  They’d met that night at a bar, and when he’d told her, she’d been all in to celebrate with him. If her celebrating with him meant him buying her a lot of drinks, a late dinner since she was getting loaded and he wasn’t a big fan of sloppy, drunk women, then coming home with him and getting it on.

  “I went out to celebrate, met you, so I hadn’t had a chance to tell Margot yet,” he finished.

  “Yeah, okay. But it’s still uncool to make a phone call when someone is sleeping,” she responded. “Even if it’s your mom.”

  It was also uncool to be a bitch about it when you’d been asleep for maybe ten minutes.

  And he’d been quiet. It wasn’t like he’d had a forty-minute conversation with someone he had to shout at because they were on a helicopter.

  He shared all that by saying, “Babe, get dressed.”

  “But I didn’t know it was your mom.”

  No, she thought he was a colossal asshole and was chatting with some other woman while she was beside him after he fucked her in his bed.

  He was not going to get into that either.

  He bent to nab his tee, straightening and repeating, “Get dressed. Let’s get you home.”

  He pulled on his tee when she began, “Toby, I was just—”

  “You’re right,” he cut her off again. “It was rude. I should have left the room to make the call. I didn’t. Sorry about that. I was trying to be quiet. I didn’t know you were a light sleeper. But I got shit to do tomorrow, I ’spect you got work tomorrow, and you’re up, so might as well get you home so we don’t both have to get up early for me to drive you there.”

  “God,” she muttered, turning her head and sliding toward the edge of the bed. “What a dick. Always the way with the hot ones. Total fucking dicks.”

  So totally not the one.

  “You know, you wanna stay, hang, sleep with me, wake up with me, the way to do that is not act like a bitch when I wake you up after I call my mom when I accomplished something that means something to me and I wanna share that with her and then call me a dick,” he advised.

  “What am I supposed to do?” she snapped, yanking up her panties. “Thank you for waking me up when you made a phone call right next to me while I was sleeping?”

  “It’s my bed, Kristy,” he pointed out. “And you were out for maybe ten minutes. It wasn’t like I woke you up from a deep sleep when you gotta perform neurosurgery tomorrow.”

  “And it was my pussy I let you eat an hour ago in your bed, Toby,” she shot back, now angrily snapping on her bra.

  With that, he was done.

  Really so totally not the one.

  “You know, a woman gives it up,” she kept bitching, “a gentleman doesn’t kick her out of bed.”

  That made him still in doing his belt.

  Because Margot drilled being a gentleman into him since he could remember.

  And Kristy was not wrong.

  “And don’t give me any shit about giving it up,” she kept going, now yanking on her short skirt. “’Cause you were there and you gave it up too. Though most men don’t see it that way,” she ended on a mutter.

  “We met five hours ago. And in that five hours, babe, I didn’t make any promises,” he reminded her, doing it going careful because he hadn’t, but he had been a dick (though that was a stretch, but if he stretched it he could see where she was coming from, he wasn’t a huge fan of sleep, there was too much living to do, but he got others were) and now she had a point.

  “Oh no, they never do,” she sniped.

  Hang on a second.

  “You give it up, I give it up, I make you go twice. Tell me, Kristy, where do you think that puts us?” he asked. “Not bein’ a dick now, babe. Really wanna know so I don’t run into this shit again.” He flung an arm out her way. “I mean, it’s clear you don’t want me to think you’re easy when I’m just as easy. So a woman can bang a man all easy. But a man bangs a woman, there’s some inherent promise in that?”

  She didn’t have an answer to his question and she shared that by replying, “Fuck you.”

  “Great,” he muttered, bending and reaching for his socks.

  Boy, he could pick them.

  Just like his dad.

  He turned his back on her to sit on the bed and pull his socks on.

  “You know, maybe I thought we were starting something,” she said to his back.

  He twisted to her. “And maybe we would have been if you didn’t call me a dick.”

  She threw out both arms. “So it’s me calling you a dick and not you kicking me out of your bed that puts us here?”

  He stood again and turned to her. “No, it was me actually being a dick and making a call when you were sleeping, ’cause, you see, Kristy, I live alone so I’m not used to having a woman sleeping beside me in bed. Especially that woman bein’ you, since I only met you tonight, so I didn’t think, and I should have because that was a dick move. But me waking you up and you not sayin’, ‘Who was that, baby?’ Then saying, ‘It’s sweet you called your mom to celebrate the news, but next time, do you mind not doin’ it in bed when I’m sleeping? I’m a light sleeper.’ Instead, you give me shit like I’m phonin’ some other woman when I’m with you, that’s what put us here.”

  “Thanks for the lesson in consideration, Toby. Next time a guy’s an asshole, I’ll be all sweet instead of just pointing out he’s an asshole.”

  “What I’m saying, Kristy, is a man might not know he’s bein’ an asshole, or you think he’s bein’ an asshole, so maybe bein’ a modicum of cool in pointing it out, he’d learn the way with you and not do it again.”

  She snapped her mouth shut.

  She opened it to clip out, “I’ll call a friend to give me a ride.”

  “Takin’ you home,” he murmured, turning back to sit on the bed and pull on his boots.

  “Don’t do me any favors.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” he muttered, and pulled on his boots.

  When he got up, he found she was dressed.

  He also saw by the look on her face she was in a different mood.

  “You know, you want me to cut you some slack in being a dick, maybe you should do the same. I mean, I did just wake up, Toby.”

  Yeah.

  After ten minutes.

  Jesus.

  She gave him that, he gave it back to her.

  “And then you called me a dick and gave me shit about eating your pussy and kicking you out of my bed. I’d give you a blow by bl
ow, but it just happened, and you were there. You think when we got zero foundation but a couple of orgasms, after all that ugly we can resurrect something that hadn’t even gotten off the ground?”

  “Probably not,” she mumbled.

  Definitely not.

  He moved to the bedroom door.

  He was at it when she called, “You know . . .”

  Toby turned to see she was still standing at the side of the bed, the only move she’d made was to shift around to face him at the door.

  “ . . . I get it,” she finished.

  He beat back a sigh and asked, “You get what?”

  “You want the sweet ones. All guys want the sweet ones who are all understanding, even when they’re being jerks, and don’t point out you let them go down on you, much less fuck you, twice, and that means there’s been a connection. You can’t handle it being real. They say girls want the fairytale. But boys want it more and they have the power, so a girl has to twist herself into that fantasy to land a guy.”

  “No, Kristy, that isn’t how it is,” he returned. “Maybe for some guys, but not me.”

  “And you’re not taking me home right now because I wasn’t how you wanted me to be?”

  “Yeah, I’m takin’ you home right now because you weren’t how I might want you to be. But this is the gig, babe. You give your shit to me, you don’t cool it and attempt to handle the situation, not only might I have a lifetime of that if I eat it now, that’s what you’d give our kids, if we got that far.”

  Her head jerked and her eyes got big.

  But Toby kept talking.

  “And that isn’t okay. I actually don’t want a sweet one. I want one who’ll give as good as she gets, stick up for herself, stick up for me, and stick up for the babies we make. And when shit goes off the rails, and I admit I’ve been a dick, what I don’t want is her to shut her mouth and not admit she’s been a bitch, so we can take it from there. That’s what I don’t want, Kristy.”

  “Okay, I’ve been a bitch,” she admitted.

  “And what do I do with that?” he asked.

  She again threw up both hands. “You just told me to admit it.”

  Now he was curious.

  “Why are you fighting for this?”

  “Well, duh,” she said. “Because you’re all kinds of hot and insanely good in bed.”

  He shook his head.

  “Oh please,” she drawled. “Don’t act like I’m not right here because you didn’t like the looks of me and wanted to get in my pants, but instead you liked my smile, or some shit, and I made you laugh.”