I decided instead of getting turned on by his pissed off and bossy, I was gonna let it tick me off.

Way safer place to be with Toby.

“It’s a felony to steal someone’s mail,” I snapped.

“Have me arrested,” he returned. “Now see you around noon on Sunday, Lollipop. And I’m bringing the beer and wine.”

He did not give me a chance to say a word.

He hung up on me.

I swiped at my phone but did not do it to call him back.

I texted, You’re a stubborn ass, Tobias Gamble.

I didn’t get the chance to even put the phone down before he texted back, And?

So I returned, And a pain in MY ass.

I again didn’t get the chance to put the phone down when he’d replied, And?

To this I retorted, And this means I’m never making my chicken parmigiana for you again.

He loved that meal. It was special. Special meaning kinda expensive to make it, but he loved it so much, since I’d met him seven months ago, regardless that it was an extravagance, I’d made it for him six times.

Shit, I was a mess.

His text was longer so I actually had angrily dropped my phone to the desk before I got back, Iz told me that’s hers and she thinks I’m the shit, not a pain in her ass, so if I want it, she’ll make it for me. Golden.

Don’t come on Sunday, Talon. You’re officially uninvited.

I get another sassy text from you, Lollipop, I’m stealing your water and gas bills and paying those until February too.

I dropped my phone that time like it burned.

Then I glared at it.

And honestly, if I could afford a new one if it broke (and I wasn’t worried it might wake up my boy), I would have thrown it across the room.

But since I probably wouldn’t be able to afford a new one for five years, I just kept glaring at it.

Then, since I might make twenty or thirty bucks off them, I got back to making Deanna’s cards.

 

Toby

Toby waited for the sassy reply.

When it didn’t come, he turned and threw his phone across the room.

It bounced off the wood paneling and fell to the floor.

He scowled at it.

Fifty bucks.

Addie couldn’t put fifty bucks toward having some Christmas lights.

He could get away with putting lights up anyway and swiping her bills to pay them a couple of months.

That was all he could do.

She was his brother’s fiancée’s sister.

Kind of like his sister-type friend.

That was all she was because that was all she could be.

He could get away with a little because she was family and that was all unless she asked for help.

Which Adeline would not do.

She had too much Daphne Forrester in her.

Johnny had told him all about Daphne and the Forrester Girls.

It was her against the world.

And she was gonna face that head on.

She’d lose her mind, and he might lose her how he had her if he shared what he now knew with Iz, Johnny or Margot, because all of them would wade in somehow and Addie would hate that.

And she’d lose her mind, and he might lose her how he had her if he intervened, found out who her attorney was and paid them to find that motherfucker and force him, at least financially, to help Addie raise their child.

Instead, he had to take what he could get away with and that was it.

The only good thing that came from him coming home, outside of spending time with his family, falling in brotherly love with his soon-to-be sister-in-law who was the shit, and being able to spend time with Addie in the ways he could, was when he’d forced through the bile taste in his mouth Bryce’s interest in taking her out.

And she’d said no.

But that wouldn’t last forever.

She was funny, feisty and gorgeous. An amazing mom. Responsible. Hard-working.

She had way too much goddamned pride, but she also loved her kid too much to let that get in the way when she found someone who she’d be willing to let in, who’d be someone who’d be all in to help out.

But Addie would settle in and she wouldn’t find a man.

A man would find her.

Christ, he shouldn’t have stayed.

Stayed to be close to her.

In the end, it was good he did. After Brooks got kidnapped, Addie had been shaken and she’d needed all the support she could get.

The backbone on that woman, though, even after her baby got kidnapped by Stu, Shandra’s shifty motherfucker of a brother, in order for him to use Brooks as ransom from Johnny, Adeline had needed support for about a week.

Now, there was no reason for him to stay.

Definitely not doing it watching her get her feet under her and then another man in her life.

All of this meant Toby made a decision.

He’d stay for the holiday.

He’d enjoy the holiday with his family, his first with his soon-to-be sister-in-law, and he’d spoil the shit out of Addie and Brooks during a day she couldn’t say dick about him doing that.

And then he was out of there.

I Said Yo

Addie

“DEFINITELY SHOULD SET up an Etsy store.”

I stared at Macy across the counter in her flower shop.

It was Friday, two days after my invitation to the Usual Suspects to get together to start off the festive Christmas season and my subsequent chats with Deanna and Toby.

Last night, outside making more cards, I’d decided it was time to go online and assess my financial situation.

And I discovered what I’d feared as it festered in the back of my head was right.

I had a cushion that came from having a job in a swank restaurant down in Chattanooga before I’d left Perry. My tips were crazy good. We lived in a safe apartment that didn’t cost the moon. And I was tight with money. It would have been more if I also hadn’t had to take care of Perry during that time, but it still was a nice cushion.

Not to mention, since Izzy didn’t need any of her furniture when she moved, my friends down in Tennessee helped out and I unloaded all my stuff, besides Brooks’s crib, dresser, changing table and other baby provisions, which Izzy and Johnny (and Toby, damn it) had gone down with me to move, with all the other stuff I was keeping.

Unloading all that obviously didn’t make me a millionaire.

But it had enhanced my cushion.

A cushion, since I now lived beyond my means, I dipped into monthly to meet the basic necessities.

I did calculations, and if I didn’t give Brooks a single present for Christmas, that cushion would disappear in April.

If I did give Brooks a proper Christmas, it’d be gone in March.

Either way, if I didn’t sort something out, I’d have to do what Daphne would lose her shit about.

I’d have to start charging things to a credit card that I could not afford to pay off every month.

Do not ever, to anyone, for any reason, get into debt, my queens, she’d said, more than once. A kind-hearted soul can be a lender, but a borrower you should never be. Debt is a string. Strings tie you down. And I want my queens to fly free.

I had never, not once, not in my wildest days, not even when I’d lost my mind for that year and got caught up in the club scene that was all about tight dresses, high heels, big hair and lots of makeup and accessories, got caught up in the whole credit card thing.

And the first time I’d borrowed money, it was from Johnny and that had only been okay because things got ugly with Perry and it was for Brooks.