Brooklyn screeched.

“Shh, baby,” Addie shushed him. “Hopefully Aunt Izzy is getting some so you need to quiet down so Uncle Johnny can concentrate.”

“Uncle Johnny concentrated just fine,” Johnny announced as he strolled in wearing pajama bottoms, a Henley and socks, which was a lot like what Toby was wearing (but with a thermal).

Toby was also leaning against the sink with his coffee while Addie was feeding Brooks.

“You shouldn’t say those things, Addie,” Izzy, hair a bedhead, sexhead mess, expression dreamy (which meant Johnny really did have no trouble concentrating), wandered in behind Johnny, as well as attached to him by their hands. “He’s picking things up a lot now.”

“I know. He said his first full word this morning,” Addie told her. “It was broke.”

“Broke?” Izzy asked, standing behind Brooks’s high chair.

“Zee! Zee! Zee!” Brooks yelled and twisted, calling up to his aunt.

Iz bent to her nephew and kissed his head.

He patted her face.

She straightened, and Addie tried to force some cereal in his mouth.

He tore the spoon from her hand and instantly got a determined expression on his face as he attempted to shove it into the cereal bowl on his tray.

“Told Tobe he could be broke, and all I needed was this little guy, our dog, and him and I’m cool,” Addie said distractedly, watching her son with fascination.

Toby felt his brother’s attention and looked that way.

“He picked up on broke,” Addie finished.

Toby and Johnny stared at each other.

Toby now knew the pictures were true.

Their mother was beautiful.

Addie could get a face full of acid, and after she recovered this would be their morning.

He knew what beauty was.

And you couldn’t see it.

He knew Johnny knew the same thing.

But Margot knew it before both of them.

And that was why she hated Sierra.

But she loved the Forrester Girls.

“Want coffee?” Toby asked.

“Yeah,” Johnny replied.

“Iz?” Toby called.

“I can get it,” she said.

“Grab a stool,” he ordered.

“Okay, Toby,” she murmured, then slid on a stool by her sister.

He got them coffee.

“I should start on the cinnamon rolls. You got the stuff for the cinnamon rolls, right?” Izzy asked.

“Totally. Well, Toby got it. But I wanna help you do them. Brooklyn’s almost done and then we’ll get on it.”

Cereal on a spoon Brooks was wielding went flying by Addie’s side, splatting on the floor.

Dapper Dan rushed to clean-up duty.

Addie leaned into Izzy and both sisters started giggling.

Their heads were close. Another man might not be able to tell the difference between their hair.

Toby could.

Johnny undoubtedly could too.

His brother settled beside him with his hips to the counter, his mug held up in front of him, and then Toby felt Johnny’s hand at the back of his neck squeezing.

He turned his head and looked in Johnny’s eyes.

“Merry Christmas, Tobe.”

Toby lifted a hand and thumped his fist against Johnny’s heart before he dropped it and replied, “Merry Christmas, brother.”

Johnny gave him one final squeeze before he took his hand from Toby’s neck.

And they watched two beautiful sisters gabbing and fussing over a little boy before they got out of their way so they could make cinnamon rolls.

 

“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.