The Slow Burn (Moonlight and Motor Oil #2) - Kristen Ashley Page 0,31
the truth, that Toby had gotten involved with losers, nutcases or bitches, like it was hereditary to be drawn to women who fucked you up.
Adeline was in a spot, but she was not making the right calls, and that wasn’t just his opinion, he knew that shit to be true.
Time would tell.
And as his big brother advised, Toby would give it a week.
It was up to her.
Then he’d know what made her.
And if it went the way he didn’t want, it would suck huge, but he’d bounce.
If it went the way he did . . .
With his brother now on board, Izzy on board, even freaking Margot on board . . .
That would be an entirely different story.
Addie
Of course it would happen an hour before I got off and could go home and get off my feet.
Nearly every job I’d had required me to be on them standing or walking, but it was becoming evident that ten hours was about my limit.
She’d come through my line at least a dozen times in the months I’d worked there.
And every time, she had not hidden she was not good people.
She was mostly on the phone or texting, acting like I didn’t exist (my bagger either).
The message was clear. I was beneath her. Her groceries were magically rung up, bagged up and put in her cart so she could look into the distance and strut away without bothering with the little people.
It was that or she’d be in the mood to fuck with me and demand a price check, declaring something was on sale, or two for one when it was not, and she knew it. She did it just because she could.
Brunette. Tall. Almost painfully trim.
She was beautiful. She dressed great. She clearly had money, if the designer handbags she so overtly carried and her fresh manicures that were undoubtedly not done by herself were anything to go by.
She was also one of those women who was up her own ass and wouldn’t know the sisterhood if it bit her in it.
And it did not bode well when she was next up at my register and it was the first time since I noticed her existence that she was looking me square in the face.
She knew Toby.
From what I understood of his past reputation in Matlock, she might even have slept with Toby.
And she’d heard about the fight.
“Hey,” she greeted chirpily.
Damn.
“Hello,” I replied, grabbing the first thing on the belt to scan it and not for the first time noticing the woman never bought ice cream, and right now the entirety of her groceries centered around an abundance of different varieties of fancy bottled or canned water.
“Probably a drag having to work on a Saturday night,” she noted after I scanned a bag of frozen edamame.
“Pays the bills,” I muttered, going for the bag of frozen spinach, thinking the last person on earth who needed to know it actually didn’t was this chick.
“Still a bummer,” she said.
I just jerked my head in what could be construed as an affirmative.
“You know, just to say . . .” she started.
I braced for it.
And she sure gave it to me.
“Small town, folks talk. So, when I saw you at a register, I thought about it, I really did,” I looked to her after I scanned a case of St. Croix (grapefruit), “and I decided after you had your thing yesterday, that we girls gotta have each other’s backs. So I picked your line.”
I could tell by the gleeful light in her eye she wasn’t looking out for anyone but herself. In this instance, doing it getting her daily quota of mean-girl jollies.
“And I should warn you about Take ’Em and Leave ’Em Toby,” she finished.
I focused on her a brief moment and then reached for the next case of St. Croix (mango).
But I made no reply.
My sister had been seeing, then living with, and was now engaged to Johnny Gamble, and I’d been hanging with them and both the Gamble Brothers for months.
People talked, others gossiped, and some of them got off on doing it with or around folks who were intimately involved in a certain mix.
And I saw a lot of the citizens of Matlock. I figured the entire town had gone through my line at the store at least once.
So I really wanted to prick her mean-girl bubble and inform her that she was not the first person to share about Take ’Em and Leave ’Em Toby.