The Slow Burn (Moonlight and Motor Oil #2) - Kristen Ashley Page 0,67

had turned to one that could be translated as getting ticked off. “If people feel bad about that poor woman who works at a grocery store that got her kid kidnapped, and it puts gas in my car, no skin off my nose.”

“Johnny had to deal with some issue at the garage in Radcliff, and the deposit to save the date for their wedding flowers needed to be dropped so he asked me to do it. When I walked in there, she knew we were tight, she probably guessed I was into you, so even though I didn’t ask that shit, she told me if I was looking for stocking stuffer ideas for you, I should buy you those grocery bags. She told me you had your eye on them and she could tell you liked them. So when I went to get you groceries, I remembered that, swung by there and bought her out of them.”

Whoa.

That was so sweet.

And he’d done it when he was angry at me.

That was even sweeter.

“I—”

“Her mother wanted a flower shop,” Toby spoke over me. “So she sold that earn-yourself-a-pink-Cadillac makeup until she could open a flower shop and she named it after her daughter.”

“Oh,” I said, not knowing why he was sharing Macy’s Flower Shop history with me.

“Babe, you gotta sell a lot of makeup to open a business with the profits. They taught her salesmanship, and the mother taught her daughter. She shared about those bags because she wanted me to buy those bags. And a couple weeks after she told me about them, I bought eight of those fuckers.”

“That was really sweet, Toby,” I said quietly. “I did have my eye on those bags. They’re great.”

“I’m not tellin’ you that for you to tell me it’s sweet. I’m tellin’ you that because it’s her business to sell shit. She told me you made those cards when I was in because she jabbers and is friendly and shares shit like that in hopes people will buy stuff and make her money. What she’s not gonna do is tell someone to buy a four-dollar card made by a woman they should feel sorry for. That’ll bum people out. You don’t go to a gift shop with cutesy crap in it to be bummed out.”

You actually didn’t.

And it was interesting to have the mystery of how Toby knew about my cards solved.

“And babe,” he kept at me, “we got folks who work in the city and live in Matlock because they think it’s country living and they feel better about their carbon footprint when they buy honey from Trapper’s hives at the farmer’s market to put in their designer yogurt, but they drive all the way to the city every day. Those folks buy a gorgeous handmade card for four dollars from Macy’s. The rest of Matlock is firmly blue collar and they wouldn’t buy a four-dollar card even if they felt sorry for you because they can’t afford that shit.”

“It’s nice you’re explaining this, Toby, but I didn’t really care.”

“You did.”

“I really didn’t.”

“I call bullshit, Addie, ’cause you did,” he returned. “Yeah, Brooks getting taken was extreme, but most folks were just relieved that had a happy ending and pissed as shit at Stu for bein’ his usual total asshole for pulling that goddamned lunacy. No one looks down on you and no one pities you. Half the folks you live around are you. They live paycheck to paycheck and save for a vacation on a beach in Florida at a shitty-ass motel, which is what they can afford. Only thing they think about you is that you’re a good mom and you got hustle, doin’ extra, makin’ cards to put gas in your car.”

I thought about this.

And I thought that was what I’d think if I saw a cute card at a place like Macy’s, the owner told me who made them, and I knew it was a single mom struggling to make ends meet.

I’d think she had hustle.

And I’d admire that.

“You know, I ever met your fuckin’ father, I’d punch the asshole in the throat,” Toby rumbled in his pissed-off growl as he set us to moving again.

“What’s that about?” I asked, looking at his angry profile as I walked beside him.

“Because that shit’s about you doin’ without when you were a kid and people, probably bullies at school, givin’ you shit about it and that dug deep and planted roots, and now you gotta put the effort into plowing those