“You might wanna shut up,” he advised. “Or I’ll have to go gentle next time.”

“These are not complaints,” she informed him.

“Good to know,” he muttered.

“You’re also a good kisser,” she shared.

“I got that when I gave you half of one and you raced up the stairs with me.”

She smiled up at him, it was sassy, sweet, satisfied, and she moved a hand to rub the backs of her fingers along his beard at his jaw, a touch he felt warm his chest and twitch his dick.

She did all this drawling, “That would be you dragging me up the stairs after I gave you half a kiss.”

“I remember it differently.”

“Whatever,” she mumbled.

As much as he was enjoying this . . .

“Need to get food in you,” he reminded her.

She lifted her gaze from watching what she was doing at his jaw to his eyes.

“It’s pot luck and it’s happening in a couple of hours, and if you don’t show at my place for dinner after all of this, I’m never speaking to you again. But we both know if I don’t shovel down a truckload of Margot’s chicken, I’ll never hear the end to it, so I don’t need to fill up now.”

“I’ll make you a smoothie and you’ll be all set for Margot’s chicken, and I’m absolutely showing tonight and I’m also absolutely spending the night.”

She grinned up at him as she pressed into him.

Right.

Apparently, they didn’t need to have the convo about being on the same page.

They were on the same page.

“Where’s Brooks?” he asked.

“I dropped him at Margot and Dave’s before I came over here,” she answered.

“Does she know you came over here?”

She shook her head. “I just told her I had some errands to run. She’s keeping him the afternoon and they’re bringing him home when they come tonight.”

“Right.”

“She’s also gonna watch him three days a week instead of him going to daycare.”

Uh.

Say what?

Toby’s frame went solid and his repeat of, “Right,” was tight.

“And I’m gonna talk to Johnny tonight to defer payments of the loan for a while,” she said softly, watching him closely.

Holy fuck.

He did not dig into that, harp on it, anything.

He just forced his body to relax and whispered, “Good.”

“And I’m gonna eat your food and use the money you gave me to hang tough until I can find a job that’ll keep me in Matlock, or closer to it than the city. A job that pays more that’ll cover Brooks and me so we can stay close to family, but I can take care of both him and me without fucking shit up.”

That made Toby close his eyes, tighten his arms, and drop his forehead to hers.

He opened them and again whispered, “Good.”

“You were right,” she whispered back. “I’m proud. I don’t know what made me that way. If Mom had a Margot, we’d have been with her and not alone with Izzy heating up soup and making us cheese sandwiches. And if someone handed Mom ten thousand dollars, it might have smarted, but she would take it and be gracious and grateful and get her girls things we needed, and other things we wanted just so we knew we were loved and cared for. So one day, I’ll want to pay you back. We’ll sort that out later. But now, Brooks needs onesies and Christmas cookies even though he won’t remember them, and I need to stop acting like I’m all alone and lean on people who are hurting because I’m not letting them help me.”

“You were trying to make her proud,” Toby told her.

“Sorry?”

“She did it that way. You were trying to do it like she did it. Her sacrifice, your sacrifice. Like you get it. Like you’re both in the same club, paying the same dues.”

“God,” she mumbled, her gaze drifting away. “You’re right.”

“She didn’t want to be a member of that club, honey.”

Her gaze came back, and she replied, “You’re right.”

“My guess, me telling you that you don’t have to pay that money back won’t get in there with you,” he surmised.

She bit her lip.

He gave her a squeeze and murmured, “That’s okay.”

It was because this was going to work.

She was funny and feisty and lost her mind when he’d been out of line with her son—not her, her son—and came to his home to get in his face about it.

Half a kiss, and five minutes later, she had her jeans down her ass and was on her knees, offering her pussy to him, so it was safe to say they had chemistry. Give them time and a situation that was not extreme—like both of them wanting to go there for seven months, nursing a slow burn, they blew on it, and it became an inferno—it was likely to take the phenomenal of what they’d just done to fucking cosmic.

So in the end, that ten K wouldn’t matter.

It would just be absorbed in what was going to become them.

Before he could say what he had to say, which was not this was starting, it was going to work, they were going to make that happen, she said something that solidified what he already knew.

They were going to make this happen.

“On the sidewalk, I was a bitch. I got defensive, took it too far, and I’m really sorry. I’ve been wanting to say something to you, but I had a long day at work yesterday. Then my text this morning was lame. I should have mentioned I wanted to talk. You came over and things got . . . out of hand.”

She gave him that, he said what he had to say.

“I will never, not ever again, Adeline, do what I did to Brooks today. I was intent on making a point to you, thought you’d throw it in my face, was already pissed and holding a grudge about what went down on the street, and I wanted to get it done and get out. He won’t get lost in something like that again, not ever, Addie. I swear to fuck.”

She again ran her hand along his beard at his jaw. “I know, honey.”

And that was done.

Toby bent his head and touched his mouth to hers.

He didn’t pull very far away before he murmured, “Smoothie.”

She cupped his jaw in her hand. “We have more to talk about.”

“While you’re sucking back a smoothie.”

“Toby, I’m getting that this is happening.”

Oh, this was happening.

“This is definitely happening,” he growled as he tightened his arms even farther.

Her eyes rounded a little before they went soft and she melted into him.

“Okay,” she said quietly. “If it is, are you moving to Florida?”

“No fucking way.”

Her eyes rounded at that a lot before she let out a cute little giggle he would not ever have expected could come out of Adeline Forrester, but he liked it a whole lot. Then she kept at him, “Right then, so you’re coming over tonight and spending the night and I’m so totally, hugely, outrageously down with that.”

He smiled at her.

“But, you know,” she continued, “the Usual Suspects will be there and I’m not thinking we should hide this from them because I could tell Margot was itching to get into the fact she heard about our fight, Iz heard about it, goes without saying Johnny heard about it. And—”