Though he couldn’t beat back a quiet chuckle.

“Now that you’ve bested the skies, can I expect a call to share you’ve spent your time looking for, and finding, a special someone?” she asked through his humor.

She wanted him settled and happy.

Okay, maybe not settled. She liked he was a rambling man (though she’d never admit it out loud).

She just wanted him happy.

“Not sure that’d be a good idea, sweetheart. I’m missing green. I’m thinking of hitting Tennessee next. Always wanted a spell in Nashville. Wouldn’t be a good idea to find a woman, then expect I could drag her across the country.”

“Dear Lord,” she murmured.

It drove her nuts he hadn’t met anyone yet.

Johnny had met someone.

Of course.

It took Margot ages to like Shandra, or trust her, and Toby still didn’t know if she really did.

Of course.

No one was good enough for her boys.

Not a soul.

Then again, as far as Toby was concerned, she was right.

He hadn’t found anyone good enough for him.

Because there was no one like Margot.

Not a soul.

“Gonna let you get back to sleep,” he told her.

“That’d be nice,” she replied, but he could tell she didn’t want to let him go.

“I’ll phone at a decent hour next time.”

“That’d be nice too.”

“Love you, Margot,” he said softly.

She only hesitated a second, and he knew that second was to get her shit together, before she said, “Love you too, my beautiful boy.”

Toby was grinning when he disconnected.

“Maybe not make a phone call to check in with your girl when I’ve just let you fuck me twice and I’m trying to sleep.”

That came at him groggy as well as unmistakably ugly.

Toby looked down at the naked woman beside him in his bed.

They’d been drinking (a lot) and then they’d been fucking (a lot).

He thought she’d passed out.

Then again, obviously she had, though not for long since he hadn’t even turned out the lights, but also obviously she wasn’t a huge fan of being woken up and had no issue sharing that.

She had a great ass. Nice hair.

But nope.

And again . . .

Not good enough.

From what she said, and how she said it—clearly thinking he was the kind of guy who’d talk to some other woman when he had one naked beside him in bed—she was not good enough by a long shot.

“Maybe it’s time we get you home,” he suggested.

She blinked and the ticked look on her face changed to coaxing. “Baby, a girl just needs some rest for round two, or, uh, in this case . . . three.”

“Sorry. I got an early morning.” Lie. “So I’ll take you home.”

And that, as far as he was concerned, was that.

He shifted his legs off the bed and reached for his jeans.

“Toby—”

He yanked on his jeans and looked at her face.

Pretty too.

Still, not close to the one.

“I was talking to my mom,” he shared.

“Oh,” she whispered, now up on a forearm. “You call your mom Margot?”

He was not gonna get into that, so he answered simply, “Yep.”

“That’s sweet, I guess.”

“You know something big happened today,” he reminded her.

And she did.

They’d met that night at a bar, and when he’d told her, she’d been all in to celebrate with him. If her celebrating with him meant him buying her a lot of drinks, a late dinner since she was getting loaded and he wasn’t a big fan of sloppy, drunk women, then coming home with him and getting it on.

“I went out to celebrate, met you, so I hadn’t had a chance to tell Margot yet,” he finished.

“Yeah, okay. But it’s still uncool to make a phone call when someone is sleeping,” she responded. “Even if it’s your mom.”

It was also uncool to be a bitch about it when you’d been asleep for maybe ten minutes.

And he’d been quiet. It wasn’t like he’d had a forty-minute conversation with someone he had to shout at because they were on a helicopter.

He shared all that by saying, “Babe, get dressed.”

“But I didn’t know it was your mom.”

No, she thought he was a colossal asshole and was chatting with some other woman while she was beside him after he fucked her in his bed.

He was not going to get into that either.

He bent to nab his tee, straightening and repeating, “Get dressed. Let’s get you home.”

He pulled on his tee when she began, “Toby, I was just—”

“You’re right,” he cut her off again. “It was rude. I should have left the room to make the call. I didn’t. Sorry about that. I was trying to be quiet. I didn’t know you were a light sleeper. But I got shit to do tomorrow, I ’spect you got work tomorrow, and you’re up, so might as well get you home so we don’t both have to get up early for me to drive you there.”

“God,” she muttered, turning her head and sliding toward the edge of the bed. “What a dick. Always the way with the hot ones. Total fucking dicks.”

So totally not the one.

“You know, you wanna stay, hang, sleep with me, wake up with me, the way to do that is not act like a bitch when I wake you up after I call my mom when I accomplished something that means something to me and I wanna share that with her and then call me a dick,” he advised.

“What am I supposed to do?” she snapped, yanking up her panties. “Thank you for waking me up when you made a phone call right next to me while I was sleeping?”

“It’s my bed, Kristy,” he pointed out. “And you were out for maybe ten minutes. It wasn’t like I woke you up from a deep sleep when you gotta perform neurosurgery tomorrow.”

“And it was my pussy I let you eat an hour ago in your bed, Toby,” she shot back, now angrily snapping on her bra.

With that, he was done.

Really so totally not the one.

“You know, a woman gives it up,” she kept bitching, “a gentleman doesn’t kick her out of bed.”

That made him still in doing his belt.

Because Margot drilled being a gentleman into him since he could remember.

And Kristy was not wrong.

“And don’t give me any shit about giving it up,” she kept going, now yanking on her short skirt. “’Cause you were there and you gave it up too. Though most men don’t see it that way,” she ended on a mutter.

“We met five hours ago. And in that five hours, babe, I didn’t make any promises,” he reminded her, doing it going careful because he hadn’t, but he had been a dick (though that was a stretch, but if he stretched it he could see where she was coming from, he wasn’t a huge fan of sleep, there was too much living to do, but he got others were) and now she had a point.

“Oh no, they never do,” she sniped.

Hang on a second.

“You give it up, I give it up, I make you go twice. Tell me, Kristy, where do you think that puts us?” he asked. “Not bein’ a dick now, babe. Really wanna know so I don’t run into this shit again.” He flung an arm out her way. “I mean, it’s clear you don’t want me to think you’re easy when I’m just as easy. So a woman can bang a man all easy. But a man bangs a woman, there’s some inherent promise in that?”