“You’re right. It isn’t on you,” Toby agreed.

He had more to say but that was all he got out before she kept going.

“And my father was handsome. He was a dreamer. He was a talented musician and songwriter. He had a beautiful voice. He wrapped my mom up in that dream and carried her away from her family. And it isn’t on her she believed him. It isn’t on her that he didn’t get discovered and whisked to LA and lauded as the next Lou Reed. It isn’t on her he lost faith in his own damned self in his twenties and took that out on her with his fists. She loved him. She trusted him. She believed in him. And he fucked her over.”

“Baby,” he murmured, about to roll her and attempt to pull her out of the place he’d inadvertently taken her, but she kept talking fiercely.

“I have not met your father or your mother, but I know both men he made, and I can tell you this, his choice of wife and mother to his sons was not some curse he bestowed on you. Some men suck. Some women suck. I couldn’t even begin to understand why they do what they do. But it isn’t on the people they do it to. I actually hope one day your mother comes back and explains herself to you, because there is nothing she can say that won’t make her seem anything but what she is. Shallow and selfish and wrong. And if you know that, you’ll get it. You’ll get it’s all on her. Though I bet your father loved her. Trusted her. Believed in her. It was just that she fucked him over.”

“Honey, stop,” he ordered.

She didn’t stop.

“I won’t have you taking that on, Toby. It’s not right.”

“Okay, Addie, I won’t take it on.”

She shut her mouth.

“I didn’t mean to take you there with Perry and your dad.”

“Toby.” She said his name tersely. “Perry didn’t damage me. I know his shit isn’t mine. My point is, your mom’s shit isn’t yours. It wasn’t your dad’s. It’s hers. And I’m sensing you’re still eating it, and that has to stop.”

Toby said nothing because he saw nothing, not Addie’s beautiful, protective face, not her body on his.

His mind was gone.

Riding the wave of her words.

“Baby,” she called.

Toby stared at her not seeing her.

“Toby, honey, come back to me,” she urged, cupping her hand along the side of his face.

He came back to her.

She caught it the moment he did.

“That hadn’t occurred to you,” she surmised.

“No,” he confirmed.

“You okay?” she asked.

“She destroyed him.”

Addie ran her thumb along the edge of his beard.

“He never got over her.”

“And those ‘Aunt Whoevers’ you mentioned earlier, that wasn’t trying to get over her?” she asked.

“That was passing the time, maybe attempting to give his sons a woman’s touch. Mostly, I figure, it was because he was a guy and needed to get himself some, so he got it. He broke more hearts by the time I was ten than I could count and he did that shit hammering into his boys you never broke a woman’s heart. He told us the worst kind of man dragged a woman’s heart around. I never got that because he did it all the time.”

“Yeah, that’d be pretty freaking confusing,” she murmured.

“Loved him, don’t get me wrong, Addie. He was a good man and a good father, and he loved us too. Was proud of us. Showed it. Taught us good lessons. Brought us up right. Knew to give me the freedom I needed, and I’ll always be grateful for that. But Johnny sets him up as this kind of god-like wonder when he wasn’t. He had flaws.”

“Okay, but you know one of those flaws wasn’t loving her,” she said cautiously.

“Maybe I didn’t, until now. Though I did know fucking women over was not something to aspire to, and definitely doin’ it while tellin’ your boys never to do that shit was fucked up.”

“Hmm . . .” she hummed.

“Hmm . . . what?” he demanded.

“It’s natural and swings both ways, a woman looks to her mother and either wants desperately to be like her or fears the shit out of becoming her. Same for a man.”

Shit.

She had that right.

“The thing with you is,” she continued, “you’re torn because he was good in so many ways, admirable even, but there was something important that wasn’t right, and you honed in on that and not the other things he clearly gave you. And maybe . . . just think on this, okay? Maybe you should cut him some slack because everyone has flaws. No one is perfect. And he wasn’t perfect. That makes him not god-like. Though in the end, it makes him what he actually was. Human.”

He rolled her on that, covering her with his body and then kissing her when he got her under him.

Once he released her mouth, she blinked slowly a couple of times, it was cute, then she grinned at him.

“Now do you want me to sort out your big brother issues?” she offered.

“Do you have big sister issues?” he asked.

“Nope. Izzy’s one hundred percent rad.”

He grinned at her. “Yeah, she is.”

“Johnny’s rad too,” she said gently.

“Now, baby, my big brother is god-like,” he told her.

“He’s just human, Toby,” she replied.

“I don’t have a lot of shit around Johnny, Adeline. I was Grams and Margot’s favorite. He was Gramps, Dad and Dave’s favorite. They all loved both of us but each of us got something special. It was just that he could do no wrong because he did do no wrong. He’s golden through and through. Solid. When I was a kid, I wanted not to like him. It was fucked up, but it was true. He’s just totally not unlikable. He’s that good of a guy. I wasn’t a fan of his big-brother shtick, but as you know, we worked that out. I think I just recently gave up the idea that somehow, for some reason, I had to be like him. You found you, today, Addie. I found me when I laid shit out for Johnny last week. So it’s all good.”

“You sure?”

Christ, she was sweet.

He hadn’t expected this.

He got off on her tart. Her backbone. Her quick wit. Her protective instinct. The fact she was gorgeous.

But he really fucking liked the sweet.

“I know town talk, honey,” he told her gently. “I know about Take ’Em and Leave ’Em Toby. I know they think Johnny’s the salt of the earth, takin’ on the garages as the next generation after Gramps and Dad. I know what tradition and the respect that shows means to folks in a small town in Kentucky. I know they admire him for puttin’ up with Shandra’s family’s bullshit like the pillar of strength he is. Findin’ Brooks for you. And I know they think I’m the flaky younger brother who goes off and fucks around and can’t commit to job or town or woman.”

“It doesn’t matter what they think.”

“Babe, it’s not me who’s gonna get some asshole comin’ to me tellin’ me about Fucked Up Addie. So yeah, I think today demonstrated it does.”

“Only because, when I was sowing my oats, I didn’t live here.”

Toby shut his mouth.

“And we can’t go to that Greek restaurant in Bellevue,” she informed him. “I revenge banged one of the owner’s sons in his truck during the Memorial Day Food Festival while Izzy hung out with Brooks on a picnic blanket in the square. It was petty, and in the end it didn’t matter because, for a revenge bang to work, the person you’re getting revenge on needs to know about it. Although, when we were done, I considered asking the guy to take a selfie with me and sending it to Perry. I figured if shit got ugly, it would not be good I sent my ex a selfie like that.”