The Hookup

by Kristen Ashley

  A new voice in the conversation made all the men still.

  Addie rounded at their free side.

  The good news was that she was no longer holding Brooks.

  The bad news was that she’d rounded at their free side.

  “Get back, sweetheart,” Johnny murmured, taking a step away from Perry but toward her.

  “I’m fine, Johnny,” she returned, but her eyes were on her husband.

  Perry launched right in.

  “Are you fuckin’ serious with that fuckin’ shit you pulled?”

  “Are you serious, asking me that crap?” she shot back.

  “You didn’t give me a chance to explain,” he retorted.

  “Explain? Explain how I came home from work with a migraine and found our son in his crib without even a toy to pass the time, fretting and freaked, and you in my bed with some skank, pumping away at her?” she asked.

  Johnny felt himself go solid and he felt something new beating at him from all around.

  He knew Izzy was close to her sister even if he couldn’t see her. Charlie was right there. But he had a feeling Deanna had disappeared with Brooks.

  He didn’t look.

  He stared at Addie, avoiding looking at Perry so he wouldn’t have the urge to break the man’s neck.

  “We need to have words,” Perry decreed.

  “We aren’t doing anything anymore,” Addie returned.

  “You took my kid,” he stated.

  “Sorry, let me explain this to you, Perry,” Addie began. “You see, when a sperm donor squirts, that’s the start and end of it.”

  “I’m not a fuckin’ sperm donor,” Perry bit out right when Johnny sensed they had more company.

  He looked to the drive to see another truck joining the fast-forming parking lot.

  An old red Chevy with silver panels.

  Johnny knew that truck.

  Jesus Christ.

  It was Toby.

  He had no clue not only that Toby was coming to town but also how Toby knew where to find him.

  At that moment, he couldn’t think about it either.

  “You apparently aren’t a very good babysitter either,” Addie noted casually, either so tuned to what was happening with her husband she didn’t notice Toby arriving or so tuned to what was happening with Perry, she was determined to focus on it.

  Perry was also either/or, proving this by replying, “I’m not a babysitter. I’m Brooklyn’s father.”

  “A father bathes his child, Perry,” she educated him. “He gives him bottles. He rocks him to sleep. And oh, another thing, he pays at least a few bills.”

  After Toby climbed out of his truck, Johnny gave him a short jerk of his head before he returned his attention to the situation at hand.

  “You know I’ve been lookin’ for gigs,” Perry pointed out.

  “I’m not sure how you’ll find gigs camped out on the couch with a six pack or humping some chick in my bed.”

  “Addie, don’t lay this shit on me. You haven’t been giving it up for months.”

  “That’s because I’m tired, Perry. I’m exhausted. I’m a single mother of a baby boy with a deadbeat dad who lives with me,” she fired back, and Johnny knew she was losing it by the tone of her voice turning scratchy.

  “I love my kid,” Perry flung back.

  “He’s a toy, like I was a toy before I wasn’t shiny and new anymore and life became a drag, but you didn’t give me away. You tossed me aside and looked for a new toy just like I know you’ll do with Brooklyn when he’s not fun anymore,” Addie replied.

  Johnny saw Toby approach, not getting close but close enough to hear.

  His brother’s eyebrows shot up.

  Johnny gave him another short jerk of his head and again looked at Addie.

  “That’s not true, baby,” Perry was now coaxing. “I love you. I love Brooklyn. You know that. It’s just been tough since the band broke up and—”

  “God, spare me,” Addie drawled cuttingly. “You’re such a cliché and I’m such a moron for falling for it.”

  “We got it good, we just gotta get that back,” Perry said.

  “You had it good because you had someone paying your bills and doing all the grunt work taking care of your son so he’s nice and clean and fed when you feel like playing with him. I didn’t have it good. And even after sharing this about seven million times, it didn’t sink in that you might wanna give your wife and son better. I know this because nothing changed. I also know this because I walked in on you fucking another woman.”

  “I’ll get in another band soon and then—”

  “Do not try to feed me that again, Perry. I believed it two years ago. Do you honestly think I’ll believe it now?”

  “So, right,” Perry clipped out, coaxing gone, he was back to pissed. “Now you get to make the decision we’re done then you clean out the apartment and the bank accounts and take off?”

  Johnny’s eyes slid to Charlie and he grinned.

  Charlie grinned back.

  “You cheated on me and we were done so I moved, Perry. I took my stuff. I left yours. That stuff that’s mine includes what’s in the bank accounts since every penny in them I earned,” Addie explained.

  “When I got back after you split, there was nothing in the place but my clothes,” he returned.

  “Which is what you brought to our marriage and all you contributed to our marriage so that’s all you’ll get out of it.”

  “It took me a week to get up here because I had to raise the cash for gas since you took it all and canceled our credit cards,” Perry complained.

  “My credit cards. Your name was on them. I paid them.”

  Perry suddenly raised his hand quickly to his forehead, slamming his fingers against it and then sending his hand flying out, stating, “Can you not see how totally fucked up it is some bitch cleans out an apartment and takes a man’s kid then takes off without even a fuckin’ note?”

  Johnny braced to lock things down.

  “You were inside her,” Addie whispered.

  At that, Johnny instead shifted more toward Adeline.

  Izzy became visible as she got up close to her sister’s back.

  Toby even moved nearer.

  “Baby, can we please talk about this without an audience?” Perry begged.

  “She looked at me. You looked at me. You looked right in my eyes when you were connected to another woman,” Addie said, her voice filled with pain.

  “I tried to come after you.”

  “With your dick wet from another woman.”

  Perry got quiet.

  “This is how this is going to go,” she said softly. “I’m moving up here. I got a job in the grocery store. I start on Monday.”

  Johnny cut his eyes to Izzy who cut hers to him.

  That answered what she was doing when Izzy was at work.

  He looked back to Addie when she kept talking.

  “I’ve already contacted an attorney. She’s started divorce proceedings. You will pay child support. You will take financial responsibility for the child you very enjoyably had a hand in creating. We’ll see what part of his life you’ll play but that will be up to me. But he’ll be up here with me and Izzy. And you’ll be down there with your broken promises and your ridiculous dreams.”

  “My dreams aren’t ridiculous,” he bit off, obviously stung, the selfish ass.

  “You wanna be the lead singer of a rock ’n’ roll band and no, that’s not ridiculous. The ridiculous part is you think that’ll happen sitting on a couch, drinking beer.”

  “You’re not going to take my son from me,” he threatened.

  “Too late, I already did, but just saying, Perry, you never actually had him because you never actually claimed him.”

  “We’ll see how this goes,” he snarled.

  Johnny tensed when Addie got in his space.

  “I know how it’ll go so listen up,” she hissed. “I’ll work until I drop to fight for what’s right for
my son. I’ll sell my body if I need to, to give him not only what he needs but even just a little bit of what he wants. And I’ll bleed my last drop before I let you fuck him up. You know me, Perry,” she stressed. “You know what makes me. You know every word I say is true. And you know you don’t have what it takes to fight that. I’ll do whatever it takes to beat you, to give my son what he deserves. I was taught how, day in and day out by my mother so I know the way. And I’ll take it if you make me and I’ll die knowing I gave my boy happy.”

  “You’re gonna have to fight it,” Perry hurled at her.

  “Only because you’re intent on proving how big of an asshole you are and you’re gonna make me,” she returned.

  Perry glared at his wife. He then glared at Izzy, Johnny, Charlie and he turned, stutter stepped when he saw Toby but recovered quickly and started to stalk off.

  “Just to let you know,” Addie called after him. “My attorney already has three appointments to get sworn affidavits next week. And that bitch you were banging while my son was in the next room got served a subpoena, so she’s one of them.”

  “Kiss my ass, Addie,” he yelled toward his car, not breaking stride.

  “The time you get that from me, baby, is long gone,” she returned in a loud drawl.

  They all watched him slam into his car, make it roar and then reverse and peel out in a shower of gravel and a cloud of dust.

  “Addie—” Izzy started gently.

  But Addie turned and raced down the side of the house, disappearing at the back.

  Izzy raced after her.

  Johnny looked to Charlie and then he looked to Toby.

  “Welcome home, brother,” he said.

  Inside his thick, black beard, Toby’s lips hitched.

  “I’m Johnny,” Johnny said to Charlie.

  “Charlie,” Charlie replied, lifting his hand.

  Johnny shook it, let go and introduced, “This is my brother, Toby.”

  “Toby,” Charlie said, offering his hand to Johnny’s brother.

  “Charlie,” Toby replied, taking it.

  When the two were done shaking, all three men hesitated, then when Johnny started down the side of the house, the two others trailed with only one dog trailing them seeing as Dempsey and Swirl had raced after Izzy.

  They walked in the back door hearing Addie saying, “No, Iz. Just put the queso under the broiler and let’s get this party started.”

  But her eyes hit Johnny when he entered then they went behind him after he cleared the door, and the two other men crowded with him into the small kitchen.

  She was again holding Brooks tight to her but now she was hovering in a corner of the kitchen like Izzy and Deanna had her blocked in when they were both keeping a distance.

  It was then Addie said, “Great. As if that drama being played out in front of Clubber McHotterson,” she indicated Charlie with a flick of a hand, “and Magnus McHotterson,” she indicated Johnny with a jerk of her head, “wasn’t bad enough, now we got Talon McHotterson here to enjoy the show.”

  She was cracking jokes.

  Johnny thought that was good.

  “Maybe we should go upstairs and talk, baby girl,” Deanna said softly.

  “About what?” Addie asked. “About how Johnny’s changed more of Brooklyn’s diapers after knowing him for a week than his father has after knowing him seven months?”

  Deanna closed her mouth and looked to Izzy.

  “Doll, how about you let Johnny and Charlie look after Brooks and we girls get a bottle of wine and—?” Izzy tried.

  “I saw you two,” Addie said, her voice hoarse, and Johnny went on the alert. “In the stable. I saw Johnny doing you against the wall.”

  “Oh Lord,” Deanna murmured.

  “Shit,” Charlie muttered.

  “Hell,” Toby mumbled.

  Johnny just watched Addie closely.

  “He never gave me that, what you two had in that moment,” Addie told her sister. “I could have walked right up to you and neither of you would have seen me. I didn’t exist, nothing existed. Nothing but him for you and you for him. He never gave me that, Iz. How did I never see that?”

  And there they had the answer to why Adeline had been degenerating, outside of the fact that she’d learned without a doubt that her husband was a motherfucking pissant.

  She’d had to watch while Johnny and Izzy built all they were building at the same time coming to understand she’d never had anything like that, no matter how new it was for Johnny and Izzy, or worse, precisely because of how new it was.

  She’d not even come close.

  “Addie, sweetie,” Izzy whispered.

  “He gave me this.” She cuddled Brooks closer. “That’s all he ever gave me. But he gave it to me getting himself an orgasm and honest to God, that was all he was thinking about.”

  “Addie, please, baby, let’s go upstairs,” Izzy coaxed.

  Addie reared her head like a stubborn mare and snapped, “No. This is a party. We’re having a party.”

  She forged past Izzy, by Johnny, straight to the door where Toby was standing.

  “Out of the way, Talon,” she ordered.

  “Name’s Toby,” Toby said gently, but he’d read the situation and didn’t move.

  Addie had been staring at Johnny’s brother’s chest but her head jerked back. “You’re his brother, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, darlin’,” he replied.

  “Of course. You’re perfect, so of course. You’re probably taken too, aren’t you?”

  “I—”

  “Not for me,” she cut him off. “Man like you. Man like Johnny. Man like Charlie. Not for me.”

  “Honey,” Toby whispered. “How ’bout we get you—?”

  She tossed her hair and looked over her shoulder at her sister. “I did it, Iz. I did it. What I swore to myself I’d never do. Not the same, but a version. I found Dad. I found a man who was good for nothin’ except to break my heart.”

  And that was when her face dissolved and she started to go down.

  “Tobe,” Johnny growled, on the move, but Toby was on it.

  He caught her in his arms and sank down to the floor with her. Addie’s ass hit his inner thigh with Toby’s leg at a bad angle, and Johnny saw him wince but he didn’t do anything but put his arms around her and tuck her and Brooks close to his chest.

  She sobbed into his neck.

  Brooks fretted in her arms.

  Toby lifted his gaze to Izzy. “Where you want her, babe?”

  “My bedroom,” Izzy whispered. “Upstairs. I’ll show you the way.”

  Toby nodded, got his feet under him and lifted Addie and Brooks cradled in his arms, walking behind Izzy as she hurried into the hall.

  Johnny, Deanna and Charlie watched them go.

  When they heard footfalls on the stairs, Johnny turned to Deanna.

  “Nice to meet you, I’m Johnny Gamble and that was my brother Toby.”

  She stared into his eyes.

  And then, very slowly, she smiled.

  Johnny sat in the wooden chair at the head of the table in Izzy’s backyard, staring up at the windows of Izzy’s bedroom.

  “You need another beer, big man?” Deanna asked.

  The one he’d cracked open two seconds after he’d opened one for Charlie while Charlie was pouring Deanna wine, and after he’d tossed one to Toby, was gone in about three gulps.

  So yeah.

  He needed another one.

  He did not share that.

  He looked to her. “He had to know. He had to know what they’d lived through. So what I wanna know is, how an asshole could know that and marry her, get her pregnant and then bang some bitch in her fucking bed.”

  “I do not know the answer to that question, but I do know maybe you should have another beer, which might serve to help you calm down,” Deanna said soothingly, studying him closely.

  “This is gonna go her way,” Johnny stated.

  “In your mood, I’m gonna
take that as a threat and share with you now that if the authorities ever question me, I heard you make no such threat, and then I’ll say again, calm, big man, so you don’t commit any felonies,” Deanna replied.

  Johnny turned his gaze from her to his brother.

  Toby was also in a wooden chair (Deanna was the only one in a curlicue one) and his eyes were also aimed at Izzy’s bedroom window.

  Johnny looked from Deanna to Charlie, pushing out of his seat, asking, “Can you both excuse us a minute?”

  Toby’s gaze came to him as Charlie murmured, “Not a problem.” And Deanna murmured, “Wine ain’t gonna cut it, I may need a martini,” which Johnny decided to take as a yes.

  Toby pushed up and moved to walk beside Johnny as they made their way to a tree that was hopefully out of earshot.

  As he took this short trek it hit him that he’d always seen it, but now he was noting that Izzy had an enormous lawn. Everywhere for fifty yards around her house was thick, lush grass mowed up to a line of trees that led to the forest that surrounded her house.

  He hoped she had a riding lawnmower in that shed too.

  He also hoped she didn’t give him too much shit when he shared it was his ass that was going to be on it from that point forward.

  Johnny stopped and turned to his brother who’d stopped with him.

  He then started.

  “You know I’m glad to see you so I don’t have to say that. Though still wanna know why you’re here.”

  “Bryce called. Told me Shandra was back in town,” his brother told him.

  Not this shit.

  “Tobe—” he began.

  Toby shook his head. “Was just worried about you, Johnny. Her coming back, close to the anniversary of when we lost Dad, thought it’d be a nice surprise to come up and maybe take you fishing, make sure you were okay. Got to the mill, you weren’t there. Decided to go to Home and have a beer and some wings to give it some time before I went back. Hit Home, got an earful.”

  Johnny bet he did.

  “And they told you about Iz,” Johnny surmised.

  Toby grinned. “Lotta people said a lot of things. Including telling me where she lived. Didn’t think I’d hit a drama. Thought I’d show and give you shit, and if you weren’t around, size up the new girl.”

  Johnny sighed.

  That was when Toby smiled before he asked, “Brother, is a wood nymph gonna materialize and do a dance for us later, or what?”