Meanwhile, I’d started thinking maybe I didn’t want him to leave at all.
He straightened, narrowed his eyes, and set his hands on his hips. “What kind of activity?”
“I…” Somewhere around Monday, he’d developed a line of freckles across his nose that were the cutest, most distracting thing ever. I wanted to boop them with my fingertip. I also knew better than to mention this on pain of death.
“You, what?” he demanded. “Finish the thought, Goodman.”
His scowl made me grin. “So suspicious.”
Toby went back to gathering up clothes. “Wonder why. Possibly because we’ve already re-enacted Titanic? Or because we were nearly stranded on a deserted island? Or because you fed me vegan seitan hotdogs yesterday and claimed it was an accident? Or—?”
I laughed out loud. “We absolutely were not stranded, you enjoyed the seitan before you knew what it was, and nothing has tried to murder you in hours and hours. You even have your credit card back now. I’m starting to think you enjoy being almost-murdered, Toby.”
“Nonsense. I do not have a murder fetish, thank you very much, and I am the perfect amount of suspicious.” He dumped the pile of our clothes on the bed and started sorting them for the wash, doing this little domestic task for the both of us like it was a normal, everyday thing, and I liked that way more than was healthy. “But if I were absurd like that, you’d be the deluded fool who liked my overly suspicious ass, and that’s worse.” He looked up like he’d startled himself. “I mean… you like me well enough to sleep with me. That kind of like.”
I threw myself chest-down on the bed, stacked my fists under my chin, and watched him steadily. “I do like you, Toby.” I liked him very much. Maybe too much. Certainly more than I knew what to do with.
Toby Elford was a snarky little rain cloud of a human, and it shouldn’t have been possible for him to light up my days, but he did.
“Pfft. Of course you do.” He slapped his ass lightly. “Who wouldn’t like this? Crazy people, that’s who.”
I shook my head and watched him swallow while his face turned red and he tried so, so hard to pretend it was all a joke.
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. I like you. As a person. A lot.” I liked his humor. I liked the soft heart of him that kept peeking out from his prickly shell.
Toby darted his gaze to mine like he was pretty sure this was the setup to some kind of joke and wasn’t sure what to do when he found I was serious. “Ugh, fine! We can do whatever you want. You don’t have to butter me up.”
I did an ab curl and sat up so I could stroke a thumb over his cheek. Toby was really attractive when he was prickly… and he was almost always prickly. “Keep an open mind. You might actually find this activity kind of fun.”
Eventually.
“Oh, no doubt.” He waved a hand airily. “Hunting pythons or wrestling baby alligators or whatever’s on the agenda will no doubt make me feel fully alive. Figures I couldn’t have landed myself a fake soul mate who enjoyed mimosas and a high-quality cucumber facial mas—” He shook out a pair of shorts and something clacked against the mattress. “What’s this?”
I grabbed for the brightly colored strand eagerly. “No way! That’s my bracelet! I thought this was gone for good.” I clasped my left wrist which had been naked for nearly a week. “It must’ve fallen into my pocket after all. I can’t believe you found it.”
Or that the Universe had meant for him to find it.
Toby snorted. “And here I thought you kept rubbing your wrist ’cause I made you nervous.”
I ignored this, since it wasn’t entirely wrong, and spread the bracelet on my palm to show him.
“Check it out: lapis lazuli for confidence, moonstone for intuition and clairvoyance, sapphire for serenity and peace of mind.”
“It’s beautiful.”
I nodded. “It was a gift from my mom before she died. The last thing she ever gave me.”
Toby trailed a finger over the stones, then looked up at me with a half-smile. “Aww. Kind of a lucky charm, then?”
“Kinda. More like… a promise. See, the stones protect me from negative energy, and just feeling the bracelet there reminds me not to give in and take the easy road. My mom believed the Universe had great things in store for me, and settling for anything less would be like letting her down.”
“Ah.” Toby frowned. “And what does ‘great things’ entail, precisely?”
“I don’t know yet precisely. A soul mate. A life path.” I grinned. “I guess I’ll figure it out when the Universe shows them to me, huh?”
“Ah,” Toby said again. He hesitated, then shrugged. “Well, I hope I didn’t mess it up when I touched it like I did the big green one the other day.”
I held the beads in my palm and worried them lightly with my thumb. “You didn’t mess anything up. You couldn’t. Even if you had somehow attuned the stones to you, I like your energy. It’s soothing. Like sunshine.”
Toby’s face blanked except for one raised eyebrow. “Soothing.”
“Yeah. But that’s a good thing,” I assured him.
“Is it, Beale? Is it really?” Toby set his hands on his hips. “Is your ultimate goal in life to be soothed, precious? Do you live to be told you have the energy of one of your cups of Sleepytime tea? Soothing. Fuck that. A clarinet solo is soothing. My energy is raw, and it’s carnal, and… and… and… it’s lustful. Almost entirely lustful. Understand?”
I pressed my lips together against laughter, but I was pretty sure he could see it spilling from my eyes. “Maybe soothing was the wrong word,” I agreed. In reality, being around Toby was more like existing on a continuum between amusement and frustration, arousal and annoyance, but it was really fucking fun.
I’d always been a content sort of person by nature, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt as much as I did with Toby. Want and need and protectiveness and anger and… joy. It threw me off balance, but in a good way. It made me feel awake and aware and really alive.
“Finish up fast, okay?” I rolled to my feet and gave him a quick peck on the cheek before heading for the door. “Then put on your bathing suit and meet me outside.”
“I don’t know how else to say this but in English, Goodman. No fucking way are you teaching me to swim.”
Toby stood on the cement at the edge of the pool, looking sexy as anything and wearing nothing but tiny red swim trunks and a pissed-off expression.
I pushed my wet hair back from my face and tucked my tongue into my cheek. “But you said we could do anything I wanted.”
Toby shook his head. “Beale. Precious. Angel. Sweetness. There was a distinct sexual overtone to my agreement, because I felt there was a sexual overtone to your proposition.” He pursed his lips. “Or there fucking should have been. I have so much to teach you, my Virgo.”
I grinned. Before this week, I’d never really understood how Mason and Fenn’s constant teasing seemed to make them both better—stronger—but now I got it. There was no judgment in Toby’s teases, and it was hard to be offended when I could sense so much genuine appreciation every time he looked at me.