In fact, Toby was a lot like Marjorie—all hisses and side-eyes, bone-deep loyalty and a need for affection… which was another thing I wasn’t gonna tell him on pain of death.
“In retrospect, I don’t have time for… water frolicking.” Toby stared down at the water balefully. “I have work to do.”
“Work, huh? Because you maybe mentioned once or a hundred times that you were going to be in the Maldives this week. On vacation.”
He licked his lips. “Yes. Well. I was. But since I’m not, I should probably use my time wisely and get ahead. Besides, imagine if I were to sink to a watery grave right here in the pool this morning, and all those letters went unanswered?” He shook his head once in the negative. “I couldn’t live with that on my conscience.”
I rubbed my chin. “Mmhmm. I can see how that would be a real concern.”
“Excellent! Then we agree—”
“Except you wouldn’t have to live with it on your conscience, ’cause you’d be dead.”
“Oh.” He frowned. “Then I would be a very malcontented spirit. A poltergeist, I expect. Or—”
“Toby, I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you,” I promised. “And you know what’s great about the water? You can think about your Hagatha responses while you float. Kill two birds with one stone.”
Toby sighed and took a single step down into the water so it lapped at his ankles. “No more metaphors about killing and ghosts when referring to my pool-based endeavors, Goodman.” He swallowed. “Fine. I’m in. Now what?”
I bit the inside of my cheek hard, because I was not going to laugh about this. Not yet, anyway. “Now you get all the way in. Until your feet touch the bottom.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.” He took a step down, and then another, clinging to the railing beside the wide steps. But when he was nearly ass-deep, he hesitated again.
“One more.” I held out a hand to help him down. “Come on. It’s so refreshing in here.”
“Nonsense. It’s wet.” He grabbed my hand. “Off-puttingly wet.”
“It is very wet,” I agreed solemnly. “That’s an unavoidable part of the swimming experience.”
Toby took the final step, and when his feet touched bottom, he shivered. Without thinking, I wrapped my arms around him to warm him, though the sun was so hellishly hot, I knew he wasn’t really cold.
“You’re doing really well,” I whispered.
Toby’s nostrils flared. “I’m being ridiculous. I’m well aware that I’m being ridiculous. Don’t coddle me, Beale.”
He tried to push out of my arms, but I held him tighter. “Whoa! You’re not being ridiculous. Christ, baby, everyone has things they’re scared of. And unlike house pets and rogue microwaves, water is a thing that’s actually good to have a healthy concern about. Did you ever fall in a pool or something? Maybe as a kid?”
He mumbled something against my chest that sounded like, “My dad pushed me in.”
“What?”
Toby shrugged. “That was how he learned to swim, so it was how he taught me and my little brother. It worked for Russ; not so much for me. Probably because Russ could recite the entire Litany of the Saints by age eight and I couldn’t. All those sins weigh a person down.” He gave a panicked little laugh at his own joke.
To be honest, the “sink or swim” method was how my dad had taught me and my brothers, and I’d never given it much thought, but it seemed totally barbaric while I was holding a shivering Toby in my arms.
“Okay, let’s try this. Turn around and lean back against me… yeah, just like that. Now let your feet come up and I’ll hold you. We’re gonna float, and that’ll help you get used to the feeling of the water, and remember you’re buoyant, okay?”
“I’m buoyant. Super. Buoyant and soothing. It’s like you’ve read the deepest dreams of my heart this morning, Beale. It’s like you’ve instinctively understood my—aahhh! Don’t drop me!” he yelled as I pulled my feet up. “I’ll behave.”
“Not gonna drop you,” I crooned. “Trust me.”
He laughed shakily, his hands grasping the forearm I’d wrapped around his chest. “Oh, trust you. Certainly. Easy peasy. I trust you, Beale, it’s the overwhelming quantity of wet shit surrounding us I don’t trust. Don’t suppose you have an extra lucky charm lying around? Preferably a tiny stone embedded in a pair of those floaty arm things children wear?”
He was joking, but I could feel in every line of his body how stressed he was, so I backed us up against the side of the pool in the shallow end, and without thinking about it too much, I removed my bracelet to clasp it around his wrist.
“Wait, what are you doing? No, that’s yours, Beale. I—”
“Shhh. I’m only lending it to you for today.” I wrapped my hand around the bracelet, holding it against his skin. “It’s for good luck, okay? And whenever you catch sight of it, you’ll remember that I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”
For once, I seemed to have shocked Toby silent, because he stared at the bracelet on his wrist and relaxed against me without a word, letting me tow him toward the deep end.
“What’s the weirdest Hagatha letter you ever got?” I asked. We’d reached the center of the pool, and I was treading water for both of us, but I didn’t want him to think about it too much. I should have known better.
“Don’t try to distract me in the murder pool, Goodman.”
I laughed and squeezed him closer. God, he was adorable. So adorable I couldn’t resist pressing a kiss to the silly tattoo on his shoulder. “I suppose it was only a matter of time, really, until you accused something else of murder, but you’re still alive, you know. For now.”
One of these days, I was going to ask him about that tattoo—a permanently inked sexy cartoon character was so unlike the man I was coming to know, I felt like there had to be a story involved—but Toby didn’t like being questioned about anything, and I’d been really hesitant to push the issue. This was temporary, so it was none of my business. Fascinating as the man was, he was not meant for me.
I tried to picture, for a second, how much more perfect a situation like this would feel when I was actually experiencing it with my soul mate… but I couldn’t. I figured it was like looking at a crystal that was flawless to the naked eye, only to be told there was something even better out there. It was hard to imagine.
“Once I got a letter from a guy who wanted me to send him my sock so he could come in it.” Toby’s words startled me from my thoughts. “Pretty sure that was the weirdest.”
“Gross. That must’ve been upsetting.”
“Sure.” He sighed sadly. “I’m upset every time I see that single sock in my drawer.”
“Toby!” I poked him gently in the side, and he squirmed and flailed dramatically. “Be serious.”
“Alright, alright! Jesus. Surely this kind of aggressive questioning is banned by the Geneva convention. Yes, it really happened, but no, obviously, I wrote him back and said that wasn’t appropriate.” He relaxed back against me again. “Because maybe he was a kid or something, you know? Don’t want to embarrass someone who might not know better.” He thought for a second, then cleared his throat and added, “But mostly because it was a liability issue, of course.”