“Beale.”
“Again.”
“Beale.”
“Yes, me. Yes, Toby. Fuck. You just don’t know…” I swallowed hard, biting back all the things I couldn’t say, like “please stay with me” and “please make this work” and “I love you.”
“I know,” he groaned, “I fucking know.”
And when he came all over my hand, I thought maybe, possibly, he did, so I followed him over the edge half a minute later, with a shout that rang through the little house.
I pulled out of him gently and dealt with the condom, but Toby hadn’t moved from where he rested cheek-down on the counter. I pulled up my shorts and moved back to drape myself over him again.
“Ah, Toby,” I murmured against that goofy tattoo on his shoulder.
“Oh, Beale,” he sigh-panted, and it sounded sleepy, almost amused.
He pressed a single, lingering kiss to my forearm where it rested on the counter next to his, and I smiled.
Then the door to the fucking house opened and Barbara Patenaude yelled, “Hey, Trey! Mason, Fenn, Rafe, and Gage are here!” two fucking seconds before all four of them walked in.
Mother. Fucker.
I lifted my head, and Rafe’s eyes widened before he clapped his hands over them. “Gage? Gage! Tell me they’re doing yoga again!”
“Oooh, sorry, bro. This time it’s, ah… not yoga.” Gage’s voice threaded with laughter. “Wow.”
“Step outside,” I yelled. “And where the hell is Littlejohn? I thought he was guarding the door.”
“I’m right here!” Littlejohn said, stepping inside the room, too, because what we needed was more of an audience. “But Mason and Fenn own the house, so, ya know… I was a li’l bit unclear as to whether I had the right to bar the door.” He paused. “Y’okay there, Trey?”
“Delightful,” Toby said from beneath me, still hiding his face. “Never better.”
“Beale, what the hell is going on here?” Mason demanded.
“Baby, if you don’t know…” Fenn scratched his eyebrow with his index finger.
Mason elbowed him lightly. “I meant, what’s going on here. At our home. Where we live. And where all of Whispering Key, and part of Cooter Key, too, are right now congregating around our pool, discussing whether it’s too early to do body shots and where Bobo and the Stallions should put the keg!”
“Oh for fuck’s sake! I told them exactly where to put the—” Toby pushed up off the counter, and Mason’s eyes widened. “—um… keg? Heya, Mason.”
Shit. Shit shit shit.
“Toby?” Mason said, frozen in disbelief.
“Could everyone get out of here right now?” I demanded. “The man’s naked. Jesus Christ, you can have this conversation in a minute.”
“Who’s Toby?” Rafe demanded. “That’s Trey. Beale’s soul mate.”
Oh, delightful.
“Trey?” Mason shook his head. “No. That’s my friend Toby from college.”
“Oh my God, Doc’s college friend is Beale’s soul mate? What a small world this is! Wait’ll I tell the girls!” Barbara scurried out to share this news, and I smacked my forehead.
“Toby,” Mason said. “What the fuck—?”
“Can you get me my shorts, please?” Toby whispered over his shoulder, and I swept them up off the floor along with his shirt and handed them to him.
“Hey, hey.” Littlejohn rocked back on his heels. “Don’t go talkin’ that way to my friend Trey, Doc. You can use a civil tone.”
Mason scowled. “When I find my best friend—”
“You sure he’s your best friend?” Littlejohn asked. “’Cause I was the one who fed him Pizza Bites in his time of need.”
Toby buttoned his shorts and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “There’s enough of me to go around, guys.”
Mason shot him a glare. “Well, that’s patently obvious to anyone who’s seen the news recently.”
“Hey!” Littlejohn, Toby, and I said at the same time. I was pretty sure Littlejohn had no idea what Mason was talking about, he was just being loyal to Toby.
But who was Toby loyal to?
“Mason,” Toby continued calmly. “I can explain everything, okay? Just… give me a minute to change.”
Fenn wrapped an arm around Mason’s shoulders and whispered something that made Mason take a deep breath and let it out again slowly. “Fine. You have ten minutes. And then I want an explanation.”
Didn’t we all?
15
Toby
Help Me Hagatha
(Unsent)
Dear Aunt Hagatha:
So, about that lie thing. Let’s say I didn’t come clean when I could have…
Hopeless Case in Whispering Key
Dear Hopeless,
I’m guessing the guy you want deserves better than that. Maybe he should get it.
Take your own advice for once,
Auntie H.
Common wisdom says that when you find yourself in a hole, it’s important that you stop digging. Since we’ve already established that I am neither common nor wise, you can imagine that I did neither.
“So, um.” I trailed Beale to the bathroom. “About that me-being-on-the-news thing Mason mentioned a minute ago? It’s kind of a funny story—”
Beale turned the shower on and dropped his shorts on the floor. “A story about how you were giving Jayd Rollins head at a bar in New York and got caught by the paparazzi, right before you came to Whispering Key, and then lied to me about it?” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Would we call that funny?”
My stomach lifted up to my throat and then plummeted to somewhere around my knees. “You knew all along?”
“Me? Nah. I’m not that smart. I only found out about two hours ago, give or take a counter fuck.” Beale’s deep voice thrummed with hurt. “Humor was not my first reaction. Or my second.”
He yanked the curtain aside and stepped under the water, so I shucked my clothes, too, and stepped in after him, but he was already rinsing the soap off his body. “It wasn’t funny-funny, obviously, Beale. More like horrifying-funny.”
“I can imagine. Now take that and multiply it by being the guy you treated like an idiot for the past week. A minor personal issue?” He scrubbed at his hair ruthlessly, and shampoo suds flew everywhere.
“Yes, kind of.” I pressed my lips together. “I hoped it would be.”
“That had nothing whatsoever to do with me?” He stuck his head under the spray.
“It didn’t!” I insisted, soaping myself quickly. “Honestly, Beale, it had nothing to do with this. With us. I know you’re angry, and I don’t blame you—”
“Oh, thank you, Toby. Thank you for not blaming me—” He stepped out and slung a towel around his waist. “—for being upset that my—fuck, what even are you, Trey? My fake soul mate? The guy I’ve been messing around with?—doesn’t trust me at all.”