“Stronger,” I whispered against his skin, thinking of fucking Aron, and how good it had felt to stick up for myself.
“Happier,” Beale whispered back. “Not just content, but really, honestly happy, Toby, for the first time I can remember. I’ve stopped waiting for good things to come to me, and I’ve realized I have the power to make them happen.”
“Yeah?” I sniffled in a way that would have been horrifically embarrassing with anyone but Beale. “Well, I’ve stopped waiting for bad things to come to me, because I realized I have the power to not let them happen. And I know I’m not your soul mate, Beale, but—”
“But you are.” Beale turned toward me. “That’s exactly what I was trying to say, and maybe it didn’t come out right, but you are. You’re the only one I want because—”
“I love you,” we both said together.
Beale’s slow smile was like sunrise in the middle of the night, and I was pretty sure I was smiling just as brightly.
I was such a sap.
But so was Beale, so I was okay with that.
I sniffled again, because that was a thing I did now. “I was going to come to Florida and tell you that I was keeping you, whether you liked it or not, and your soul mate could fight me for you whenever he came along. I decided you needed someone who loved you epically, and I am a very epic sort of person—”
“You are, baby,” he agreed solemnly.
“And that you deserved someone who’d fight for you. And I haven’t been that person, but I want to be. For you. With you.”
“Ah, shit.” Beale’s hand at my neck pulled me forward so he could kiss me, hot and openmouthed. “I love you, Toby,” he whispered against my lips. Then he tipped me back against the pillows to straddle me.
“I love you, too.” I tilted my head to give him better access as he sucked and nibbled at the skin of my neck. My restless legs rubbed against his, and my hips rolled against him, trying to get friction on my hardening cock. “God. It’s absurd. It’s… it’s… it’s—fuck, yeah, right there—preposterous, really. It’s too fast, and we don’t have enough in common, and I don’t care.”
Beale paused with his nose nuzzled into my armpit, then lifted his face to smile at me. “That was the end of my letter.”
“Huh?” I blinked at him. “The what?”
“That was the end of my Dear Hagatha letter.” He patted around the mattress and found the world’s most precious—and now most wrinkled—vomit bag. “It’s too fast, and we don’t have enough in common, and I don’t care. How can I convince him to take a chance on me? Signed, Not-So-Virgo-Somewhere-Over-West-Virginia-I-Think.” Beale threw the bag aside and shrugged. “I kinda lost my creativity at the end there.”
He stared down at me expectantly, and my brain was so thoroughly fogged by love and lust and relief that it took me a whole second to realize he was waiting for an answer.
For Hagatha’s answer.
“Beale, precious? I already told you I don’t require convincing, right?”
“Well, yeah…”
“Because I love you and want to be with you?”
“Yeah,” he said softly, wonderingly.
“And you love me and want to be with me?”
“Fuck, yes. So much.” But he still watched me steadily.
“Right.” I cleared my throat and rolled my eyes just a little.
Good Lord, the things I did to hook up with a hot guy.
With one particular hot guy.
With this particular hot guy, who’d be the one and only guy in my life from here on out, if I had anything to say about it.
“Dear Not So Virgo, I know what will make the man you love agree to pretty much anything, especially when it’s something he’s already agreed to and wants as much as you do.”
Beale quirked an eyebrow at me, and I reached up to push his hair off his face.
God, he really was beautiful. God, I really was lucky.
“Blow jobs,” I whispered encouragingly. “They change lives.”
Epilogue
Help Me Hagatha
(Hagatha’s private files)
Dear Aunt Hagatha:
Is it possible to be happier than we are right now?
Beale in Bed
(As in, our ultra-plush bed.)
(All alone.)
Dear Beale,
Your methods of reminding me when it’s time to stop working grow more devious. I approve. I’ll be there in thirty seconds. Don’t start without me… or actually, do.
I love you,
Toby
“Four point eight million!” Jonquil exclaimed, her eyes as round and wide as the martini glass in front of her as she took in the latest fundraising tallies. “Four point eight million?”
Marius Wynott and Dale Jennings exchanged an approving smile. My brother Rafe grinned and said, “Hells, yes.” Shannon Tate, who was back on the Key for the summer to reopen her art gallery, shook her head in amazement. My dad’s eyes got so shiny, he had to mop them with a cocktail napkin and nearly turned over a pitcher of beer in the process. Mason, who Toby had drafted to be part of the committee using what he called Best Friend’s Privilege, saved the beer and only looked a little startled when my dad yelled, “I love this bar!” and turned to cry into his shoulder instead.
The Whispering Key Bridge Fundraising Committee now met biweekly at Fisher’s Wreck, Bobo Fisher’s new beachfront bar. Shocking literally everyone, Bobo mixed a mean martini, and since Bobo was dating Jonquil’s niece, Corey, that meant the committee got their first two rounds of drinks comped.
Since I was living with the head of the committee, this also extended to me, though I happily drank water and passed my drinks on to Toby. A tipsy Toby was a playful Toby, and a playful Toby tended to do wonderful, horrible things like smudge dirt on his forehead to simulate breeding plumage, jump into bed on top of me, throw my book on the floor, and tell me he’d been a naughty plover.
Suffice it to say, I was really glad the actual snowy plovers wouldn’t be breeding again for a solid six months, because I wasn’t sure I could even see one without hearing Toby whisper, “Breed me, plover hunter,” in my ear and having exactly the response you’d expect.
Toby leaned against my side in the red pleather booth and sipped his dirty martini happily. My bracelet of protective stones was back on his wrist where it belonged, and he insisted he’d never take it off. “No offense to Scotty at the Bean, who supplies me with my daily coffee and is therefore the most important man in my life aside from you, but this was a definite upgrade in meeting locations.”
I wrapped an arm around his shoulders to pull him more firmly against me. The Bean didn’t have booths like this. “Agreed.”
“Trey.” Jonquil clasped Toby’s iPad to her chest like a beloved child. “Is this… Can this be right?”
He nodded. “The fine accountants at Trout, Comstock, and Purchess don’t lie, sweetness. I’m fairly certain they don’t even know how to joke.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled slowly, hugging the iPad. “Toby-Trey Elford, you are a true hero, setting all this up.”