Saving Toby (11 page)

“What did he say?”

I was surprised at this line of questioning. “He was looking
for me,” I answered, and it dawned on me why he was so put off. “You never told
your mother about the investigation, did you?”

“No,” he said. “And I don’t plan to. It’s still an open
case.”

“I didn’t get the impression that the subject came up,” I
said and bit my lip. “But, she
was
upset over something.”

“What?”

“That you didn’t go in to see your brother at the prison
today.”

“Oh, Jesus,” he groaned. “She got to you.”

“I don’t see what the big deal is. Why can’t you just stop
in and hear what the guy has to say? Or, at the very least, read the letters he
wrote? Your mother said she has a whole pile of them up in her room.”

Toby wrapped his arms around his head and leaned forward as
if he were trying to block out the words. “You don’t understand. What my
mother,
and now you
, fail to realize is my brother and I hate each
other.”

The photos Mrs. Faye had shown me looked like that of any
young family celebrating the milestones in life, but I knew there was much they
didn’t reveal.

Boys fought. When my young cousins, Paul and Frank, weren’t
eating or playing video games, they were always knocking each other around. But
unlike my cousins, I sensed a barren emptiness between the Faye brothers. Toby
never talked about Al Junior. With the exception of when Mrs. Faye talked about
him, it was as if the older brother didn’t exist. I suspected their fights had
been laced with enmity.

I touched Toby’s arm tentatively. “I don’t understand, not
completely. But I want to. Explain it to me.”

He blew out a breath. “You want to hear the gory details?”

“You don’t have to tell me if you’d rather not.”

“It’s fine,” he shrugged. “I’m sure you know my father liked
his alcohol. For a guy that drank regularly, he was weirdly strict about
details. Julia claims I was his favorite, but that’s probably because I pretty
much did as I was told. But my brother, man, he
never
did anything
without a fight. And holy crap, when he was a teenager, my father and him used
to really go at it.”

I could visualize the scene, right there in the living room.
Biting words, hits that bruised.

“Didn’t your mom try to stop it?”

“She always tried, but with two big guys fisting it out,
there wasn’t much she could do. When the fighting was really bad, she would
take me into another room and ask me to pray with her.” His eyes strayed across
the room. “Then, God answered our prayers.”

“How so?”

“My father died.”

Shocked, I said, “God doesn’t answer prayers like that.”

His eyes shifted back to my face. “How do you know? I didn’t
necessarily wish him dead, but I wanted him gone.”

“But you didn’t really mean it,” I countered.

“I meant it,” he said without blinking. “My house was like a
war zone. Al was always mouthing off and getting into trouble. As far as I’m
concerned, he deserved the pummeling he got, but Big Al was a hard guy. As a
kid, I was afraid of him. When you go through something like that, seeing your
family battling all the time and your mom crying, you want it to end. I prayed
for a divorce.”

“How old were you when your father died?”

“I was twelve, Al was sixteen. I thought things would be …  quieter,
I guess, without my father around. But, it wasn’t easy—he was so stinking drunk
he drove his truck into that couple’s car and killed them. Damn.”

Toby leaned forward and clasped his hands together. “It felt
like people hated
us
for what he did. After that, things got really bad
with Al. We never got along, but without my father around, he beat on me like
he wanted to kill me.”

Red crept up Toby’s neck, and after a heavy moment of
silence, he rushed into an explanation. “This is old news, and it’s not like he
could hurt me anymore. I’m a lot stronger than I was then. I’m just telling you
so you’ll understand why I don’t want to see my brother. We have a bad
history.”

“You were so young. Why didn’t your mother intervene or call
Social Services?”

“My mother was a sickly, grieving widow, and I didn’t know
about that stuff. I just tried to stay out of his way.” Toby shrugged. “Then I
met Devlin and Ray. Ray’s parents divorced, and his mother didn’t care who hung
out at the house. She even bought us alcohol and got stewed with us.”

“Stewed?”

“Yeah, cooked, blazed, high. Whatever you want to call it.”

“His
mother
got high with you?” I scrunched my face
in distaste. “That’s so irresponsible.”

“Maybe, but escaping to Ray’s was the way I got through
those years.”

“Do you still do things like that?”

He shook his head. “Not really. It messes my head up too
much.”

“Well, that’s good. I don’t like that stuff,” I grumbled.
“And I don’t like to think about you hanging out in a place like that.”

He snorted. “Sorry, Claude. I’m no pillar of the community.”

“But you’re better than people like that.”

“Thanks. I take that as high praise coming from you,” he
said.

“Good, cause I mean it. I’m pretty picky about who I hang
out with,” I said, and he smiled. “So with you out of the house, things got
better with Al?”

“We managed to get along just enough to take care of Julia
during her first bout of cancer. After she went into remission, I left. We
didn’t see each other much after that. The shithead went and got his girlfriend
pregnant. Then one night he was in a bar, and some guy pissed him off. I’m sure
you’ve heard the rest of the story.”

“There’s a baby?”

“Yeah. In Florida. After Al was sentenced, Felicia moved in
with her sister in Tampa. While I was living in Cape Coral, I looked her up,”
he said. “I got to see him once, before I came home.”

“A boy?”

“Yeah, and he’s so cool. His name is Dylan.” Toby smiled. It
was obvious he had a soft spot for his nephew. “I want to get Julia down there
to see him.”

My mouth dropped open. “She hasn’t seen him yet?”

“Felicia took off as soon as Al got moved upstate to
Otisville. She was still pregnant. I don’t blame her. Al will never be any kind
of father to that kid,” he said. “But as soon as Julia’s finished her last
treatment, I’ll get her down there.”

“Please don’t make your mother wait. Let’s ask Felicia to
come visit. Right away.”

He looked at me for a serious moment. I knew he was
considering what the implication of waiting meant—maybe there wasn’t time. He
ran his hand through his hair.

“I guess it can’t hurt to ask. I’ll email Felicia. We’ll
make it happen.”

Eager to get Mrs. Faye and her grandson together for the
first time, I reached for his hand. “Let’s do,” I said, “That’ll be amazing and
something I’d like to see.”

“Okay. But just because it’s my brother’s kid, doesn’t mean
this is in any way about him.”

I would have to let this go, for now at least. I swallowed
the lump in my throat and nodded.

“Now, I want to talk about what happened down at the beach.”
Leaning back on the couch, he smiled at me. “You kissed me.”

My mouth dropped open. “But you kissed me, too.”

“But you kissed me
first
. In fact, you threw yourself
into my arms, and
then
you kissed me.”

I blushed and closed my eyes. I wasn’t used to discussing
this kind of stuff.

“Yes, I did,” I confessed.

“I kind of think you like kissing me.” He leaned closer, his
lips inches from my face.

I don’t know why it felt so painful to admit what was
obviously the truth. Like it gave him power over me.
It’s okay
, I told
myself
. Get over it, and maybe he’ll kiss you again.

“I do,” I finally whispered.

He smiled, his grin wide and smug. “How about that? Claudia
Chiametti likes kissing me.”

“Alright, so I admitted it. But what does this mean for
us—what are we now?”

Without answering, Toby leaned back against the couch and
slowly stretched his long arms over his head like a big, proud tomcat. Sinking
deeply into the cushions, he lifted his long legs to rest on the coffee table
before he turned his eyes on me. “What do
you
think we are now?”

“Dating?”

“Hmm.” A smile touched the corners of his mouth. He picked
up my hand and ran a thumb over my knuckles. “Are you saying you want to be my
girlfriend, Claude?”

I was intimidated by the conversation. He seemed to be
purposely making this painful. I glanced at him, nervous. “Isn’t that what you
want?”

While I sat on the edge of my seat wondering if I was making
a fool of myself, he concentrated on our hands, aligning my hand to his and
slowly, one by one, intertwining our fingers. Finally, he shrugged. “Yeah,
that’d be okay.”

“Wow. That is hardly the enthusiasm I was expecting.” I
tried to pull my hand away, but he held tight and rolled his head in my
direction.

“I don’t want to get too excited until we make it official.”

“Official? And just how do we do that?” Suspicious, I eyed
him.

“First, you have to understand, if we’re
official
,
all purchases are final—there’s no returns or exchanges. You cool with that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe you need a little persuading,” he murmured. He leaned
into nuzzle the crook of my neck. His breath was hot on my skin as his tongue
traced my collarbone. He nipped up the length of my neck gently with his teeth.
The area tingled under his attention, and I felt it down to my toes.

“Okay, okay,” I pushed at his shoulders. “You’re very
convincing.”

“Good,” he whispered, rolling back to put his arm around my
shoulders. “Now we just have to seal the deal with a kiss.”

“This is some kooky ceremony,” I muttered, but I leaned into
him to press a quick kiss on his mouth anyway. Once my mouth touched his,
though, he caught me and held me to him. His lips moved over mine in a soft,
but thorough kiss.

Leaning back, he held up our intertwined fingers in triumph.
“
Opa!
Congratulations, you are now my girlfriend!”

I giggled. Toby made laughing feel like breathing. It just
happened. After the traumatic day, being with him was exactly where I wanted to
be.

He picked up the television remote. “So what do you say? Want
to watch
Mrs. Doubtfire
?”

He switched off the lamp on the side table putting us in
almost complete darkness. The television screen illuminated the far corner of
the room. He stretched his long length out on the couch, his feet extending over
the arm at one end, and patted the cushion in front of him.

“Come lay down next to me. I want to give my new girlfriend
a little TLC after her tough day.”

“That sounds nice,” I said, sidling closer.

The irony of the situation, however, was not lost upon me.
Over the last few days, I had boasted about my plans and taken pains to hammer
home how different we were. I had my lofty dreams with my wonderful plans while
he had this awful history and a sick mother lying upstairs. Now, here he was,
comforting
me
. I was ashamed at how distraught I had been over my
insignificant problems. I would not whine about them again.

He lifted his arm so I could position myself next to him.
Once I moved back against his chest, he used the remote to start the movie, and
he wrapped his arms around me.

We watched the movie quietly for a little while, but Toby
kept nuzzling my neck and stroking my hip. As funny as Robin Williams was in
drag, Toby’s “TLC” was distracting, and I simply could not concentrate on the
movie.

Trying to derail the growing sexual tension, I asked, “So,
would you consider signing up for a college class?”

“Huh?” He turned to look at me blankly. “Please tell me you
aren’t talking about me going to school,
again
?”

“We talked so briefly about it the other day. If you found
something you were interested in, you’d feel more grounded, and maybe, happier
here.”

“I don’t know how much happier I could be than right now.” I
could hear the smile in his words. I rolled onto my back so I could see him
better. His eyes swept across my face as he reached over to trace a finger
across the bridge of my nose. Then he took a deep breath and looked into my
eyes.

“You’re so beautiful.”

The expression of awe in his eyes was so unrestrained, so
raw
,
it did weird things to me. I couldn’t take my eyes from his. My heartbeat began
to accelerate.
Damn, I’m in way over my head with this guy
.

I tilted my face up and boldly raised my mouth to his. With
the invitation, Toby took no time launching a lethal attack, our connection
propelling him into action. Wrapping his arms around me, he eased his weight
over me as his mouth fully covered mine. His whole being exerted hot energy, and
under him, my body melted.

Our lips moved over each other’s, this time with more
lingering intensity than at the beach. He splayed a hand on my side, pressing
and kneading my hip. The effect was unexpected, a radiating heat shot through
my pelvis. I was feeling breathless and needy when he suddenly shifted tightly
up against me, his excitement blatantly obvious. I froze, trying my best not to
move against him in any way.

Breaking off our kiss, he put his mouth near my ear. “So,
how long do you usually wait?” he asked, his voice lilted and husky.

“Wait for what?” I asked, hoping he wasn’t asking what I
thought he was asking. Knowing he was.

Pulling back, he looked at me. “Your internet connection,”
he said wryly. “Come on, Claude. It doesn’t have to be carved in stone, just an
estimate.” He must have mistaken my expression to mean I didn’t understand the
question. He rephrased, “Tell me how long you want to wait before we can, you
know, get tight.”