Page 29 of Set Fire to This Cardhouse

“The fuck you think you’re doing, going through my stuff?” Toby stumbles back, clutching the picture, thinks about burning it so it can’t fall into the wrong hands ever again. It was a mistake to bring it, clearly; he wanted to take a selfie of himself holding their picture in front of some beautiful sailboat because Haley loves that kind of thing, loves knowing that Toby is thinking about her even when he’s halfway around the world. “This is private. Private. You’ve no goddamn business looking through my stuff, and if you don’t—”

“Who are they?” Mike interrupts. His voice is harsh, like he’s the one who’s been wronged here.

“Why the fuck would I tell you?” Toby needs to force the words past the tightness squeezing down around his throat. He’ll protect them, whatever the cost. There’s a gun in the nightstand, another one in his suitcase. “You think I want you chasing them down? Who are you?”

“Someone who isn’t cheating on a family.” Expression dark, Mike rolls to his feet in one smooth motion. Toby takes a subtle step to where his suitcase sits open on the floor, and then Mike is right there, all up in Toby’s space—which is when Mike’s words catch up with Toby.

Cheating on a family?

“Tell me, Toby” —Mike’s voice is dangerously low, and he’s close, very close— “are you the kind of bastard who cheats on a family? Because that’s the kind of thing I like to know about a partner.”

“What the...” Toby snaps his mouth shut. He feels naked in only a towel, abruptly cold, but he won’t give Mike so much as a fucking inch. “Seriously? Just who do you think—”

“You keep calling it a mistake,” Mike cuts right into Toby’s question. “Yeah, man, we fucked. So what?”

So what. So what.

Toby wishes he could be as indifferent as Mike, wishes he could just forget it and move on; no harm, no foul. He crumples the picture up in his fist. “Well, we shouldn’t fucking have.”

“Pun intended?” Mike asks with an ugly curl of his lips.

“No, fuck you. Pun not intended.” Toby holds the picture close, balls his other hand into a fist against his stomach. When his wrist brushes against Mike’s hip bone, they both glance down before their eyes meet. Hold. Toby’s mouth feels parched.

“Feel free to elaborate.” Mike’s voice is still low, but the dangerous edge has softened, more of a question now. “Because I don’t see the problem here.”

“It’s against the rules. Obviously.” Toby hates that he sounds a little breathless. That doesn’t mean he’s dismissed the option of a knee to Mike’s groin.

Mike lifts a brow. “So?”

What is wrong with him?

“Did it occur to you that the rules are there for a reason? That it’s dangerous for field partners to get involved when we need to keep our heads straight?”

“That’s your problem?” Mike’s question comes with an incredulous upward tilt toward the end, and Toby can’t believe him; cannot fucking believe him.

“It is my problem when it could be the difference between us making it out alive, or ending up as cannon fodder.”

“Bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

No, Toby doesn’t think it is given how much he struggled with keeping his mind on the job just last night. Not that he’s willing to share with the class, thanks.

“Emotional entanglements,” he says slowly, and they’re still too close, too personal, “interfere with rational decisions. But maybe that’s not a problem for you—I’m not sure you’ve embraced the concept of rational decisions.”

“I’m not an idiot, you know.” Mike’s eyes narrow, sunlight glinting on the bridge of his nose. “My point is, sex doesn’t automatically impair your judgment. You just got to keep it separate.”

“Sure.” Toby blows out a breath through his nose. “Maybe you can do that. Maybe you really are that good at compartmentalizing, too cool for feelings and all that. Me, though? I’m not.” He clears his throat and breaks eye contact, glancing over at the open balcony door. The curtains are fluttering in a soft breeze, and while it must be eighty degrees at least, Toby is still feeling a little chilly, his hair damp and all over the place. “Now, thanks for this discussion; it’s been thrilling. Maybe we can talk about something pleasant now, like, say, religion? Climate change? Oh, oh!” He waves the hand with the balled-up picture. “How about Middle East politics?”

It’s another long moment before Mike steps back. He sits down on the edge of the bed, silent while Toby crouches down at his suitcase.

Absently, Toby notes that his things look completely untouched even though he’d tucked the picture into a hidden pocket at the bottom—a hidden pocket within a hidden pocket, in fact, custom-made according to Toby’s design. So far, none of his guinea pigs searched past the first hidden pocket.

Mike may have noticed something when he got the condoms. And if he overheard—and misunderstood—last night’s conversation... Well.

“You shouldn’t keep private things where someone might find them,” Mike says suddenly.

“I don’t expect my partner to snoop through my stuff.” Toby slides the picture back into his suitcase and retrieves clean underwear, a shirt and black jeans. He isn’t keen to dress in front of Mike, but then, it’s nothing Mike hasn’t seen before. If they’re meant to continue this partnership, false modesty will be a hindrance.

Even with how this morning has gone, Toby won’t ask Liu for a change. If Mike had been planning to use the picture against Toby, he’d hardly have gone around waving it in Toby’s face, asking questions about cheating; he’d have snapped a picture and tracked them down to give himself some actual leverage. There’s also the way Mike didn’t hesitate for a second to shield two strangers with his body.

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