Page 80 of Set Fire to This Cardhouse

“Don’t pretend you have this figured out any more than I do.”

“I hate it when you make sense.” Holding his breath as he counts to five, Toby looks around the room, taking in the sheets that are tangled at the foot of the bed and the generous amount of sunshine that makes it through the fluttering curtains. He could tell Mike that he wants to stay for as long as Mike will have him, that he wants things to progress to a point where one side of this bed is Toby’s side, where Toby’s clothes have a place in Mike’s closet.

How, though?

He nods. “Okay. One hour.”

Mike slides his hand down from Toby’s elbow, lingering briefly on Toby’s wrist before he breaks the contact. When Toby sits up, suddenly conscious of his own nakedness, Mike stops him with a quick, “Hey.”

Toby raises a brow. In response, Mike tugs Toby down for a light brush of their mouths, the contact ending far too soon and leaving Toby just slightly disoriented.

Mike pulls back. “One hour.”

He rolls out of bed and stands naked beside it for a second, stretching leisurely before he glances back over his shoulder and counters Toby’s rapt stare with a wink. Smug bastard. Once he’s gone, Toby falls back onto the mattress and allows himself two minutes to get a grip.

Then he pushes himself upright, his limbs aching pleasantly and yeah, a run might just do him some good.

***

Before he leaves, Toby checks his phone to find that Matt did call, leaving a short message that insults Toby’s intelligence and emotional competence. When Toby tries to call back, he gets sent straight to voicemail. Ah, the joys of modern technology.

Having changed into his running clothes, Toby goes downstairs to find a set of keys on the kitchen table. A note, Mike’s writing a wide-spread scrawl, identifies them as, ‘Lanai, front door & gate. Keep them.’ Toby picks them up with slow fingers, turning them over before he slides them into a pocket of his shorts.

On his way past the terrace door, he glances out at the bay, the waves rolling in steadily. It takes him a moment to spot Mike: far out, the distance reducing him to a small dot on the water.

Toby locks the terrace door and sets off down the beach.

At first, he finds it difficult, the soft sand giving under his shoes and making each step an effort until he remembers that it’s easier to run at the edge of the water, where the ocean cools the sand and turns it into a solid surface. While it means that he frequently has to evade the incoming waves, the distraction is welcome, makes it easy to lose himself in the simplicity of the motions.

This early in the morning, the beach is fairly empty, only a few just-past-sunrise fanatics already out to enjoy the sun. A couple of brightly colored surfboards bob in the waves, and the day’s brightness borders on painful, everything sharp and crisp, the ocean a constant rhythm to accompany Toby’s run. It couldn’t be more of a contrast to the gray high rises at home.

Spending a large portion of his free time here on this beach, in Mike’s house… With Mike...

It wouldn’t be a hardship.

Toby doesn’t look at his watch when he turns around, but he arrives back at the house only forty minutes after he left, unlocking the terrace door to get a glass of water from the kitchen. With the heat of the day only just beginning to creep up, he isn’t that sweaty, but he feels warm enough to pull off his T-shirt and stretch out on one of the deck chairs on Mike’s terrace. No, lanai. Apparently, they call this a lanai around here.

He hasn’t had his eyes closed for more than a couple of minutes when a shadow falls over him, followed by a few droplets of water. Toby blinks to find Mike grinning at him, scrubbing a hand through his wet hair so that he’s dripping all over Toby, retreating only when Toby half-heartedly swats at him. Mike looks loose and refreshed when he sprawls in the second deck chair.

“Wipe that proud smirk off your face,” Toby tells him. “I know your brain is a little twisted, so let me explain to you that it is not a generous gesture if you share your ocean wetness with me. It is also not endearing.”

The sun brightens Mike’s eyes to a warm green. “You know what’s funny?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me. Whether I care to hear it is a different matter.”

“I have never met anyone who takes the phrase ‘nag because you care’ to your level.” Mike props one foot up on the chair. With the wet swim trunks clinging to the lines of his body, it’s more than a little distracting. “Also, you should go shirtless more often.”

“It’s all about incentives, babe.”

“I’m asking you to. I think that should be good enough.”

The thing is: it just might be.

Toby wasn’t dropped on the head as a child, so of course he doesn’t provide Mike with that kind of ammunition; it would only lead to disaster. “Well. Throw in a decent cup of coffee every morning, control of the remote when the Yankees are playing, and the admission that fruit on pizza is wrong. Then we might have a deal.”

“Scrap the pizza, and it sounds like something I can do.”

Mike didn’t object to the part where Toby asked for coffee every morning—every morning as in many mornings. It’s just another hint to add to the growing pile, and Toby is neither a fool nor a coward, so it’s about damn time he faces the music.

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