Page 34 of Thrown

It was all too much, especially when memories of the night before poked their way through the hangover funk that had Robbie in its grip. The jealousy, the feelings of worthlessness, and the competitive drinking at the pub after filming. They all rushed back on him so intensely that his stomach squeezed as if he would vomit again.

He knew he was a lightweight and should have stopped at one ale, particularly when he’d seen how strong the pub’s local brew was. But Toby had been drinking away without a care in the world, and the last thing Robbie had wanted was to look like a wimp in front of him.

Toby.

Robbie groaned again and would have slipped deeper under the covers and hid, if he hadn’t felt so poorly. They’d kissed. They’d done more than kiss. Robbie was relatively certain that confessions of one sort or another had slipped out in his drunken stupor. He’d wanted Toby, and apparently Toby had wanted him. Although that could have been the ale talking.

Another wave of emotional memory washed over him, and for a moment, he held his breath as he remembered how good it had felt to be so physical with Toby. Toby had a magnificent body, and Robbie had wanted all of it. He still did…once he didn’t feel like festering, fly-covered shit. Toby could kiss like a dream, too. That lip ring of his was so tactile and unexpected.

And then, God, he’d gotten sick, pushed Toby off him, and rushed to the bathroom, where he’d spent at least half an hour worshiping the porcelain goddess. Vague memories of staying there until he had nothing left to heave up, of Toby fetching him, running a wet cloth over his face, then marching him back to bed followed, but not much after that.

Despite the throbbing pain in his head, Robbie shifted his arm so he could open one eye and look around. Look for Toby, to be precise. He was reasonably certain nothing had happened between them after they’d gotten in bed the second time. To be honest, he wasn’t certain Toby had gone to bed with him.

Robbie turned his head as much as he could and checked the bed. It was empty. It was also a mess of rumpled sheets and blankets. At least he hadn’t vomited on the bedding. That would have cost him a pretty penny and probably ended with him banned from the hotel for life.

Toby was probably on the sofa again.

“Toby?” he croaked, wincing at how awful and pitiful he sounded. “Toby, are you awake?” He tried to move. He needed to piss anyhow, but moving stretched him to the limit of what he was capable of just then. “Toby?”

The lack of answer concerned Robbie, so with a monumental effort, he pushed himself to sit and glanced to the sofa.

It was empty. It had never been made up as a bed.

Panic gripped Robbie that eclipsed the pain of his hangover. He shuffled to the side of the bed and got up on unsteady legs.

“Toby?”

He headed straight to the bathroom, envisioning horrific images of finding Toby passed out on the floor or in the tub, or worse.

But the bathroom was empty as well, and turning on the lights sent a bolt of pure hell straight through Robbie’s head.

He turned off the lights and used the toilet with reasonable accuracy, then washed his face and hands in the sink. It didn’t make his hangover go away, but it brought greater clarity.

He headed back into the main room, turning on the lights and toughing out the blast in his head that the lights caused. But adding more light to the room didn’t make Toby miraculously appear. The room was empty. Toby’s overnight bag was gone. Aquick check of the drawers and closet proved that Toby had left nothing behind.

“He’s gone,” Robbie said to no one in particular as he plopped to sit on the bed.

He rubbed his hands over his face, but that didn’t change anything either. He’d been a complete prat the night before. Everything he’d done, from the drinking to the almost-sex to whatever it was he’d said had been an utter failure.Hewas an utter failure in so many ways.

He had no idea what to do. For a few minutes, he sat there, stunned, his hangover throbbing. Slowly, the idea came to him that he should probably take something and drink an obscene amount of water. He pulled himself up and slumped over to the coffee and tea caddy on the bureau to fetch a glass.

That was when he saw the note. It was written on the scant hotel notepad that had come with the room, and it was short.

“Thought you might want some privacy this morning, so I’m buggering off home on the bus.”

It was signed with Toby’s surprisingly neat signature.

Robbie let out a breath and touched his fingers gently to the note without picking it up. It was probably just the hangover talking, but he felt bereft. He’d failed someone who he had wanted to—who he had just wanted, and Toby had left him.

Not unlike Keith had left him.

He just wasn’t good enough.

A travel packet of paracetamol sat beside the note. Robbie made a weird sound of sentiment and sorrow as he picked it up. Toby had thought of him, even though he was running far away from him.

He took the paracetamol pack and the glass into the bathroom, took the pills, then drank as much water as he could. From there, he stripped out of his dirty clothes and showered for far longer than whoever paid the hotel’s water bill would havewanted him to. After that, he ordered room service for breakfast, put the telly on at the lowest volume, and sat around the room for as long as he could without incurring late check-out fees, waiting to feel better.

He did not feel better. His head stopped throbbing, and between the food and pills he pulled himself together enough to check out and drive home, but nothing about the last twenty-four hours made him feel better at all.

---