by Misty Simon
“Yeah.”
“Well, why don’t I help you upstairs, and we’ll get you settled on the couch where I can take care of you.”
“Can I lean on you?”
“Absolutely.”
****
“I don’t think this is quite what I had in mind when I said we needed to keep you awake.”
“Yeah, but you’re having fun, aren’t you?”
“I’ll admit to a little bit of fun, I guess.” I giggled as Toby poked me under the ribs.
Phoebe had left an hour ago to get her stuff. I have to make a small observation here and admit she wasn’t nearly as troubling for a roommate as I’d originally thought.
Mushy moment over.
“You love it.” He kissed my fingertips.
Different mushy moment in progress. “Oh, all right. I’m having a good time.” And I really was. Toby had made me go back down into his apartment and grab one of his game systems so we could play a little Bust-A-Move. And no, that wasn’t some kind of euphemism for sex. It was a fun game where you had to connect colored balls and slam your opponent into filling up his screen. And I was creaming him. Yay, me!
“Is the pizza going to be here soon?”
Yeah, I’d ordered pizza again and anticipated finally introducing Arrol to Toby. I didn’t think it would go well—with Arrol’s attitude and all—but I was willing to try. I had to let Toby in on everything that was going on. Now that I had the three-day deadline to get some book I didn’t know anything about, I figured it was time to bring in reinforcements.
I lobbed a ton of colored balls onto his side of the screen. “So there are a couple of things I have to tell you about while we’re trying to keep you awake.”
He looked so cute with his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth while he concentrated. “Yeah?” he said absently.
“I have a ball that knows my name and a gnome that comes alive at night.”
“Hmmm.” He shot a ball up and connected with the wrong color. “Damn.”
“The gnome does not like to be called a dwarf because apparently that is a whole different species and there is a long and complicated past where they do not get along. Gnomes are superior, according to him.” I shot another red ball and brought down the whole string and transferred it to Toby’s game.
“Shit,” he said as the end game music played. His screen dropped and he’d lost. He tapped his head onto his controller. “You’re a total novice. How did you beat me so quickly?”
I patted his back. “Don’t take the defeat so hard.” But inside I was snickering. The snickering faded, however, when I stared out my balcony door and saw night approaching. I had a feeling Toby hadn’t heard a word I’d said. That was going to make Arrol popping off the counter a bit hard when the sun went down.
“Um, Toby?”
He turned his head so his ear rested on the control and looked at me from slitted eyes. “You do not want to trounce me again already, do you? I don’t know if my ego can take it.”
“No, I…” And then someone knocked on the door. I assumed it wasn’t the he/she/it thing again, since it had given me my directions and my time limit. Phoebe had dinner plans with a girlfriend in her own town. She said she didn’t want to intrude on my Toby time, since he was definitely cute and available and she wasn’t. Nice. Which left the pizza guy.
“I’ll get it.” Toby got up off the floor with a grace that made me want to lick him from his toes on up.
Yowza.
Ahem. I busied myself getting together paper plates and napkins along with a couple of beers from the fridge. Hopefully I’d get to explain the third bottle before Arrol came strolling in like he owned the place.
“Where’s Danner?” I heard the pizza guy ask.
I peeked around the corner to see Jeff, my delivery guy over the past few days, craning his neck to get a look inside my apartment. I suppose we had bonded a little over the better part of a week. I stepped out of the kitchen and waved. “Hey, Jeff.”
He waved back as if his arm were falling off.
“Toby, don’t forget to give him a big tip.” I ducked back into the kitchen and eavesdropped on their conversation. Not that I expected it to be any big revelation, but I had nothing better to do, and I was tired of looking out the window over and over again, waiting for Arrol to de-stone.
“Thanks for the pizza, man,” Toby said, his deep voice running right along every one of my brain synapses.
“Hey, not a problem. Thanks for the tip.”
See, nothing brilliant as of yet.
“You hooking up with her now?” Jeff asked with a sly edge to his voice.
Not sure that I liked that hooking-up phrase.
“It’s not like that, Jeff. Danner is special and someone I’ve wanted for a while. You don’t hook up with someone like that. You date them.”
Holy Camoley. And here I thought we’d just fool around some since he could kiss like an angel and had the body of a devil. I didn’t know if I was ready for Toby to go from fantasy lover to boyfriend. Would that take some of the steam out of my sails? Did I want to have a, gasp, real relationship with him? I felt panic well in my throat and figured now would be a good time to stop listening.
Plus, if I wasn’t mistaken, Arrol was standing at my elbow huffing and puffing like a bullfrog.
I turned to find him just as I figured, except his hands were on his hips and the bootied foot was tapping.
“What?” I demanded in a still quiet tone.
“The next time you have a troll in the house, would you please let me know so I can get out my deodorizer? I have a sensitive nose.”
“Troll?”
“Yes, troll. Don’t you smell it?”
I sniffed, trying to scent whatever it was that made Arrol’s little nose wrinkle. “I don’t smell anything.” I shook my head. “Listen, I have Toby here, the man from downstairs. He’s getting the pizza right now, and I’d like you to be nice to him when he comes in. I have to tell him what all is going on. It would be far easier if you helped out by being decent.”
“My life mission is not to make things easier for you.”
“Yeah, I’m perfectly aware of that, but I’d appreciate it just this once.” I peeked back around the corner. Toby and Jeff were laughing together. I probably had about ten more seconds to get Arrol to promise to be civil.
“What kind of pizza did you get me?” Arrol’s foot was still tapping.
The soft noise was about to drive me crazy. My nerves were strung so tightly I felt about to break. But I couldn’t see trying to be honest with Toby and not bringing Arrol into the equation. It didn’t make any sense. “Please stop tapping your bootie.”
His eyebrows almost disappeared into his red cap. “These are designer, high-quality shoes.” Great, I’d offended him. “I will have you know they were handcrafted with the finest materials.”
“Fine, sorry. Please stop tapping your designer, high-quality, handcrafted shoe then, okay? I’m a little stressed right now, and the noise isn’t helping.” I arrowed a look at him. “Just please at least follow the golden rule.”
“And what is this golden rule? I have heard nothing of it.”
“Well, if you’d stop watching MTV, I bet you would have seen some evidence of it.” Then again, with the kind of TV available today, maybe not. “The golden rule is if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
“Ha! I’d never be able to talk.”
“I’m serious, Arrol. I don’t know what’s going to happen with Toby.”
His one eyebrow actually did disappear into his hat. “That sounds like someone’s getting some. You better not be getting some nookie if you aren’t prepared to help me get some too.”
Nookie? What kind of crap was he watching? “Look, let’s not go there. All I’m saying is that this guy is my landlord, and he might have a concussion from falling down the stairs. I’ll tell both of you all about it after food and some fortifying beer.” Getting drunk might not
help this situation, but a little lubrication of the brain cells could go a long way.
The door in the living room closed. I shot up to stand like I had rebar in my back. I could do this. Toby said he had seen some strange things going on lately. Surely, this wouldn’t be any stranger than what he’d already seen. Please, God.
Toby whistled as he rounded the corner into the kitchen. He carried the long, flat box in front of him and swung it to his right to give me a quick kiss on the mouth. I strengthened my knees to not fall right into him.
“Danner, I know you’re a healthy eater and like your pizza, but no way are you eating a whole pizza every night.” He laughed. “Jeff thinks you’re having wild orgies here all the time.”
Arrol let his eyebrow come back out of his hat, crossed his arms on top of his rounded belly, and cleared his throat.
Toby’s head whipped around at the sound. He bobbled the pizza box and backed up at the same time.
I saved the pizza, reaching out my other hand to snag Toby, but that didn’t work so well. He ended up smacking his elbow into the counter and slamming into the refrigerator.
Good news: I don’t think he hit his head again. And it really was kind of funny when it was someone else cracking their funny bone.
Bad news: he was looking at my little non-stone Arrol like the gnome was a vision from a bad acid trip.
Perhaps I had been a little too optimistic.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Toby, please don’t scream like a girl.” That was me watching Toby’s face turn sheet white.
“Yeah, Toby,” Arrol mocked. “Don’t scream like a little girly-whirly.”
“Hey, Arrol!” I advanced on him, poking him with my finger. “You are not allowed to use girly-whirly with a negative connotation like that. I used to call Caro a girly-whirly, and it’s a good word.”
A hand landed on my shoulder. I feared turning around. What if Toby thought I was a total lunatic now and didn’t want anything to do with me? On the one hand, it would negate the whole question about whether I wanted to even try the “real” relationship thing when I’d been doing just fine on my own with my fantasy life. It wasn’t that I was afraid of a relationship, necessarily, but they could get so complicated and mine had always fallen through right about the time I started to feel like part of a couple. I had my art, my house, my work. I didn’t need more than that. But I closed my eyes for a moment and remembered this morning waking up with Toby’s arm around me. That was worth some mess. Maybe.
But it would be a completely moot point if he ran right now.
We stood in a kind of frozen triangle. No one moved. I didn’t even dare to breathe.
And then Toby said, “Well, Arrol, that’s one fancy tool belt you have there on your waist. I bet all the chicks dig it.”
“Yeah, well, if this woman here would let me have any women, I might be able to test out that theory after a hundred years, but this one won’t let me. She thinks I should have only her as company. And now, apparently, I also get you.”
That wasn’t very flattering to anyone involved. I opened my mouth, and Toby squeezed my shoulder.
“That doesn’t seem fair,” Toby said in a just-between-us-boys voice I hadn’t heard before, even when he’d treated me like one of the boys. “We’ll have to see about getting that situation rectified, since I’m going to want some alone time with Danner in the evenings. I bet that would be easier if you were occupied.”
“Damn straight, my brother. I am in need of some serious nookie. You follow?”
Kill me now. Maybe I should just let that he/she/it take over my life. Death had to be less uncomfortable than this. “Arrol, get your mind out of the gutter. This is not about your libido. And stop with the lingo, okay?” I turned to Toby. “He’s been watching way too much television.”
“And what else am I supposed to do all night while you’re out gallivanting around?”
“Try reading a book.” And that reminded me to speak to him about what the thing had wanted, but first… “I thought you said you were going to be decent to Toby. What happened to that?”
“I promised no such thing, but I am being fine to Toby. Aren’t I?”
Toby smiled. “You’re fine, guy. And I’ll work on Danner about the girls. Promise.” He winked at Arrol. All this little horrible scene lacked was a few manly nudges with elbows and wiggling eyebrows.
How did I get involved in this ridiculous crap?
“All right, time to rein it in. Can we get down to business?” Apparently I hadn’t needed to worry about the two of them being okay together. Now I just needed to worry about a weird changing person/thing that wanted to take over my life.
“First I want to eat,” Arrol said, hopping down onto one of the high padded chairs I kept at the breakfast bar. “I can’t think without my daily fix of pizza.”
“I’m with you on that,” Toby said, joining him at the other chair.
And where was I supposed to sit? But that became obvious when the two guys started talking remodeling and other man-type stuff and only paying attention to me when they wanted another slice of pizza or if they needed another bottle of beer.
I ended up sticking with soda and throwing three pieces of pizza on my plate. I wasn’t dumb enough to think I’d get any at all if I didn’t stake my claim right at the beginning.
I almost had to stab Arrol’s little hand to keep him back when he reached for my last piece before I could get a bite out of it. I ended up licking it to keep him away. He still wanted it, so I took a bite and nearly crammed the whole thing into my mouth. I’m sure it was very attractive to Toby. He probably wouldn’t want anything to do with me now, regardless.
But then he grabbed me when I came around the counter to go sit in the living room to wait for them. He kissed me as if I needed CPR. I think that might have been a viable option, given the way my heart stopped and then began pounding.
Woo-hoo!
I pretty much floated out to the living room after that and sat in dreamy silence, reliving the moment and every little fantasy I’d ever had about him over the past year. We had some serious experimenting to do.
About ten minutes later, Arrol and Toby came strolling into the living room. Check that. Toby came strolling in—with Arrol seated on his shoulder. The little gnome had a grip on Toby’s ear, and his stumpy legs shot out from the nicely muscled shoulder I wanted to rest my head (or my knees—ha-ha) on.
“I take it you all are best buds now?” I said, not wanting to sound too sarcastic. From the look on Toby’s face I didn’t think I had hit my mark.
“Isn’t that what you wanted?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.
Nice way to throw my question back at me. “Anyway, let’s get down to business.”
They sat next to me on the couch. Arrol chose to hang out in between us, like some kind of chaperone. I gave him a nudge, and he nudged me back but didn’t move a single inch.
Fine. So I took Toby through everything that had happened. I went over the old stuff I’d already shared with him—the postmistress, the sighting of myself, the librarian, his odd appearances. Arrol tried to inject some nonsense about how he needed to get laid to help figure this all out and how that would probably work wonders for me too, but I shut that down by talking over him.
I finished up with the visit from the Katie Cora lady thing today. Arrol scrambled down from the couch and went over to my bookshelf. He tried to pull a volume from the bottom shelf and grunted with his effort. Toby crouched next to him and helped, giving me a very nice backside view. Yum.
Speaking of books. “Arrol, have you ever heard of this leather-bound book the thing wanted?”
A visible shiver ran through Arrol’s little body. “Yes.”
“What is the book called?” I focused on Toby, who was rising to his feet with the grace of a powerful cat.
Blood zinged through all my many parts, and some particular ones got an extra dose. I wanted on him. And now. That’s all I was going to
say.
Arrol was taking too long to answer me. I glanced over at him and saw that though his color was still full and the night was still dark, he was frozen. His foot was up in the air in mid-step, his hands full of a large book from my shelf.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Don’t do that!” He finished his step and headed back toward me.
“Ask for the name of the book?”
This time his feet were both on the floor, but he was just as frozen.
“What kind of beer do you like?”
“I like Corona,” he said as he almost pitched forward with his eyebrows drawn down. “I said—”
“What’s the name of the book?” I said quickly, just to see if it really was working the way I thought it did. This could be an extremely useful trick to have when I didn’t want him to pester me.
And he froze right in the middle of his sentence. Woo-hoo!
“Danner, that’s not very nice,” Toby said, coming back to sit with me on the couch.
“I know that,” I said, “but it sure is fun.” I laughed and took a moment to kiss Toby as Arrol stood there immobile.
“He’s probably still able to see us,” Toby mumbled against my mouth.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I’d rather not have an audience, if that’s all right with you.” He swept a hand up along my arm and rested his fingers around my neck in a soft caress.
“Oh, okay.” I looked down at Arrol and figured I’d have hell to pay, but it was worth it for that one gentle stroking. “What’s your name?”
“Woman, you had best stop that before I get angry.” He shook the book at me. “I have information here that you need, but I’m not going to give it to you if you continue to talk to me about that object.”
“Sorry.” I ruined it by snickering and got glares from both Arrol and Toby. I stopped immediately. Oops. Not good to alienate the potential bedmate. “Is there a way to talk about it without you freezing?”
I watched Arrol for any signs of rigidity. And found nothing. Phew!
“There is a password.” He continued his walk and handed the book up to me.
“Can you tell it to us?” Toby asked.