As hard as it was to sever the artery of our relationship, I needed to do it. That meant not looking back. It meant not opening the box in my hand. It hurt enough just knowing that what lay inside was the promise of a future never to come. Taking Andrew’s job offer sounded more and more like a good one, the right one. Maybe a change of pace would do me good. Boston was as good a place as any to drop anchor and start over.
The least I could do was be grown up enough to return the ring to Toby myself.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow turned into the next day. And then the next. Waylaying the return of the ring seemed necessary… I had schoolwork, and I had my father. His recovery was ongoing, but after refusing to return to physical therapy, we attempted to tackle it at home. He struggled, and each time he became more and more onerous and consistently abandoned our sessions unfinished. Then there was April’s bridal shower, which meant a party to plan, invitations to send, favors to order, and games to organize. There were spare moments, but I wasn’t ready. Instead, I lost myself in the kitchen. I began cooking and baking—dinners and desserts, sauces and cookies. So much so, Dad started to grumble about the refrigerator being so full and the counters too crowded with plastic wrapped dishes.
“If you don’t stop making food, I’m going to invite the whole, extended Chiametti family over to eat it,” he taunted.
Out of excuses, I stood in front of Toby’s house gathering the courage needed to see him and say the words I’d practiced in front of the mirror. There was a white pickup truck with a faded, nearly unreadable Delfino Construction design on the door parked in the driveway next to Toby’s Jeep. Setting my shoulders, I approached the house as a loud cracking sound ripped through the quiet afternoon air. With a stab of fear, I considered leaving. The banging stopped and then started again. The house shook with violent bursts.
I knocked, but he didn’t answer. The front door was unlocked, and I let myself in. Inside, the volume of the noise was much louder, the source coming from the downstairs bathroom. I walked back to the kitchen. It was surprisingly tidy, and thankfully not much was lying around that could potentially go airborne when I said what I came to say. On the kitchen table were signs of Toby’s presence: his wallet and cell phone atop of the day’s mail. A fat, legal-sized envelope lay open next to his things, a pile of cash peeking out. I picked it up and thumbed through the bills. There had to be thousands of dollars inside.
Where did he get all that money, and what was he doing with it?
I placed it back on the table and edged down the hallway, closer to the vortex of the racket. A cool breeze swept over my face, and a slight dust hung in the air. Construction dust. A series of new cracking noises floated down the hall, followed by the sound of his grunts. He was tearing something apart.
I was pulled back to visions from a few years ago of Al Junior’s room: furniture toppled over, broken glass—all done in a fit of anger because Mrs. Faye and I had read a personal letter addressed to Toby from his brother.
With a wild knot in my stomach, I inched towards the bathroom. A bright light inside the room caught his movement and cast long, ominous shadows down the short hallway.
It was stupid for me to be there. No need to climb the bean stalk and wake a sleeping giant if I didn’t need to. I could leave the ring with a note. Before I could turn tail and retrace my steps, Toby appeared in the doorway in a black baseball hat, the brim low over his eyes, and a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans covered in splintered shards of wood and flecks of drywall. His features were awash in determined concentration, making him look a bit threatening, and at the sight of him, I was poleaxed immobile.
“What are you doing here?” He snapped to a halt, as if seeing a ghost.
“I came to return this.” I reached into my handbag and brought out the jewelry box.
He blew out, and shucking his tan work gloves, he moved past me into the kitchen.
“Leave it on the table.” He tossed his baseball hat on the table as his hair fell about in messy waves. With his back to me, he filled a glass with water and gulped it down.
I tried to look away, but my eyes refused to cooperate. All they wanted to do was eat him up, gorge themselves with the sight of him.
I gently slid the ring case on the table next to the envelope. “What are you doing that requires a huge stack of cash?”
He snatched the envelope from the table. “Snoop much?”
“It’s a lot of money, and the door was unlocked.”
“I just got back from the bank.”
“What is it for?”
“A project.” He attempted to fold the envelope in half, but it was too bloated and only curved into a semi-fold. He shoved the wad of cash into his back pocket.
By his defensiveness, I suspected it had to do with Ray and Eddie. They were certainly projects.
His cool façade slipped back into place. “Are we through here? I have stuff to do.”
“Do you want to talk about this?” I absently fingered the buttons on my coat.
“Christ, no.” Gritting his teeth, he yanked an impatient hand through his hair. “Consider it a goddamn, fucking kindness on my part.”
He reseated his hat on his head and started back to the bathroom. I tucked a few loose strands of hair behind my ear with shaking fingers and looked down the hallway. “Are you doing something to the bathroom?”
“Remodeling it.”
“Can I see it?”
With a growl of impatience, he stepped aside and allowed me to pass him. As I moved by him, my body tingled with alertness. A canvas tarp was laid out on the floor of the room, covered by a couple of hacked up two-by-fours and a pile of unidentifiable debris. All of the fixtures were gone, and a segment of one wall was demolished. Moldy insulation seeped out like a festering wound. The outdated, but tidy, small half-bathroom was now nothing more than an ugly shell. I didn’t know what I expected to see, but it wasn’t this. The dismantled state of the bathroom somehow tangled with the chaos in my heart. It looked hopeless, and I didn’t like it.
I should’ve left then before our subtle truce floundered, but I couldn’t. It was part optimism and part stubbornness, part picking at a scab I was trying to let heal, but I couldn’t bring myself to sever the connection. I needed something to hold onto—a little piece of us that wasn’t annihilated— to know we could talk again, and maybe even be friends again at some point.
I stepped back into the hall and took a chance with a neutral topic. “What are your plans for the remodel? Is there enough room for a shower stall?”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing, Claudia?”
“Talking to you—”
“Well, don’t. I’m not interested in making small talk with you.” He no sooner said the words, then turned his back to me. “I have work to do.”
Peeved by his cool dismissal, I caught his arm. “Hey,” I called. He stopped moving, but he didn’t turn around. “Is it too much for you to manage a few minutes in the same room with me?”
“Are you serious?” He postured, heavy with impatience. “Are you really that clueless about the break-up process?”
Embarrassment flooded my cheeks. I supposed I really was.
“You’re the only one I’ve ever really broken up with.”
“Let me refresh your memory from the last time then.” He spun around and took a step towards me, his eyes dark, bottomless pools. “You don’t break up with someone one minute and expect them to hang out and bullshit with you the next.”
“I’m sorry for being an amateur and not knowing any of the stupid rules.” I gestured with my hands in frustration. “How much time has to pass before we can talk again?”
“A lot. Maybe forever,” he said.
I shook my head, stiffly refusing. “No.”
“I’ll bet you being here isn’t part of your mother’s plan to set you up with someone more suitable.”
“My mother doesn’t have any plans,” I said.
He edged closer.
“Doesn’t she?”
His nearness squeezed the air from my lungs.
“No,” I said, sounding incrementally less assertive.
Closer. “Would she approve if she knew you were here with me right now?”
Lifting my chin, I stood my ground. “I don’t need her approval.”
He was so close now, the heat of his skin curled around my senses, sending my nerves into a frenzy. I didn’t understand how he was able to do that to me. I backed up, thumping into the wall behind me. With his eyes holding mine, he put his hands against the wall on either side of my head.
“Liar.” His chest came into contact with mine, sending a burst of heat through my body. He seemed to expand, and the air around me filled with him. There was nothing for me to breathe that wasn’t him. “Dario told me she doesn’t even let you go out unsupervised.”
Since I’d fainted at the dress fitting, my mother had been a tad overly protective.
“I don’t know what that has to do with anything. I’m extending an olive branch, but instead of responding likewise, you’re being mean.”
“Oh, how rude of me. I should stop being so mean, huh?” His palm found my right hip, and his eyes dipped to follow the path he traced, slowly brushing its way up my side. “You have all my attention now, Claudia. What is it you want from me?”
I shuttered involuntarily at the wicked smile that played on his lips. He hadn’t only accepted the olive branch; he was rattling my tree.
“I … I want to talk to you.”
“So talk. I’m listening.” His body crowded mine, warm and solid, and my body hummed with approval. Heat fanned up my neck to my face. He was doing it again like he’d done the last time—drawing me in, teasing me with his provocative tone. I knew it, and yet my arms, in collusion with my legs, refused to do anything about it.
I tried to remember what it was that I’d wanted to say. But couldn’t.
“Is this the kind of talking you had in mind?” He pressed against me, grounding into me and coercing a short, broken breath from my lips. “Hard to talk when all you want to do is fuck, isn’t it?”
My need flared so hot and fast; there was no deciphering where my passiveness conceded to demand.
The gloves were off. Pitching his hat aside, I fisted his hair and tugged his mouth to mine. The kiss was fiery; we gnashed teeth and tongues, our appetites to taste each other voracious.
Bernie whined and nudged at our legs, and with an impatient sigh, Toby grabbed my arm roughly, hauling me towards the front of the house with him. He halted suddenly, concern wrinkling his brow.
“Can you, I mean, are you okay to—”
I knew what he was asking before he finished the sentence. “Yes,” I breathed out. “I’m fine. I’m on birth control now.”
The brief pleat of concern evaporated, and he pushed me towards the stairs. “Bedroom,” he ordered.
With his grip firm on my hips and my brain in a fog of desire, he propelled me up the staircase to his bedroom. Bernie whimpered her disappointment when Toby closed the door, shutting her out.
He made quick work of disrobing, stripping down to his boxer briefs, the tight black fabric stretched with his growing arousal. Lingering by the dresser, I watched him, my nerves jumbled and multiplying. He wasn’t playing games this time, but even so, he’d let me leave if I wanted to. He came up and turned me to face the mirror. Pushing my hair aside, he deftly unfastened the buttons at the back of my dress shirt. Without words, I lifted my arms to let him pull the blouse from me, and when it was off, he pressed against my back. The heat of his chest permeated my skin, and I knew I wasn’t going anywhere.
“This is exactly how we left off, isn’t it?” His warm, shallow breath skated over my skin on long caressing fingers. His fingers bit into my waist, and his teeth sunk into the delicate skin where my shoulder met my neck. I pushed my backside into him, feeding the surge between us.
His growling response rumbled in his chest, and holding me immobile, he ground his hips into me. I strained against him, fierce with need. With his stubbly face pressed against the side of my face, he pushed a hand down the waistband of my pants. It settled warmly between my legs, stirring me. I coaxed his other hand to my breast. I wanted his hands all over me. He palmed the whole of my breast, biting my neck again. I closed my eyes, felt the imprint of his hardness on me, and murmured his name, aching and shameless. None too gently, he swiveled me around and pushed me backwards onto the bed. I reached for him, but he captured my hands and held them to the mattress.
“You’ve got me so damn wound up, I can barely think straight.” He pressed his nose to my neck and inhaled deeply. My whole body shuttered in response. “There’s nothing I like better than taking you slowly, like you like it… but if you’re looking for that right now, baby, you’re shit out of luck, ‘cause I’m not feeling all that patient right now. Or that generous.”
I didn’t have an ounce of patience for slow either.
“Please,” I begged, grazing my teeth over his stubbled jaw.
My wrists were released, and I was helped out of my pants. He peeled his underwear off and came back to me, grabbing my hips and forcefully flipping me over. My face flopped into the pillows.
I was boxed in by his weight atop me. He applied pressure to my legs, wedging them apart, and forced me up onto my knees. I grabbed hold of the black metal bedrail as he continued to mark my neck and shoulders with short, nipping bites. His hardness brushed across my sex, and I stilled in anticipation. He didn’t use his hands. He didn’t touch me. He didn’t need to. I was ready, and even though I screamed out at the forceful way he entered me, I was sluiced with an immediate orgasm.
We’d had hard, fast sex before—within the security of our love, it felt safe to be bold—but this was nothing like our usual lovemaking. Each time he slammed into me, the force sent the bed knocking against the wall. Lost in his motions, I gave into the feel of him on me and inside me; I didn’t cower under his unapologetic strokes.
We continued at a vigorous pace, fast and unremitting, skin slapping skin, groans and grunts forcefully expelled from our lips. I let go of the headboard to fist the pillow under me. Without the brace of my arms, my head glanced the headboard, and tears welled in my eyes. Toby shifted me down a bit and tucked a pillow between my head and the headboard, but I rolled onto my side. Fatigue seeped in, saturating every fiber of my muscles.
“Back up on your knees. I’m not done yet.” He pushed at my hips. The husky impatience of his tone cooled the air.
I hugged a pillow to my chest. “Please, no more.”
He reeled back, plunking onto the mattress like I’d walloped him. With a strangled groan, he buried his face into his hands. His reaction frightened me. I moved to the edge of the bed, body shaking and legs rubbery.
I touched his back. “Toby, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have …”
… come over.
… talked to you.
… hurt you.
… loved you.
There were so many ways to finish it, I couldn’t commit to just one.
I pushed to my feet with the intention of leaving as quickly as possible.
“No!” The bed squealed as he sprang forward and pulled me back. He fell onto the mattress with me, covering my body with his, his heart thumping hard against my chest. I searched his eyes for his intent.
He pressed a hand to my face and kissed me, soft and gentle, his gaze unwavering when he pulled back, waiting for me to accept his apology.
I closed my eyes and felt every inch of him on me. “Kiss me, again,” I whispered.
His lips reconnected with mine, searching and tender at first, and then firmer, teasing me with his tongue and stealing my breath. He didn’t restrain my hands this time, and with our mouths joined, I was free to touch. He moaned softly as my fingers claimed the broad expanse of his back.
Long, slow kisses and soft, sweeping touches rekindled the flame between us, and I parted my legs, willing him to re
sume our lovemaking. He pushed inside me slowly, and I let out an involuntary whimper as my sore muscles resisted the intrusion. He plied me with kisses to my chin, my neck, and down my arms while his fingers danced across my skin, erasing the discomfort.
He restrained his movement, but regardless, that loose, edgy breathless sensation grew inside me. A hot wave, bubbling and frothy, was setting up to crash down over me. He must’ve felt it too for his eyes went dark, and he thrust into me with a sense of urgency. I dug my heels into the mattress and arched into him, our bodies grinding together with opposing force. The small, extra measure set off a chainlike effect; every synapsis in my body fired off, sweeping away the distance between us. We were once again transported into a heady place, a place we knew well: A place where our bodies made us one, and all that mattered was the holy communion we shared between us.
We lay motionless afterwards, both of us spent from our lovemaking. He lay atop me, his face pressed into the crook of my neck as I stroked the back of his head, playing with his hair like I always did. Chests pressed together, our hearts danced in rhythmic beats.
“We’ll work things out, Claude. We’ll be good again,” he said, his breath warm on my skin.
I closed my eyes, willing myself to believe because even after everything, I still wanted him. How I wanted us with all my heart, but the memory of Bella growing inside made me yearn for a baby Toby didn’t want. For us to be happy, someone would have to concede. My mother had conceded—denying what she wanted, she’d given in to my father’s wishes until they were both miserable. Nothing could chase away the permanent vision of my father crying when she left or the memory of how it felt to carry that loss in solitude.
If Toby and I stayed together, such a concession would break us, and the fate of my parents’ marriage would be ours also.
My hand stilled in his hair, tears burned the back of my eyes. “Toby… I can’t. I won’t settle for—”
Keeping Claudia (Toby & Claudia Book 2) Page 23
