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Toby chuckles at that. “Fantasy fungal wonderland. Maybe I should’ve named it that, instead.”
I turn to him, stunned. “You painted this?” Toby nods. I snap my eyes back to the painting again with an all new appreciation. “Alright there, Picasso, this is brilliant.”
“There … aren’t any rearranged faces or anything, so I wouldn’t call it a—never mind.” He chuckles. “Thanks. Sorry, I’ve … uh, I’ve always had trouble just taking a compliment.”
“So you paint,” I murmur, still poring over his work. I’m out of my chair now, standing so I can get a better look.
“Yep. We … have some common ground, I guess.”
I nod slowly in appreciation. “We do.”
“Is there a time you gotta get home?” he asks suddenly. “It’s almost 1:00 now. I think. My clock might be a little off.”
“Already getting rid of me, huh?” I tease dryly, still searching his painting for anything else I missed. Is that a broken reflection of the moon in those tiny streams?
“Oh. No, no. I mean, you can totally stay. I just—”
“You want me to stay over?” I ask, cutting him off.
“I … Oh. S-Stay over? Like—Like crash here?”
I lean back against his desk to face him. “Yeah. Obviously.”
Toby, still on the edge of the bed, is right in front of me now. I tower over him, so when he regards my question, he has to look up my whole body to reach my face, and in his eyes, I see a glint of unmistakable desire—twisted by his adorable nervousness.
“O-Of course,” he says. “You can stay. But I don’t have a place for you to sleep except this bed, which is too small for two, and—”
“You worry too much. We’ll fit.” Before Toby can argue, I drop down onto the bed next to him, lean back, and nod at the TV. “The hell is this chick making, anyway? Salad casserole?”
After a moment of uncertainty, Toby leans back, too. “I don’t know,” he admits in a shrunken voice, his nerves consuming him. I can feel his thrashing heartbeat through his soft, bare shoulder, which grazes mine as we lean back side-by-side, propped up by our elbows with the backs of our heads almost touching the wall.
Hours must go by while we watch show after show on the TV, now and then engaging in some kind of mindless small talk about school, or chemistry class, or what else must happen in the play, of which neither of us have read anything outside the audition scene in the café. A few times, we shift our weight on the bed, or change positions slightly, but we always seem to have some part of our bodies touching, whether it’s our shoulders, or our hips, or some part of our legs.
I should earn a damned medal for as long as I’ve gone without losing control, grabbing the guy, and making out with him. I have so much pent-up desire in me, I feel like if he lightly grazes my arm one more time, I just might explode and cause the walls of this cramped, stifling shed to blast apart.
By the fourth time Toby yawns, I snort. “You’re passing out.”
“Long day at school, auditions, then work …” He blinks his wet eyes, rubs them, then shakes his head with resolve. “No, I’m fine. I can stay up. Let me just …” He adjusts himself on the bed, turning so his head is on the pillow and his feet are toward the foot of the bed, his back pressed up against the wall. “There. Better. Weren’t you gonna tell me somethin’ about—” Another yawn cuts him off. “—about somethin’?”
I smirk as I glance back at the TV, then start flipping through channels. “You’d just mentioned having a stepbrother. I was just saying … I don’t know what that’s like, having any kind of brother or sister. It’s always just been me and me, my whole life. No one to really rely on. Or depend on. Or confide in.” I think back on my life in California, which feels like a faded dream. Did it even happen? Did I actually grow up there? Can I even count those superficial friendships I made as a child, or were they as fleeting as anything else? “Nothing feels permanent in my life. And when it’s always changing—who my friends are, where my school is, what town I’m living in—it’s difficult to grow attached to anything. Guess I’ve just never gotten the sense that I … that I belong anywhere at all.”
After a moment of listening to the TV’s white-noise murmur, I turn to Toby. He’s drifted off, his deep breathing so soft, I barely hear it. With a click, I shut off the TV, casting the shed into total darkness save one or two blinking lights from his computer. I peel off my shirt and pitch it at the desk chair, then kick off my boots and gently lie back on the bed, one of my legs hanging off the side, my socked foot on the floor. My head rests on the very edge of what’s left of Toby’s pillow, and after a moment, his soft breaths tickle my ear. It makes me smile in the dark, listening to him sleep so peacefully.
