Rebel at Spruce High (Spruce Texas Romance #5) - Daryl Banner Page 0,51

having my way with those lips of his, and that smooth, kissable chest, and whatever else I might find in those loose, shiny basketball shorts.

“You get what I mean?” Toby finishes. “Like, just put us out of our misery and tell us when the sequel is coming out!” He blinks. “Oh. Am I … Did I lose you there?”

“Sounds like an amazing game.” Some other chef has taken over on TV, a woman with short, spiky blonde hair, tossing a salad in a large wooden bowl. “So you’re a big gamer, huh? Is that your passion? You gonna dye your hair pink someday and stream your expert game-playing online for your massive following?”

“Oh. No, I don’t think that’s, uh … particularly lucrative. I’m good, but … I doubt I’m worldwide-competition good. I’m more of a … of a … well.” He points at the wall above his computer.

I look up. Hanging next to the one narrow window in the shed is an oil painting on canvas. It looks like a forest, except instead of trees, there are tall, glowing mushrooms the size of them. Across the forest floor are pebbles and tiny streams of water, which seem to pick up the bluish light from the lustrous mushroom trees. It’s an objectively remarkable, spectacular painting. “Damn,” I grunt. The longer I look at it, the more little details I notice here and there, like a small fairy I almost missed, who hovers near the base of one of the mushrooms, inspecting a tiny glowing stone. “This looks like … some kind of fantasy fungal wonderland.”

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