On the Run (Whispering Key #2) - May Archer Page 0,105
Toby had drafted to be part of the committee using what he called Best Friend’s Privilege, saved the beer and only looked a little startled when my dad yelled, “I love this bar!” and turned to cry into his shoulder instead.
The Whispering Key Bridge Fundraising Committee now met biweekly at Fisher’s Wreck, Bobo Fisher’s new beachfront bar. Shocking literally everyone, Bobo mixed a mean martini, and since Bobo was dating Jonquil’s niece, Corey, that meant the committee got their first two rounds of drinks comped.
Since I was living with the head of the committee, this also extended to me, though I happily drank water and passed my drinks on to Toby. A tipsy Toby was a playful Toby, and a playful Toby tended to do wonderful, horrible things like smudge dirt on his forehead to simulate breeding plumage, jump into bed on top of me, throw my book on the floor, and tell me he’d been a naughty plover.
Suffice it to say, I was really glad the actual snowy plovers wouldn’t be breeding again for a solid six months, because I wasn’t sure I could even see one without hearing Toby whisper, “Breed me, plover hunter,” in my ear and having exactly the response you’d expect.
Toby leaned against my side in the red pleather booth and sipped his dirty martini happily. My bracelet of protective stones was back on his wrist where it belonged, and he insisted he’d never take it off. “No offense to Scotty at the Bean, who supplies me with my daily coffee and is therefore the most important man in my life aside from you, but this was a definite upgrade in meeting locations.”
I wrapped an arm around his shoulders to pull him more firmly against me. The Bean didn’t have booths like this. “Agreed.”
“Trey.” Jonquil clasped Toby’s iPad to her chest like a beloved child. “Is this… Can this be right?”
He nodded. “The fine accountants at Trout, Comstock, and Purchess don’t lie, sweetness. I’m fairly certain they don’t even know how to joke.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled slowly, hugging the iPad. “Toby-Trey Elford, you are a true hero, setting all this up.”
I bit my lip. Toby had acquired himself a nickname, and I thought it was adorable. I wasn’t quite sure how Toby-Trey felt about it.
Toby shook his head and set his drink down. “Oh, I can’t take any credit for that. The letter was all Beale’s idea, and Aunt Hagatha’s followers were beyond generous.”
“I just can’t believe she published it!” Littlejohn’s girlfriend, Veronica, managed to sound really glad and really horrified at the same time. “I think hitting up her readers for donations like that is kinda tacky. But I mean, I’m glad for y’all and for John. Obviously.” She touched her ample cleavage and smiled up at Littlejohn prettily, and you could practically see the cartoon swirls in her eyes, he was so hypnotized.
Meanwhile, Toby’s smile hardened to the point where I had to poke him in the ribs.
He glanced over his shoulder and gave me a look that said, What?
I narrowed my eyes a little. I thought we were giving her the benefit of the doubt for LJ’s sake. I thought we were reserving judgment.
Toby inhaled and set his head in a way that screamed, Benefit revoked because his name is Littlejohn, not John.
Which, honestly, was a really good point.
“Oh, I don’t know, Ronnie,” Toby said. “I think Hagatha encouraging readers to write in about their favorite little-known charities is an amazing idea.”
“Veronica,” she corrected. “Not Ronnie.”
“Oh, silly me! I thought we were playing some kind of name-shortening game! My bad. I’m new to small-town life.” Toby’s smile was the kind of slow poison that wouldn’t catch her until she got home. “But as for why Hagatha chose Beale’s letter…” He gave me a mischievous look. “I find Beale a very persuasive letter writer.”
I shook my head slowly. The man I loved was pure trouble and drama and every other thing I’d thought I never wanted, and in a few minutes, I’d get to take him home to our new home—a gorgeous, single-story, huge-windowed place we’d rented from Littlejohn that Toby had promptly dubbed the Terracotta Palace, and where a professionally framed vomit bag now hung in our bedroom alongside a printout of Hagatha’s letter to me.
I couldn’t have been happier.
The ’80s rock ballad playing over the speakers cut out, and there was the sudden whine of feedback as someone—oh, good Lord, my dad—unearthed a microphone.