Dinner passed in a blur of good food and quiet conversation. Ella drank her bottle, then ate the mashed-up carrots Joe fed her without making too much mess of him. With a full belly, she fell asleep on him, and he seemed happy enough about it that I decided I was a twat for ever thinking he was anything but as nice as Harry.
Toby washed dishes while I drank herbal tea and wallowed in the easy company of those around me. Harry and Rhys bickered like only brothers could; Joe and George talked about hay prices and other things I’d never heard of. It was nice, and I could’ve fallen asleep again. Maybe I did, as I jumped a fucking mile when Toby touched my shoulder a little while later.
“Come for a walk?”
I glanced at Ella. She was still asleep on Joe.
He nodded. “Go on. I won’t drop her.”
I believed him, but leaving her behind still made me nervous.
Toby grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the kitchen. “Come on. You need some fresh air.”
“How do you know that?”
“You’ve got the face of someone who’s been inside for three days.”
“I haven’t been inside for three days. I worked out in the rain yesterday, and I had breakfast in Harry’s office this morning.”
“Harry’s office is indoors.”
“Yeah, but I had to go outside to get there.”
“Take your shoes off.”
“What?”
“Your shoes.” Toby let go of my hand and pointed at my feet. “I know you like it, and we’re past the point of horse shit now.”
“Good to know.” I rolled my eyes but toed my shoes off all the same. Sun-warmed grass hit my feet, and I instantly felt calmer. “When did you start reading my mind, though? You’re starting to freak me out.”
Toby’s shy grin turned boyish. “I’m not reading your mind, I can just tell you don’t feel yourself, and I remember how putting your feet on the earth made you smile when you first got here.”
“That seems like a long time ago now.”
“It was, but time is relative, right? At least, that’s what Harry always says. I don’t really know what it means.”
“I bet you do.”
“Bet I don’t. I didn’t go to school much.”
“So? You know loads of things I don’t.”
“Like what?”
“Like everything. I know how to bend my body in half and say big words. But I can’t fix a car, plumb in a sink, or rewire a plug. I can’t ride a horse or mend a fence, and before Ella, there’s no way I could’ve done what Joe just did and feed someone’s baby like that. I wouldn’t have known which end was which.”
Toby laughed and leapt over a stile as if he had springs in his feet. “That was weird, huh? I’ve never seen him with a baby before.”
“That’s my point. He didn’t need to have done it a hundred times before to get it right. I’m not like that. I’m a slow learner.”
I followed Toby over the stile and into a field full of hay bales. The sun was low behind them, and Toby was so beautiful in the hazy light, my breath caught in my chest. I took an unconscious step towards him, but he wasn’t looking at me. The horses in the nearby field had caught his attention, and him theirs. I stood back as they surrounded him at the fence, most of them searching his pockets for who the hell knew what. Compared to the donkeys, they still seemed huge to me, but watching them with Toby, I was beginning to understand that they were gentle, soulful creatures, just like him.
After greeting each and every one of them, he returned to me, and we resumed our slow stroll around the perimeter of the farm. It crossed my mind to ask him what I had to do to get my back rubbed and my neck nuzzled, but I kept quiet. He didn’t owe me that. He wasn’t my boyfriend. We were new friends. I was teaching him to fuck, and he was... shit, he was the first person in years—perhaps ever—to listen without me having to speak. Perhaps one day I’d tell him how much that meant to me, but not today. I’d shown enough of myself in the last few hours to last me a lifetime.
Or maybe I hadn’t.
Toby turned to me with a quizzical frown. “So...”