Waiting for Rain (25 page)

I watched as Dave Webber and Sergeant Parker, Mr. Miyamoto and the lady translator all disappeared into a small waiting room off the nurses’ station.

“I need to tell Toby about this.” I turned to go back into the room.

Lucas nodded. “I’ll wait here, make sure everything goes okay.” His voice was threatening, and I pitied any poor bastard getting in his way. Toby was still sitting up, looking down at the blanket with a defeated expression. I walked over and grabbed his face, giving him a deep kiss. He responded, but he wasn’t his usual passionate self. I supposed that was to be expected. He’d been stabbed, been told he faced a possible police charge, and had his past flung up in the air for anyone to take a shot at.

“I heard you both,” he said quietly. “That’s good news that there were witnesses. Perhaps it might straighten everything out.” His good hand plucked at the bedcover. He seemed nervous, and I thought I knew why.

I sat down on the bed beside him and wrapped my arms around him, careful not to hurt him. “Toby, whatever you did in your past is just that. In the past. You don’t have to explain anything. Not to me.” Even though I was a curious as hell, I wasn’t going to push him now. He looked at me, and the desolation in his eyes broke my heart. I kissed each of his eyes in turn, soft butterfly kisses, and he sighed. We sat for a moment in silence. Then he spoke.

“I want to go home now, Rain, back to your place.”

“Toby, the doctor needs to discharge you. He needs to make sure you’re fit to go home.”

“But I can discharge myself, can’t I?” He sounded like a petulant kid.

I huffed in resignation. “I suppose so. If that’s what you really want.” I got up. “Do you want me to speak to the nurse, ask them to do whatever they need to release you?”

He nodded. Three hours later, we were home. Both of us heaved a sigh of relief.

“I’m going for a shower,” Toby announced.

I sighed again. “Is that wise? You’re supposed to keep the bandages from getting too wet.”

He pressed his lips together mutinously. “I’m showering.” He glowered as he went into the bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind him. I leaned over and plumped up the bed pillows and drew the covers back. Sheba jumped onto the bed, her tail wagging softly. I looked at her. There wasn’t any point in asking him if I could help when he was in independent mode.

“He’s a right brat, isn’t he, girl?” Sheba seemed to nod in agreement. I pottered about, waiting for Toby to come out the bathroom. When he did appear, all squeaky clean, his wet hair plastered to his head like the skin of a silky seal, my groin tingled. I loved the sight of this man in just a towel. He saw the direction of my glance and grinned slightly.

I raised my eyebrows. “That plaster looks soaking. Are you sure the stitches are all right?”

He huffed impatiently. “Jeez, Rain, you can be such a nag. The stitches are bloody fine.” He was going to be an impossible patient, I could tell. An overdose of sedatives in his Coke was starting to look very tempting. I tried not to stare at the state of his body, with its livid bruise across his back where Neil had punched him and the sodden plaster with blood stained across it. He was in a lot of pain, and all in all, he was a bit of a mess. But he was
my
mess.

Toby settled back into a familiar bed with a contented sigh, draping the covers loosely over his hips, no doubt to cover up the source of any temptation I might have had to jump his bones. Sheba shuffled closer to him, her warm back resting against his legs. He stroked her head idly.

“Are you hungry? I can make you something to eat if you want.” I was a master at anything to do with pasta.

He made a moue. “No. I couldn’t face anything.” He took a deep breath. “Rain, please lie down with me.” He patted the bed, and I lay down on the other side of Sheba. “I need to tell you about what happened. With the fire and with Ricky.”

“Who was Ricky?” I played with Sheba’s ear, stroking the silky appendage in my fingers. If a dog could purr, she would have.

“Ricky Smith was the man I lived with at the pub when I ran away from the halfway house I was put in after I started the fire.” His tone was bleak, his eyes haunted. “When I was fourteen, I was placed in foster care with this family that already had three other kids. They didn’t like me because I was gay. I’d never hidden the fact from any of the foster families.” He scowled. “They took me as I was or not at all.”

That was
so
Toby, I thought with a pang. Proud and out. He carried on, his voice hard.

“Lindy, Mark, and Steve. When they were around, they made my life a bloody misery. My stuff would get torched in the garden. They used to build a bonfire, and the two guys would hold me, pinning me by my arms while Lindy threw my clothes on it. They’d all laugh as the clothes caught fire.”

His voice was cold, not like my warm, caring Toby. “I had a pretty bad temper, but I was trying to control it. I knew if I let loose it wouldn’t end well, and I didn’t want to end up in another fucking foster home. I liked these foster parents; it was just the kids I hated. I didn’t want to get the folks involved in my troubles. They were trying so hard to support all of us, and I was the last kid in, the newbie. I didn’t want to make waves and maybe get an even worse foster home.” He shrugged. “I’d been in worse. So I coped. I let them get away with all the crappy things they did. The beatings, the bonfires, the threats of rape with Coke bottles, the midnight hazing when they’d wake me up with buckets of cold water. It got so bad I used to go to the park across the road just to get some sleep. Until some policeman found me there and rousted me.” His voice grew wry. “They’d watch out for me and chase me away. Sometimes I used to sleep in the public toilets. But then I’d get… other problems, so that didn’t work so well.” He sighed. “I got tired of fighting off perverts and cruisers.”

He picked at the bedcover, and Sheba shifted and licked his hand gently. He smiled and stroked her head. I sat in total stillness, my whole being numb at the fact that he’d been through all this alone at the age of fourteen. My beautiful man, and this was what he’d been subjected to. My throat closed up, my chest tightening so much it physically hurt.

“Then one day they went too far. I had a cat once.” He glanced at me. “I lied when I said I didn’t like cats. I used to. This cat was a stray I’d found huddled up in the park one night when I slept there. He had a badly damaged leg, all torn and bloody. I fixed him up, fed him, and we became good mates. He wouldn’t come near the house, which made me think one of the three was responsible for hurting him in the first place somehow.” His voice grew distant. “Then one day I came home to find him dead on the front porch. His throat had been cut.”

“Jesus, Toby.” My heart beat fast, and I felt physically sick at the pain in his voice. Tears stung my eyes. He saw I was upset, leaned over and kissed me gently. I tried hard to give him everything I felt in my lips. He met my need with his own, and when we eventually moved apart, his eyes were wet too. He took a deep breath.

“I picked him up and took him round the back to bury him, and there they were, around a bonfire again, burning my stuff. New stuff I hadn’t had all that long and worked damn hard to get selling fruit and veg at a local farm stall. I didn’t want to be dependent on the foster parents; I wanted my own stuff, so I got a job. It was also a way to get out of the house, be my own man.” His voice cracked. “Steve waltzed over, took Maestro out of my arms, and threw him on the bonfire like he was a piece of garbage. But he was my cat, Rain.” His voice trembled, his grief evident. That cat had probably been the only friend he’d had. “I legged it before I lost it. I needed to think, so I made a plan to get them back. I thought that as they liked fire so much I’d show them some. So, one day when they were all inside in the lounge playing some stupid TV game, I locked them in. Then I put rags outside the lounge door, put petrol on them, and set them alight.”

His hands clenched and unclenched, and I reached over Sheba and took hold of them, steadying him. My eyes prickled with tears as he stared at me vacantly.

“I didn’t think. I just wanted to scare them. I had a hose outside, all ready to switch on if it got out of hand. But the fire took hold so quickly, and before I knew it, the place was blazing. I tried to get to door to open it, but I couldn’t. It was too hot. So, I ran next door and got the neighbor to call the fire brigade. In the meantime, the three of them managed to smash a small window, and they managed to get out one by one. But not before Mark sustained second-degree burns to his legs. Lindy’s arm was badly burned too. They both needed skin grafts afterwards. The fire brigade put the blaze out, but the whole left-hand side of the house was destroyed.”

He sat back and closed his eyes, seeming exhausted from telling his traumatic tale. I could still barely speak. The horror of his experience seared my soul.

“Did they arrest you?” I managed to say.

He nodded. “They took me in and charged me with arson.” He was quiet. “They wanted to charge me with grievous bodily harm too. The whole thing went to the Crown Prosecution Service—the CPS—for review.” His voice trembled. “Luckily, my boss Fred from the farm stall I worked at came forward and spoke on my behalf. He’d seen the bruises on me a couple of times and put two and two together. He was a really good bloke. Fred tackled me about it, and I told him what was going on. He wanted to speak to the folks about it, but I didn’t let him.” Toby’s chin rose defiantly. “I didn’t want him getting involved in my problems at the time. Work was my refuge, and I wanted to keep the job, not have more crap to face. But when the shit hit the fan after the fire, Fred told them he wasn’t surprised I’d just snapped, and he fought at my side with me. He and his rather large Italian wife Gina.” He smiled at a memory. “They were well-known and popular in the village, and people respected them a lot. So, with their statements given, they had a psychologist come to see me, and a whole load of bloody head doctors.” He smiled wanly. “They decided I was a bit of a basket case and I needed treatment. Then, after all that, the GBH charges were dismissed. I was given detention in a young offender’s institution for eighteen months for the arson, with a promise that I’d see a psychologist. I saw out six months of hell, turned fifteen, then I bolted to London and hooked up with Ricky.”

“You left the detention center? Didn’t they come looking for you?”

He laughed harshly. “You know what the social services are like, Rain. Not enough staff, not enough funding. Who really cared if a stupid fifteen-year-old ran off?”

The room was quiet, and Sheba chuffed softly. Toby stroked her flank, steady rhythmic strokes that seemed to ground him.

“So, what happened with Ricky? How old was he, anyway?” I placed my hand on top of the one on the dog. Toby’s hand stilled.

“Ricky was a married man in his forties. His wife lived with him in the pub.” He saw my look of disgust. “I know. It was wrong. I suppose in the true sense he was a pedophile and a philanderer. But he took me in, gave me a job, and looked after me pretty well. In return, I gave him what he wanted. He was petrified his wife would find out about our ‘relationship,’ so it was all very under the covers.” I winced at his turn of phrase. “Then when I turned sixteen, there was no more worry about anyone finding out about the age thing, and we just carried on. Sonia didn’t know anything, I think, and if she did, she kept quiet. I was never sure which one was the case.” He gave a twisted smile. “I tried to tell myself I wasn’t a rent boy, I was earning my keep, but sometimes I wonder.”

I reached over and took his face in my hands, making him look at me. “Toby, you were never a fucking rent boy. You were surviving, sweetheart. Never think of yourself that way. Not you.” His green eyes stared into mine with a tenderness that made me want to hold him close and never let him go.

I prompted him to finish. “Go on. Tell me the rest.”

“I knew if I wanted to get out of where I was, I needed to go back to school and finish my GCSE. I did it part-time, through a community program that helped kids like me. I was working too, and I managed to save up enough to go to hotel school. Then I applied for a grant from one of the Business Angel facilities. They believed in me and gave me enough to help out. When I told Ricky I was going to Northampton to this hotel school and I’d be living there, he went ballistic. Turned out he thought he owned me, heart and soul. We had a huge argument, I ran, he followed me, and we tussled. He was getting really violent and smacked my head against the wall. I slammed back, then shoved him. He fell down the stairs. The neighbors called the police, and when they arrived they wanted to arrest me. But Ricky wouldn’t press charges. He had more to worry about than me pushing him down a flight of stairs, even if it was by accident. If it had come out that I’d been with him underage and he’d been screwing me in front of his wife’s nose, God knows what might have happened. So, he went to the hospital, and I left.” He sighed. “I was bloody lucky. They didn’t have time to find out that I was on the lam from the young offender’s institution, or God knows what would have happened. I hitchhiked up to the school in Northampton. I found a bedsit to hang out in for the two weeks before school started, and then I got digs at the school.” He smiled at me sweetly. “That was the best part of my life before I came here and met you.” My heart lurched at those heartfelt words. I lost my breath.

Toby’s eyes softened, obviously liking what he was seeing on my face. “I liked being part of something like that and working towards something.” He heaved a long, shuddering sigh. “And now you have the whole sordid tale, Rain. This is who I am.”

I stood up and shooed Sheba off the bed. She looked at me with sheer hurt. But this wasn’t about her. This was about a young boy who’d been through hell and clawed his way out of his dark place into my life. I moved over to Toby on the bed, gently straddling him so I was on his thighs, facing him but not touching the sore parts of his body. I took his mouth in a deep, heart-clenching kiss. I wanted to kiss all his hurt away, tell him that I cared deeply for him without words, because I knew I was going to have trouble saying them to him. Toby was brave and noble and determined. He’d fought so hard to better himself all on his own. It was the saddest and most inspiring story I’d ever heard.