Your head is running wild again
Shoving him away, Spencer's temper flared as she snarled, "Where the heck have you been?" Her eyes blazed with anger, but Toby was quick to note that her chin was trembling and her fingers were nervously toying with a loose thread at the hem of the worn shirt. Fear lurked beneath the Hastings fury.
"Sweetheart, I—"
"Toby, I'm serious! When you said you'd be late, I was figuring 5:30, maybe 6. It gets dark by then, and when I know you're working outside, I stupidly assume you'll be back before 8 o'clock at night!"
"I would have called, but my phone was here and—"
In another flash of fire, she cut him off again. "I know your phone is here! How am I…how can I know you aren't…" suddenly the fight went of her so swiftly that her entire body seemed to fold into itself. Her eyes drooped, unwilling to maintain contact with his patient gaze.
Steeling himself against the possibility of another a violent rejection, Toby hesitantly reached for her hands with both of his. "I'm really, really sorry, Spencer. I didn't mean to leave my phone here, and I didn't expect to take this long. I shouldn't have been so careless."
Spencer felt the tender quality of his words, fully knowing that he meant them. She could never stay mad at him for long, he made it impossible. Still reluctant to meet his eyes, she kept her head bent low as she nearly whispered, "I'm sorry I overreacted. Was everything okay at work?"
"Yeah," he crooned softly, matching her tone, "It was fine. We had to finish the exterior tonight, which took longer than expected. By the time we were finished, a lot of the guys cut out really fast. Then the homeowner decided he wanted all the supplies moved inside in case it stormed tonight. With only a few of us left, we had a pretty late quitting time."
She nodded slowly without shifting from her current position of avoidance. Deciding to push her a little further, Toby disentangled one of his hands from hers and brushed his thumb along her jawline. "You wanna tell me what's going on, Spence?" he asked as he tilted her head upward.
Her mocha irises danced around the room, landing anywhere but the sea of crystal blue in front of her. "You know I love and trust you, right? I know that we've both caused a fair share of damage and pain here, but that's always been a result of scare tactics and misplaced protective instinct." Her voice got higher and faster as she went on, her brows knitting together as she struggled to remain composed. "I just don't want you to feel like I'm trying to keep you on a short leash or—"
"Spencer—" Toby attempted to break in, yet she plunged ahead.
"No, please, I need you to understand. If you have to work late, then you have to work late. And if you leave your phone at home, then you can't really do much about that either…I never want to treat you like you're my property, like you report to me…like…"
"Like what, Spencer?" He asked quietly.
Her eyes finally sought his, and he was instantly taken aback by the deep wells of sadness he saw there. "I never want to treat you the way Jenna did." With her somber admission, those brown doe eyes filled with glossy unshed tears.
This time it was his eyes that broke contact, refusing her a glimpse of the anguish that passed through him. Spencer began to pull away, afraid that she had said too much, but Toby strengthened his hold.
Clearing his throat and his head, he raised his eyes back up to meet hers. "You will never be anything like Jenna. Please believe me when I tell you that there is absolutely no comparison. We love each other, Spencer, and that was never part of the equation with her."
She nodded solemnly at his firm words, choosing to move past a topic she'd rather forget. "I just get scared. Not that I need to know where you are 24/7, but my brain goes into overdrive when I can't get ahold of you, believing the worst. We have a lot of enemies between the two of us, and…"
He squeezed her hand, giving her the confidence to go on as his other hand moved to rub small, soothing circles on her back.
Once again, Spencer's voice reached a higher pitch than normal, betraying her unruly emotions. "I'm afraid that I'll lose you for real next time. That it will really be your body in the woods and it won't be a setup. I—I couldn't do it, not again, not after…" she trailed off with a strangled sniffle, tears slipping down effortlessly like rain on a windowsill.
It was moments like this where Toby wished there were two of him. While one version would pull Spencer into his arms and comfort her for as long as necessary, his clone would scour the streets of Rosewood until he found Mona so he could knock her into next week for all that she had done. He settled for the first of the two actions, wrapping Spencer in a tight embrace and as he leaned the both of them against his headboard.
"Listen to me," he began with an achingly sweet cadence in his voice, "You won't ever have to do it again because no one is going to take me away from you. I'm not going anywhere, I promise you." He spoke with conviction against the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her pomegranate shampoo. "I'm so sorry that I ever let that happen to you, to us. I hate it, God, I hate it."
Toby's loving affirmation wove itself deep into her most broken parts, yet Spencer heard the exasperation and the suffering that he too was harboring. He had apologized enough and she was tired of punishing him, not just tonight but for an entire month. She straightened, lifting her head from its spot against his bare shoulder and captured his lower lip between both of hers. He eagerly kissed her back, pouring out his passion and frustration as the exchange deepened. A tangle of mouths and limbs lasted for several prolonged moments. Spencer's back arched in pleasure as Toby's calloused hands traced the length of her spine from underneath the plaid material.
As the two gradually pulled apart, Toby arched a brow at the sudden shift in mood. Understanding his silent question, Spencer timidly replied, "I've missed you so much. And when everything is spinning out of control, when I want to be so angry with where we are and who we've become, and the paranoia is eating me alive? I have to remind myself of how much worse it was not so long ago. If I can kiss you like that, that means I'm not missing you anymore, and I still have you."
Her words brought a rare smile to his features; a light reached his blue eyes that had often been absent over the last few weeks, laugh lines appearing in places they had gone unemployed. "Who would have ever guessed the two of us would make it through all of this, huh?" he asked with a grin.
She returned the look with a teasing glint in the depths of her coffee irises. "All of Rosewood can try and try, but we'll survive all the radioactive warfare they throw our way. We're like cockroaches."
Toby leaned closer, pressing soft lips first to the tip of her nose, then dipping lower to graze her mouth lightly. "You're the prettiest cockroach I've ever met."
Meeting his touch, Spencer indulged in another kiss. Sliding her hands along the planes of his chest which had remained unclothed since his long-forgotten shower, she—
Was interrupted by the loud growl of his stomach.
Unable to contain her giggles, she tossed her head back in delight. "Sorry that my waterworks distracted you from dinner, my love."
Toby ducked his head in feigned embarrassment, chuckling at his appetite's poor timing. He snuck a kiss to her collarbone as she attempted to regain her composure. "I'll forgive you if," kiss "you call in our usual," kiss "while I put on some weather-appropriate clothes."
His attention to that particularly sensitive strip of skin effectively ended her laughter and reignited her earlier focus. Pulling his lips back up to hers, Spencer initiated one last scorching kiss, leaving them both breathless.
"Alright, you are now free to put a shirt on. But I'm coming with you to pick up the food! Unless my unhinged behavior has been unclear up to this point, I'm obviously a victim of separation anxiety."
Although passed off as a joke, Toby couldn't help but worry over her last statement as she scampered off to make the call. Turning toward his dresser, a plan began to form. He knew exactly what they needed, and it was something this town didn't offer…
a/n: Thanks for all the reviews on chapter 1! I'm trying to stay on top of this story, so the more I hear from you guys the more I will feel motivated! I hope that you like it so far...the next chapter is definitely heavy on the fluff, so stay tuned.