Page 113 of The Unlikely Pair

But he’s grinning, shaking his head as he starts to shuffle. “Harry Matheson is engaging in dodgy innuendos. My corruption is complete.”

“I guess you do belong to a party that knows all about corruption,” I say lazily.

Toby quirks an eyebrow. “Do you really want to compare the history of scandals between the Labour and Conservative parties?”

“No, I would prefer to play cards,” I say.

Toby begins to deal out the cards between us. “Are you up for tryingOh Helltonight?”

“Sure. I think I remember that from school,” I say.

We start to play, and the reason for the game’s name soon becomes exceedingly apparent because it feels like every round, I’m cursing as Toby beats me again.

“How did you suddenly turn into such a card shark?” I ask.

He keeps his eyes on shuffling the deck. “I used to play this with my mum.”

Toby’s demeanor always changes whenever he talks about his mother, his brows coming together, his lips pressing into a thin line.

There seems to be this block in Toby sometimes. We’re intimate in many ways, and I feel all my walls have now crumbled due to our unique situation. He knows almost everything about me now. Yet, it doesn’t feel like the return is true.

Did losing his mother at such a formative age cause him to guard his heart more carefully? Or maybe he’s simply better atkeeping all the intimate moments between us in a box labeledsurvival sex.

I haven’t wanted to pry and ask more details about his mother, but now, I find myself longing to know more, to peel back another layer of this man.

“Tell me more about her,” I say.

Toby’s shoulders stiffen. “What do you want to know?”

“What was she like?”

He hesitates.

“She was kind,” he says finally.

“What about your father?”

“He died when I was five, so I don’t really remember him. But Mum…she shattered after he died. It’s weird because she was so independent in some ways, like she insisted on keeping her name when she got married, but she was lost without him for a few years. She’d watch all these romantic movies and sob over them.”

I can only imagine how that shaped Toby as a small boy, helplessly watching his mother as she grieved.

“What else do you remember about her?” I ask.

As we play, Toby tells me more about his mother. How she was so bright and funny. “She was always making me laugh, even when things were tough. She had this way of finding the humor in everything, turning even the darkest moments into something we could smile about.”

Toby has a brief glimmer of a smile as he lays down another trump.

“We had so many in-jokes, so many little rituals that were just ours.”

“Like the funny idioms you used to make up together,” I say.

“Yes. Like those. I never told anyone about those.”

“Besides me,” I say.

Toby looks up, his hazel eyes intense yet somehow vulnerable in the flickering firelight. “Besides you,” he echoes.

“Did she have any other relationships after your father?” I ask.