“His mailbox is overflowing, and I can’t fit anything else in there. No mail hold, like he went out of town or something. I know he lives alone. At least, he never gets any mail for anyone but him.”
A bad feeling settled in Toby’s gut. “I’ll take it up to the house.”
The carrier handed it to him. “Better empty his box, too.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
The carrier drove off while Toby walked over to Jackson Hames’ mailbox. Sure enough, it was filled to capacity.
His dread only increased as he realized some of the junk mailers were nearly two weeks old, based on ones they’d received.
With his arms full of mail, he crossed their rural road and headed up the man’s dirt drive. It looked like he hadn’t mowed in nearly two weeks, either, which also wasn’t like the man. He had a tractor with a mowing deck that he used. And his truck sat in the same spot it’d been parked in for a while, which also wasn’t like their neighbor. He remembered the man once counseling him and Logan not to park in the same spot every day so they didn’t get bare patches in their grass. To alter their pattern.
As he approached the house, the breeze shifted, coming to him from the north, from behind the house. On the wind a foul stench flowed over him, and Toby knew.
Still, he moved forward, hoping he was wrong.
He knocked on the front door as well as rang the bell. “Mr. Hames? It’s Toby, from next door. I have your mail.”
Nothing.
Fighting the tight, sickly feeling that grew thicker with every second, he did it again, and again.
The front curtains were drawn, so he couldn’t see inside. But he walked around the house and found curtains that were open on two of the back windows. One was a bedroom, he guessed. It looked like there was a bed in there, somewhere.
Maybe.
Although there were some flies inside the window, ineffectively beating themselves against it, a pile of them dead on the windowsill.
He’d never been inside the man’s house, although the few times they’d chatted, he was friendly. Didn’t seem to be an asshole about them being gay. He’d had no clue the man was a hoarder.
The next window opened on an equally cluttered dining room. This time, there were more flies, and he saw a bare foot, and the lower cuff of a pair of jeans, on the floor and disappearing out of sight behind a couch.
Dammit.
Between the flies, and the fact that the foot was a blackish blue color, he knew.
Turning, he pulled his cell phone out and called 911.
Twenty minutes later, Logan, who he’d called and woke up, was standing in the front yard with Toby, comforting him as he talked to the deputy who’d initially responded. The man had obviously been dead for a while.
A deputy from the county’s forensics team, who wore a full hazmat bunny suit, emerged from the house. He held an envelope in a plastic evidence bag pinched in his fingers as he walked over to them.
“Do you know a Rebecca Hames?” he asked them through his respirator and protective face mask. The smell of decomposition washed off the man.
“His last name was Hames,” Toby said, “but I don’t know a Rebecca.”
He showed them the envelope. In black marker in a spidery hand was also written Emergency Stuff in large letters. “It’s got her name on it, and the name and phone number of an attorney in Sarasota. It was stuck to the front of his fridge by a magnet.”
“Sorry. Don’t know her.”
“We’ll contact the attorney. Must be his next of kin.”
After questioning, they were allowed to leave. One of the deputies let Toby put the man’s mail in another brown paper evidence bag large enough to hold it, and said they would deal with it.
Toby didn’t want to see them wheel the man out. Fortunately, he didn’t have any pets.
When they closed the front door behind them, Logan turned to him, his hands resting on Toby’s shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” Logan quietly said, sounding, for once, like the man Toby had fallen in love with.
“For what?”
“For being an asshole the last few months. I don’t want to end up like that, alone and dead and the only reason someone figured it out was because the mail stacked up. I’m sorry. We can go to counseling, if you still want to. I love you, and I don’t want to lose you.”
Toby threw his arms around him. “I think that’s the best thing I’ve heard in the past six months. And I love you, too.”
* * * *
Normally, neither of them were heavy drinkers. But that morning, they both needed something after what they’d seen.
And smelled.
And now they knew what they needed to do, which was rebuild that shattered bridge between them. After they grabbed a shower to sort of symbolically restart their day on a more positive note, Toby made them a pitcher of mimosas while Logan prepared an omelet.
They took everything outside onto their screened lanai and talked.
And talked.
And drank, but they mostly talked.
Hope returned to Toby’s soul as Logan admitted he felt guilty about bringing Julie into their lives, only for her to betray them.
“You were so good about everything,” he said. “You agreed to trying poly, to letting her into our lives, and then she did…that. I feel like this is all my fault.”
“Hey, I was willing,” Toby said. “Don’t shoulder this burden alone. I fell for her, too. It wasn’t like you had to force me into it. You know I’m bi, just like you. I thought she was our unicorn, I really did.” He reached over and took his partner’s hand. “She just wasn’t the right unicorn for us.”
Logan let out a snort. “She was a goat masquerading as a unicorn.”
“Hey, that’s an insult to goats.”
Logan finally smiled. A genuine, pain-free smile.
The first one of those Toby had seen on his face since…then.
The day.
The day their lives turned upside down and everything they thought they knew was questioned.
The loss of trust.
“I really want us to be okay,” Toby said. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. And if you can forgive me for being a jackass, and I haven’t totally screwed us up yet, I’d like another chance.”
* * * *
“You haven’t screwed us up,” Toby said. “And you’re not a jackass.”
Logan felt like a jackass. That morning’s discovery right next door, however, had rattled him to his core.
Life was too damn short. He didn’t want to waste another day. Especially not when he had a damn good guy by his side to share life with.
A guy he loved.
“So, date night tonight?” Logan asked.
Toby smiled, his handsome blue eyes lighting up. “We haven’t had a date night in months.”
“I know. I feel badly about that, too. I haven’t felt like going out much.”
“Sigalo’s tonight?”
“Sure. It’ll be good to see the gang.” They hadn’t even been out to the club in months. The first few times they had, it painfully reminded them of Julie and what she’d done to them. Add to that people who had no clue what had happened asking where she was…
It was a painful situation.
“I’ll text Loren and make sure that’s still happening,” Toby said.
“And we can go to the club after.”
Toby’s smile widened to a grin. “Really?”
“Really. I know we won’t play, but I miss our friends.”
Toby leaned in and kissed him. “I really missed you most of all.”
“I missed me, too.” He laced fingers with Toby, stroking his thumb across the other man’s hand. “If I let what she did to us ruin our life, our happiness, who we are, then she’s won. I choose not to be chained to her anymore.”
Toby lifted their hands to his mouth, kissing the back of Logan’s. “Thank you.”
He smirked. “Sure, you thank me now. Wait until I feel like playing again.”
“Maybe tonight after the club?” He waggled his eyebrows at Logan in a playful way, another aspect of their relationship that had been missing.