Page 26 of Star-Crossed
Quite possibly the least sexy text exchange ever.
Which was a good thing. Right?
Maybe he regretted their impromptu make-out session just as much as she did.
Maybe he was avoiding her. The thought made her cheeks burn, but she couldn’t immediately identify the emotion behind the fire.
“Did you park your car over by the shed?” Myrtle chirped at her. “Caryn and Ethan Townsend might make an appearance, and we’re running out of spaces.”
“She did, dear.” Vee smoothed a smudge of flour from her wife’s cheek and anointed the spot with a kiss. “I’m interested in talking to Caryn about her new affordable housing initiative. I’d never have guessed her sympathies ran in that direction. She’s really doing excellent work.”
“And her son’s brewery is doing the Lord’s work!” Myrtle crowed. “I swear his Nitro Stout is better than Guinness.”
“I’ll serve you your divorce papers tomorrow morning,” Vee, a U.K. native, teased, then kissed her spouse again before whisking a paper plate from between two quarreling kids to hand to Lyra.
Lyra couldn’t help but smirk at the mention of Townsend Harbor’s founding family. “I’m surprised to hear Caryn’s coming over,” she remarked. “I thought she—”Was a rank, one-percenter bitch with a huge chip on her shoulder.“She ran in different circles,” she finished carefully.
“That debacle at the Nevermore Bookstore seems to have humbled her,” Vee replied.
Myrtle plopped a blueberry pancake on the next outstretched plate. “Yeah, and since she started boffing Roy, she’s chilled the fuck out, man.”
“Chilled the fuck out, man!” a little one with a milk mustache yawped from where the French doors opened to the deck and the sprawling meadow of a backyard.
From beneath a wealth of enviably thick silver hair, Marty shot Myrtle an exasperated glance before abandoning his plating duties to scoop up the kindergarten-aged blasphemer and tuck the giggling kid over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“Excuse us while we have thewords only adults usediscussion.” His departure outdoors was with the good-natured ease of a parent practiced in such untimely and slightly hysterical interactions.
Lyra watched him go with an odd sense of surreal prophecy. Cy would age like his father. Tall, proud, and barrel-chested. Long-limbed, with a lanky grace and an easy smile. Maybe his stomach would outgrow his chest in the same way. Not diminishing his strength or musculature, but advertising a love of many such syrup-soaked breakfasts.
Maybe the fine grooves she’d noticed branching from his eyes would deepen into the attractive weathered lines and deepening brackets characterizing Marty’s features.
Lyra shook her head, trying to dislodge the disquieting thoughts.
Chances were that the kiss hadn’t made things awkward between them, even if her own feelings remained…unidentified. The delay on the permits meant time to gain perspective, to determine what she wanted from Cy, if anything at all.
As someone fresh out of a toxic-as-shit relationship, she wasn’t looking for romance. She wasn’t even looking for a fuck buddy. She wasn’t looking foranythinguntil she figured out where she would pursue the next phase of her life.
Somewhere else.
Still, she couldn’t forget the tenderness in Cy’s eyes as he gazed at her, or the warmth of his embrace. The delicious pressure of his body against hers. Even though they had days until he was scheduled to work at Star-Crossed, she found herself watching for his truck to appear during the work hours or hoping for a glimpse of him around town.
Man, she really needed to keep it in her pants before she became any more pathetic.
The chatter and laughter of the guests mingled with the clinking of silverware as everyone began to move outside with their overflowing plates.
The backyard was a charming oasis, with an eclectic mix of mismatched tables and chairs arranged beneath towering trees and bright umbrellas. Sunlight dappled the leaves above, casting a warm, late-morning glow over the lively scene.
Lyra took a moment to admire the surroundings while her eyes adjusted to being back outside. Hiding behind an intentionally private arborvitae, warehouse-sized outbuildings in the far corner of the property hid the outhouses Myrtle was paid generously for providing to just about anyone in need in the county. From the county fair, to local music festivals, construction and roadwork sites, to the local campgrounds, Myrtle’s portable potties cornered the market. Beside the aluminum structure parked her antique work truck with her logo advertising her second business, Fertile Myrtle’s Manure.We have the best sh*t in town!
Suppressing a chuckle, Lyra noted the addition of a beautiful greenhouse on the opposite corner of the acre-sized backyard, its high walls and curled iron frame providing a touch of elegance beneath tempered, opaque glass.
The city girl in Lyra retreated at the verdant sight, and straps of something that felt like longing for all things simple and lovely belted her ribcage.
As she sipped her mimosa, she glanced around the yard, wondering where to sit.
She almost dropped her plate when an unexpected sight turned the straps of longing into a vise of need.
Cy.
