Page 36 of Star-Crossed
Cy looked at Lyra, already knowing that, once again, Fate had seen fit to take a giant shit right in their lascivious laps.
“At least it wasn’t Larry this time,” Lyra said, sitting up as Cy stood.
“I’d prefer that it was Larry,” he muttered, carefully tucking himself away before helping Lyra brush off her dress. “Here.” Cy plucked a few hibiscus blossoms from a nearby tree and handed them to Lyra. “You go ahead. I need a minute.”
They both glanced down at the still very present bulge in his jeans.
That he should suffer a priapic opportunity attack now of all times was bitter irony enough for the douchiest of DMs.
“Sorry about this,” he whispered to her, then pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. “See you inside?”
Cy felt a pang of longing at the sight of her walking away from him, her sundress flouncing from the curve of her ass.
“So is that what sauntering looks like?” he called after her.
Lyra didn’t look back, but scratched herself between the shoulder blades with a stiff middle finger before exiting the greenhouse door.
Alone, Cy took a deep breath and reached for his catalog of boner-killing images. He imagined his dad in a pair of Daisy Dukes and a tank top, riding a mechanical bull. He envisioned Ethan in a clown costume doing the Hokey Pokey with Myrtle’s three-legged llama, Darrell.
And slowly but surely, the second heartbeat eased from his jeans.
Running a hand through his hair, he checked himself in the distorted reflection of Myrtle and Vee’s gleaming chrome lavender distilling drum. It would have to do.
He found Ethan parked in a rocking chair on Myrtle and Vee’s sprawling front porch, a beer in one hand and purse that could double as a pink disco ball in the other.
Ethan’s square jaw was set, his eyes narrowed to rectangular slits, his cleft chin aimed at the sprawling bolt of sod where Cy’s screeching foster brothers and sisters flapped around like coked-out geese. A combination of clues that could only mean one thing.
Ethan Townsend was happy, basically.
Which made sense, because he’d been radiatingget off my lawnenergy since they’d become best buddies in their sophomore year.
“Hey there,” Cy said, suppressing a wince as he trudged up the steps. His adventures with Larry the other night had cost him dearly.
“Hey,” Ethan said. “How’s it going?”
Other than the fact that Cy had finally been inside the woman he’d been feverishly dreaming about since high school and been rudely interrupted by his father, it was going—
“Good,” Cy said, easing down into the chair next to Ethan’s.
Setting the purse carefully in his lap, Ethan reached down and lifted an icy bucket of beer. Cy gratefully took one, lifting it to read a label that had clearly involved the assistance of a graphic designer.
“Pumpkin porter?” he asked, eyebrow raised as he set the cold beverage in the fork of his crotch under the pretense of digging his keychain bottle opener out of his pocket.
Ethan cleared his throat. “It’s seasonal.”
“No judgment.” Cy cracked open a bottle, savoring the brew’s crisp bite as he took a deep swig.
As much as he gave Ethan shit, Cy had been genuinely delighted to see the ways that the fuchsia-haired hurricane that was Darby Dunwell had disrupted his friend’s previously orderly life.
“Haven’t seen you in a while.” Ethan’s habit of lopping off the subjects of his sentences to make what amounted to a formal interrogation seem like an informal conversation had always struck Cy as kind of hilarious.
“Had a lot of work to do lately,” Cy said, lifting the bottle for another pull. “It’s seasonal.”
Ethan shot him a look. “You still thinking of hiring another employee, or…”
“Or?”
The former sheriff’s Adam’s apple bobbed on a conspicuous swallow.
