Page 37 of Star-Crossed
Cy was violating their unspoken rules of verbal engagement by calling Ethan’s tactical bluff. He already knew what his friend was getting at and decided to give him a conversational goosing.
“With all that work, I mean. Seems like it might help to have someone—”
“Who can do more of the physical labor?” Cy asked.
“Didn’t say that.”
“Didn’t have to.”
More than once, Ethan had expressed—in the most moderate way possible—his concerns about Cy overdoing it once he was able to work again following the accident.
Which was funny considering that, once upon a time, Ethan had also made it his business to drag him out of his self-imposed hermitage at least once a week. Cy’s very own blond, blue-eyed, all-American activities director—for reasons, in his darker moments, he feared may have as much to do with concern for his mental and physical wellbeing as general enjoyment of his company.
Most of the time, Cy could ignore it. Being one of only a slim cross section of Salish who comprised Townsend Harbor’s total population, he’d had to do a lot of ignoring over the years. Turning the other cheek. Covering his discomfort with a well-placed joke and/or forced smile.
But every now and then, a kernel of suspicion turned into a canker of doubt that required one of these fucking awkward conversations to disinfect.
Ethan waited him out, keeping his icy gaze trained on Cy as he maneuvered the rocker back and forth at an infuriatingly even pace that threatened to stretch into perpetuity.
“Yes,” Cy replied, trying to keep his tone light despite the lingering frustration. “I’m still thinking about it.”
“Happy to help with leads if you need any,” Ethan said, lifting his own bottle. “All the favors you’ve been doing around town, I’m surprised you have time for work at all.”
Cy suppressed a groan. As the only Townsend Harbor resident with a bucket truck, he was also the unofficial Reacher of Really Tall Shit and had, on occasion, gone out to assist with certain emergent situations.
Emergent situations like Larry’s acrobatic adventure the other night.
“So first I’m not getting out enough, and now I’m getting out too much? That it?” His irritation at having his second encounter with Lyra interrupted had made him edgy and tense, and Ethan’s well-meaning concern wasn’t exactly helping.
“That’s not—”
“Ethan!” Marty Forrester, patriarch of the Forrester clan and perpetual adopter of strays, threw his arms wide as he stepped onto the porch. “How you doing, son?”
Son?
Son?
“Can’t complain,” Ethan said, shocking Cy by accepting one of the cigars Marty pulled out of the breast pocket of his denim shirt. “How about you?”
“Rattling, but I’m rolling.” Marty gave Ethan the full wattage of the affable, easygoing grin he was known for around town.
That Cy’s father was suddenly an Ethan Townsend fanboy was fucking hilarious. Marty hadn’t always been the Townsend family’s biggest supporter. In fact, when Ethan first started inviting Cy over to the Townsend Mansion after football practice, Marty had been more than a little dubious about his motivations.
“Why doesn’t he ever come here for dinner?” he’d asked one night when Cy had actually made it home in time to eat with the ever-rotating herd of foster kids who ended up sharing their roof.
Cy had made a show of looking around their dining room, crowded with not one, buttwofolding tables and an additional oval monstrosity whose perpetually sticky surface was already completely surrounded.
“Where would he sit?” Cy had asked. “Ona child?”
“I just don’t understand why he’s so chummy with you all the sudden. Guys like that can afford tobuyfriends.”
The implications had been more than a little insulting. But Cy hadn’t dared tell his father the truth—that he and Ethan had started buddying up after a locker room brawl with several members of a rival team.
Their coach—a wildly permissive man who spent more time lecturing about self-esteem than strategy—hadn’t informed either of their parents for reasons Cy could no longer recall.
And Cy hadn’t been about to narc on himself. Not when, from the time he was small, he was reminded that his every action reflected not just on his family, but the Indigenous community at large.
As a Townsend of the Townsend family, Ethan, too, had been under a kind of constant scrutiny. A fact that had led both to save their rage for acceptable outlets like football and online RPGs.
