Page 49 of Star-Crossed
Pausing at the road cut to chew a mouthful of weeds, Darrell stared back at them with his one good eye, unperturbed by their close call.
Lyra and Cy locked eyes, silent for a full second before they were hijacked by hysterical laughter. They laughed until their sides ached, until neither of them could breathe, until it finally faded away into an easy silence.
At last able to catch her breath, Lyra wiped her eyes and smiled. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“For what?” he asked as Darrell continued to graze in the background.
“For risking karma to make a point.”
What that point might be, Cy had no fucking clue.
He was too busy marveling that, for the first time in five years, it hadn’t occurred to him to be bothered by the sound of screeching tires.
* * *
“They totally knew.”
Cy followed Lyra’s gaze to the window, where Myrtle and Vee stood arm in arm, waving from the front porch as they pulled away from her property after returning Darrell.
“How would they know?” he asked.
“Aside from the fact of our driving around the back roads of Townsend Harbor together after midnight?” she asked.
“You’re forgetting about Larry,” Cy pointed out, remembering what he thought to be an impressive piece of storytelling on his part.
Lyra settled back into her seat, crossing her legs as she looked out on the snatch of road revealed by the truck’s headlights. “They didn’t believe you.”
Cy glanced at her profile. “What gives you that impression?”
Lyra smiled, a knowing look in her eyes. “Body language,” she said. “I’m a lawyer, remember? I’ve sat through enough jury selection processes to know when someone is skeptical.” She shot him a sideways smile. “Also, I probably left an ass-print in the potting soil on the worktable.”
“Nonsense,” he said. “I know for a fact I swept your ass-print into the herb planter.”
The stinging slap she delivered to his thigh did fuck all to shrink his dick.
“Speaking of planters, thanks for the job you did on Gemma’s plants,” she said. “They didn’t suspect a thing.”
Cy slowed for the fork that would either take them directly into town, or away from it. “So they’re back?”
“Yep,” Lyra sighed.
“Eager to get home?”
“Nope,” she said. “Why?”
“I have an idea.”
TEN
Limb
SAME AS BRANCH, BUT USUALLY LARGER AND MORE PROMINENT.
Cy killedthe engine as they hit the clearing.
“Where are we?” Lyra asked, squinting through the windshield.
“You’ll see.” After unbuckling his belt, Cy opened his door and walked around the truck’s cab to open hers. “This way,” he said, offering her his hand.
