Page 65 of Star-Crossed
“Yeah,” Cy said. “I think I’m going to call in Jack to take care of Star-Crossed. He’s still doing contract work, right?”
“I think so,” Marty said, chewing a bite of pillowy bread mounded with the pale pink spread.
Kiki, on the other hand, wasn’t missing a trick. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have Jack handle the Townsend Mansion job soyoucan handle Star-Crossed?”
“Maybe it’s time I delegate some more,” Cy replied, trying to sound nonchalant. Inside, though, the wheels were already turning.
“If you think that’s best,” Kiki said, each word loaded with special significance.
Cy’s jaw tightened as he held back a snarky retort. He knew that his decision stemmed from a petty desire to avoid Lyra—and maybe even irk her a little—but he couldn’t help it. And anyway, if other men were what she wanted, the least he could do was support her decision.
“Oh, I do,” he said.
Kiki slapped her hands on her dirt-caked jeans. “We’d better get back to it before this sky decides to piss all over us.”
Following her glance up at the sky, Cy noticed gunmetal-gray clouds gathering, casting ominous shadows over the backyard.
“Let’s do it,” he said with considerably more enthusiasm.
For now, he had a battle to plan.
The next move would be Lyra’s.
THIRTEEN
Smudging
THE RITUAL OF CLEANING THE ENERGY OF A PHYSICAL SPACE, OBJECT, OR PERSON.
Why are you such a bitch?
Lyra sat in her car staring down at the paperwork the doctor had handed her after blowing her entire world open at nine thirty on a Tuesday morning.
Now she had an answer to the most prevalent question of her life.
An explanation.
Or at least a diagnosis.
ASD, or autism spectrum disorder.
It all made a little bit more sense to her now. The constant, low-grade irritation caused by things a neurotypical brain would easily allow to fade into the background. The fit of her clothing. Constant noises caused by machinery, or worse…other people. Flashing lights or discordant visual stimuli. Fucking light horizonal stripes on dark clothing that seemed to ruin her entire day…
Or, rather, the entire ass-end of the 2010s.
Not to mention the mental and emotional exhaustion of masking socially inappropriate reactions to said stimuli. Making sure her facial features didn’t give away her discomfort. Selecting a field of study that spoke to her inflated sense of injustice and fairness.
Even Harrison made more sense.
According to the doctor she’d been seeing for the past handful of weeks, selecting a partner based on how they filled a compatibility quotient on a list, rather than how they touched your heart, was part and parcel of the autistic experience.
Lyra folded up her documents and shoved them in her bag, then started her car and drove on autopilot toward Water Street, where Cady and Gemma were covering for her at Star-Crossed.
Did it change anything, this diagnosis?
Not really. Not unless she wanted it to. That was the thing about a spectrum…everyone landed on it somewhere. If she leaned into it, she’d need to disclose it to friends, loved ones, and employers. Or she could keep going how she was going—treating her symptoms like overblown personality traits and dealing with the consequences.
That was her privilege and prerogative as someone so “high-functioning.”
