Page 90 of Star-Crossed
Cy experienced one of the full-body flinches that had been rolling through him every time the word floated into his skull. Which had been about every ten seconds over the last week.
Each time, he suffered an equally vivid recollection of the way Lyra’s face had melted from affectionate to appalled when he suggested she take the job in Denver.
Now it was her lips, stretching from their gentle smile into a tight line. Now her smooth brow, folding into a crease. Now her eyes, flickering with warmth and the reflection of the flameless candles she’d hauled up a fucking cliff for his benefit, dimming to a dull distance.
And now a bonus fuck-you from his short-term memory—her arms protectively curling toward her torso like shriveling shoots.
Protective, againsthim.
The thought made him shove himself backward in his desk chair, sending several empty beer cans skittering away from the chair’s rollers in the process.
Beer. Nowtherewas an idea worth entertaining.
Cy stood, his muscles protesting after hours of disuse and a small avalanche of crumbs falling from the creases of his sweats.
The old floorboards creaked under him as he shuffled toward the kitchen. Yanking open the fridge, he consulted shelves nearly bare, save for a few condiment bottles and a questionable Chinese takeout container.
With a sigh, he grabbed his last Raven Creek Pumpkin Pilsner. The caps already littering the counter scuttled under his palm as he reached for the opener and added to the already alarming number.
He took a long swig of beer, and the liquid sloshed in his empty stomach. When was the last time he’d eaten something that didn’t come sealed in a packet that came with at least one nutritional warning?
It didn’t feel important enough to remember.
Beer in hand, he trod the vaguely gritty path back to his desk and groaned as a beam of sunlight stabbed through a gap in the blackout curtains. The piercing light woke the headache he’d been fighting since that morning.
At least it was a change from the pervasive ache in his chest.
Lyra McKendrick was gone.
Or would be soon, anyway.
And that was for the best. Even from his present pathetic vantage, he couldn’t deny it.
Nor could he distract himself from that knowledge, apparently. Not by any of the methods that had made his downtime bearable in the past several years, anyway.
Not picking fights with the members of his longstanding online D&D game. Not acquiring several more limited-edition League of Legends figurines. Not thumbing through his nerd library. Not admiring the collection of objects that had been passed down to him from generations of ancestors whose strength he had always felt anchoring him like the roots of the tree.
Not even work, which had always been his chief source of effective avoidance in the past.
Cy didn’t dare take a single step toward town. Because God knew that if he did, the universe would find some way to shove Lyra McKendrick in his path.
No. There was nothing to do but hurt. Hurt, and ignore the well-meaning phone calls and knocks on his front door.
Knocks like the one currently intruding into the muffled sanctuary created by his noise-canceling gaming headphones.
Looking at the Discord chat from his party, Cy tried to decide exactly how pissed they’d be if he excused himself to get rid of whoever it was.
Fuck it.Let themcome for him. He could use a fight.
Pulling the padded cans away from his humid ears, Cy pushed himself up from the chair and drifted to peek through the curtains covering the window facing the front porch.
And emitted a distinctly unmanly sound of surprise when he found Ethan Townsend staring at him through the filmed glass.
Cy sucked in a quick breath and staggered back a step, the bolt of fiery pain in his leg only serving to stoke the fires of his irritation.
What the fuck?he mouthed.
Ethan only maintained his steady gaze, arctic eyes narrowed into rectangular slits, his cartoon character hero jaw set in its granite grimace.
