Page 93 of Star-Crossed
Cy clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white as he fought the urge to hit something.
“Don’t I?” he said, his voice thick. “In high school, it wasn’t just my father who wondered why a golden god like Ethan Townsend would want to spend his time with someone like me.”
What he was talking about was Ethan.
Who he was thinking about was Lyra.
Because the exact same line of logic applied to both, and the former was less catastrophically devastating to think about.
Looking at Ethan’s face, Cy saw that he knew it, too.
“But when I got accepted to Montana State, got an athletic scholarship, people stopped asking those questions. Then I ended up back here after the accident, all of a sudden everyone is wondering whether I was capable of walking that path in the first place. So I either have to deal with that doubt or make it look like this other path is the one I really wanted to walk all along. Running the family business. Pulling cats out of trees and goddamn llamas out of the road. Being part of the mellow, happy, helpful Forrester family.”
Cy shook his head bitterly. “And then Lyra shows up here, and this entire goddamn life I wanted for myself once upon a time is shoved in my face, and I just have to sit here and know that it’s too fucking late for me to be anything but Cy the Tree Guy.”
The refrigerator hummed to life in the stretch of silence that followed his impromptu rant.
“Apparently it’s not too late for you to be a titanic dumbass.”
The beer bottle froze halfway to Cy’s lips.
This was not, in fact, the gentle and/or impassioned reassurance he’d been expecting.
Ethan set his beer aside. “If you really don’t know why I wanted to hang out with you in high school and have insisted on forcing my friendship upon you since you’ve been back in town, then you’re even thicker than you’ve been acting lately.”
If that was true, then Cy was thick as fuck. Not that he could bring himself to say this out loud.
“I was an angry little cock in high school,” he said. “The first time you ever even spoke to me was after we got into that fight with that linebacker who had a unibrow and an underbite.”
Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Do you even remember what the fight was about?”
In fact, Cy didn’t. Only that driving the guy’s nose straight back into his brain had seemed vitally important. He shook his head.
“He made a comment about my mom,” Ethan said.
Confusion bunched Cy’s brows together briefly before his earlier memory about Ethan’s high color and the fight in question fused with a thunderclap of realization.
The game had been a mere week after his own mother’s funeral.
The entire goddamn town had traveled several states to cheer the newly minted bereaved on from the stands. It had only taken a sickening tragedy to change the hand-lettered signs from Ethan’s name to Cy’s. Which had only added to the simmering rage that erupted when he ran into the foul-mouthed linebacker coming out of the locker room.
“You were a fighter, Cy,” Ethan said. “That’s what made me want to be your friend. And I’m sure it’s what made a woman like Lyra McKendrick plan a candlelight picnic on a goddamn cliff for you.”
Cy blinked in surprise, his heart doing an odd little dance in his chest at the mention of her name. Reviewing the time they’d spent together, he was hard-pressed to produce even a single instance that met that description.
Never mind wondering how Ethan knew about the picnic part.
“I haven’t been that guy in a really long time.” Cy sank back into the cushions, staring at the carved wooden bowl painted with the stylized raven in profile. “In fact, I’m not even sure I know who the fuck I am anymore.”
Ethan leaned back on the couch, taking a swig of his beer before speaking again. “Boy do I know how that feels.” He paused for a moment, a wistful grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “One minute you’re a respected officer of the law preserving the peace and rich traditions of a historic community, and the next, you’re fucking a former burlesque dancer over a swing your grandfather built on the side of the highway in full view of God and the county tax adjuster,” he said, a faraway look in his icy eyes.
“What?” Cy asked.
“What?” Ethan repeated.
“You just said—”
“My point is, sometimes not knowing who you are is a good thing.” He cleared his throat and straightened up. The tips of his ears glowed tomato red. “Sometimes it’s exactly what needs to happen so you have the chance to decide who you really want to be.”
