Page 30 of Star-Crossed
Um…his age? They hadn’t turned the big three-oh yet.
“I don’teverwant to be old,” the boy whined.
“Tough titties, kid.” Myrtle cackled. “Which, incidentally, is the whole part and parcel of the getting old thing.”
For the second time this morning, Cy captured Lyra’s gaze with his. The chaos of the gathering receded, and all Lyra knew was that if he kept looking at her dress like that, they were going to be in trouble. If they each reached out, they were close enough to touch.
Which meant he’d probably heard everything.
SIX
Tantra
WEAVING THE THE PHYSICAL WITH THE SPIRITUAL AND SEXUAL
As soon asLyra could bring herself to stop admiring how the bronze in Cy’s shirt brought out the gold flecks in his eyes, she’d remember to be irked that he eavesdropped.
Well, maybe eavesdropping was a harsh word for it, but she wouldn’t have hated it if he’d made his presence known so she didn’t flip-flop down douchebag memory lane.
Also, she wished he’d look away. Only because she couldn’t seem to bring herself to do it.
“Cypress promised me a favor in exchange for Myrtle’s magic pancakes, darling,” Vee told Daniel in her best Mary Poppins impression. “Let’s go find you something to do, shall we? Cy, you want to come with me, I’ll show you which of those heavy pots need moving.”
Cy broke eye contact first, and something pierced Lyra right in the chest.
A pang of longing.
Nope.She had to shut that all the way down.
She refused to look at him as he unfolded from his chair and followed the tiny woman and even smaller child across the property. Excusing herself from the table for a restroom break, Lyra went the opposite way into the house in search of a second to collect her messy thoughts and cool her overstimulated ovaries.
With the party in full swing outside, the quiet of the house was both jarring and relieving. A few people wandered in and out of the kitchen to refill plates or discard them in the sink, but the hallway was long, dark, and deserted.
Lyra peeked in open doors out of curiosity more than any need to relieve herself, and stopped when she found a kid of about eight perched in a sitting room, clinging to a book with one hand and obsessively fidgeting with his shirt.
His clothes were rumpled and didn’t quite match, and he kept twitching and squirming in a way that suggested he was several steps past uncomfortable and moving toward suffering.
“You okay?”
His eyes darted to her, then immediately away as he brushed long bangs from his big eyes. It was the blond boy from before, the one who’d tugged at her heart in the food line.
The large-print hardcover book took up his entire lap, and, with his little legs straight out on the deep old sofa, he was just gut-wrenchingly adorable.
“Do you need me to go find your dad?”
“Marty isn’t my dad,” he informed her. Not with the defensiveness often attributed to a child in the system, but with the candor of someone stating a fact he had no emotional ties to.
“Yeah, sure,” she agreed. “Is there something you need help with?”
He leveled her an aggrieved stare far too old for such a round, freckled face. “My shirt won’t stop tickling me. I can’t read!”
“Uh-oh.” She moved carefully toward him, stepping around a settee. “Where is it tickling?”
“Here.” he tugged the cuff of the short-sleeved button up down his tiny arm, but it popped back into place. Then he shoved it up his bicep, but didn’t have enough of one to keep the bunched fabric in place.
His little cheeks were turning red, and his eyes misted as if he’d been done a great injustice, was fighting off some sort of gathering storm, and would rather die than let her see it.
Lyra knew the exact feeling.
