Chapter Five
Five
Cyrus
“Somefin’ is boverin’ you,” Fallon slurred from where he was sprawled out in the back seat of my SUV. It was preplanned that I would be his designated driver, but I hadn’t anticipated him drinking quite this much at the engagement party.
“Nothing is bothering me,” I said flatly.
I kept my eyes on the road and tightened my grip on the steering wheel.
I really didn’t need him blabbing to Atlas about what happened.
Tegan would inevitably find out and it would get back to Reece that I’d said something…
And the mating bond? There was no way I was even remotely ready to talk about that. I was still processing it myself.
Fallon sat up and leaned in close. “I know you, Cyyyy…Did somefin’ happen with Reece?”
Gods. We’d been friends for too long. He knew something was up. Just like he always did.
I took a deep breath, and the tentacles wrapped around my arms relaxed slightly. “I—I think I made Tegan’s brother uncomfortable. He made a comment about me being an artist—”
Fallon gasped. “No. What did he say?”
“Just the usual criticism, but when I corrected him, he was worried he’d offended me. Then my tentacle reached out and grabbed his arm. Like it was trying to reassure him it was fine.”
“Tha’ doesn’t sound too bad. Your tentacles are jus’ touchy-feely.”
I sighed and rubbed the fin on the side of my head with one of my tentacles. Fallon could be exhausting, especially when he was drunk.
“He pulled his arm away so fast.” I lowered my voice, my throat feeling tight at the memory. “Like he thought I was disgusting.”
Fallon gasped again, this time so loud I nearly swerved the car into oncoming traffic.
“Fallon!” I yelled, but he was completely unaffected.
He simply leaned closer and nuzzled his beak against my shoulder. “Don’t you ever say tha’, Cy. You’re beautiful. Tha’ guy is an asshole.”
I tried to fight off a smile. Even if he was annoying and drunk, Fallon was a good friend. And he was right; Reece was an asshole. A handsome asshole, but still an asshole.
“Thanks, Fal.” I ran a tentacle through the downy feathers along his neck.
“Do you thin’ we can stop at Tito’s Tacos on the way home? I’m starving.”
Tito’s Tacos was a Tex-Mex fast-food establishment that was outside of Briar Glenn, right off the interstate. The drive there and back was at least forty minutes. But it wasn’t like I had anything better to do besides lie in bed and sulk.
I sighed again. “Sure.”
“Yaaay,” Fallon drawled as I pulled onto the highway.
After a few miles of silence, I glanced in the rearview and noticed Fallon slumped over in the seat.
“Did you have a nice time at the party?” I asked. I already knew the answer was a resounding yes, but I wanted to keep him talking. If I was driving out of my way to get him food, he was going to stay awake and keep me company.
“Yeah,” Fallon murmured. “It was good.”
“It seemed like you got along well with that one guy. What was his name?” Tegan had introduced us, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember his name. Just that he was incredibly attractive.
Not as attractive as Reece, though.
“Javier!” Fallon screeched. “He’s a li’l sweetie pie.”
“Ah, yes. That’s him. The type of sweetie pie who forces you to take shots with him.”
“Mm-hmm,” he hummed. “My fav’rite.”
“Don’t you think you’re getting a little too old for shots?”
He shushed me. Or tried to at least. Because of his beak, it didn’t quite have the same effect. “Your friend only gets engaged once.”
I laughed. “Atlas has been engaged twice, Fal.”
“Pshhh. The first one didn’t count.”
No. No, it did not. Prior to meeting Tegan, Atlas was in a fourteen-year relationship with his girlfriend from college.
Fallon and I hated her just as much as she hated us, and when Atlas called off their relationship, we let out a collective sigh of relief.
Our friend deserved someone who loved him for who he was, not for what he could give them, and he’d found that in Tegan.
“What would you like?” I asked Fallon as I pulled into the drive-through of Tito’s Tacos. “Your usual?”
He leaned over my shoulder, his beady eyes scanning the flickering menu board for a moment before he finally said, “Yeah. The usual.”
I should have known.
I rolled my eyes, gave the lovely person working the drive-through our order, and pulled up to the pickup window.
“Any sauces?” the very unamused-looking naga working the drive-through asked.
“Ghost pepper!” Fallon shouted from the back seat.
The drive-through window snapped shut, and a moment later, the girl returned, thrusting a grease-stained paper bag and what appeared to be a gallon of soda in my direction.
“Thank you,” I said, but she was already closing the window and slithering away.
I passed Fallon his drink and the heavy bag of food. “Fal, I swear, if you throw up in my car, I will—”
“Cy,” he slurred, “you know I have an iron stomach.”
“Bullshit, you do,” I said with a laugh.
“Don’t tell Javier about that.” Between his state of intoxication and beakful of tacos, I could just barely make out what he was saying. “He won’ wanna hang out with me.”
“Oh? You’re already making plans to see each other again?” I asked with a smile.
“Yeah. I got his number an’ everything.”
“A new love connection?” I teased.
Fallon chuckled. “No way. But I’m gonna pick up so many girls wif him around.”
“I hope that doesn’t backfire on you.”
He ignored me, happily eating his tacos and slurping away on his soda.
By some stroke of luck, I managed to keep Fallon awake for the drive back to our apartment building. Now I just had to get him inside and up to our apartment.
“Come on,” I said, opening the back door of the SUV for Fallon. “Let’s get you to bed.”
He tried to climb out of the back seat, but his massive wings got stuck on the doorframe. “Shit,” he giggled, making me laugh. I was past the point of annoyance and found his drunken antics amusing.
When he finally worked his wings free, he stumbled, nearly falling face-first onto the pavement.
“Whoa there.” I reached out with my tentacles, scooping him up under his armpits. At six foot three, with the muscular upper body of a bird and the lower body of a lion, Fallon was by no means a small monster. I was just that strong.
“Thanks, buddy,” he mumbled as we made our way inside the building.
“It’s no problem.” I held him steady in front of the elevator while I pushed the button for our floor.
While we waited for the doors to open, he leaned into me, rubbing his soft feathers against my shoulder. “I’m so lucky to have you, Cy.”
I patted his head affectionately. “I’m lucky to have you, Fal.” It was the honest truth. He could be a pain in the ass, but he was a good friend.
We rode the elevator up to our floor, and I led Fallon inside our penthouse.
“Bathroom,” he shrieked, bringing his arm up to his mouth. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Oh, fuck me,” I hissed, dragging him into the hall bathroom. I knew drunken tacos were a bad idea, but I’d humored him anyway.
Fallon heaved into the toilet a few times, and when I was sure he was no longer at risk of choking on his own vomit, I got him into bed and retired to my room.
“Fuck,” I groaned, collapsing onto my mattress.
Moonlight drifted into the room from the skylight above my bed, the stars twinkling against a backdrop of black velvet. It was late and I was exhausted, but every time I closed my eyes and tried to drift off to sleep, the same memory clouded my brain: Reece Rollins.
Pleasure.
The first word he ever spoke to me in that deep voice. It was like a caress against my soul, and exactly what I wanted to bring him. When I made him laugh, a warm, genuine, full-body laugh, it felt like I’d won the lottery.
As Fallon and I had already established, the guy was an asshole. But he was hot. Vivid green eyes, silky red hair, and I was sure I’d find a perfectly sculpted body underneath his clothes.
My mate called to the creative part of my brain like a siren drawing me in.
For the first time in months, I felt inspired.
I had to paint him.
The apartment was fairly quiet as I shuffled across the hall to my studio. Light snores came from Fallon’s room, but he wouldn’t be waking anytime soon. Even if he did, he was used to my odd hours. He’d probably feel relieved that I was painting again.
My tentacle flicked the light switch, illuminating the open space with warm white light. For me, this room was the major draw of the apartment.
One wall was composed entirely of windows, allowing an abundance of natural light to fill the studio during the day, and the black of the starlit sky to shroud the space at night.
The opposite wall was lined with canvases. Some were finished pieces awaiting gallery display, and others were pristine white backdrops, ready for inspiration to strike.
And tonight it had in the form of a fiery-haired god.
I queued up The Cure on my phone, and Robert Smith’s crooning voice flowed out of the studio’s surround sound, allowing me to get lost in the music while I set to work sketching out the scene.
For several hours I painted, applying layer after layer of color to the canvas until the sun began to rise.
I hummed the notes in unison with the guitar, my head bobbing to the beat of the music with each stroke of my brush against the canvas.
My tentacle stilled as the last few notes drifted out of the speakers, and I shuffled back to get a better look at the piece I was working on.
I’d covered the canvas in a dusky sea blue. In the center, I’d painted a merman and a human man tangled together in a romantic embrace. Sunlight filtered down into the water and illuminated the bright red strands of the human’s hair—almost like a halo.
The merman’s handsome face was solemn as he clung to his lover beneath the surface. He knew their time together was waning. Two worlds separated by vast differences.
It was wishful thinking.
All the things I’d dreamt of laid out on canvas.
Would my mate ever look at me that way?
I’d never be a handsome merman.
With a deep sigh, I rinsed my brushes, shut off the lights, and closed the door to the studio.