Chapter 5 - Lena

I want so badly to trust him. It feels like the most natural thing in the world. He claims he's here to keep me safe, but then he's lying about his job. What else is he lying about?

"Please, I can't tell you more. But do you really think I would lie to you?"

"I don't think my judgment can really be trusted now, can it? I didn't think you would be able to leave me the way you did, either. And you have lied to me."

"That's not fair. There were circumstances you can't understand."

"Because you didn't tell me, and you still won't tell me. You're lying. Still."

"Lena, please. This is killing me. I just need to keep you and Rose safe."

Do not even think about it. You will not cave for that man.

I close the shop door and lock it behind me, turning toward Gunn's Diner. I keep my eyes strategically turned away from him as he falls in step beside me. We have been arguing for a solid hour since he walked into my shop this morning. The tension between us is driving me insane. He has been ridiculously persistent since the night at the bar with Merl.

I'm pretty sure if I don't eat something soon, I'm either going to bite him or fuck him. Neither really seems like the appropriate course of action today.

"I need food. And then I will listen. Okay?"

I am trying to tell my raging hormones to go back to their cave. His presence is too close, and it immediately has my skin tingling with anticipation. It reminds me of the feeling you get when trying to separate two magnets.

It's raining again. The small gaps between building awnings allow the rain to catch me in between. I try to let the chilly water snap me out of my feelings. I need it to strengthen my resolve.

I approach the diner door, but before I can even reach out for the handle, he steps around in front of me and holds the door open. His large bicep pulls at the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt and my eyes catch on the sight of it.

I love his arms… Damn it, why does he smell so good?

My vagina and my ability to control rational thoughts are clearly in a desperate battle of wills, and the hormones are winning this one.

Food. You need food, now!

The close quarters of the doorway have me inhaling deeply. The smell of him floods my senses. It's a mingled fragrance of sandalwood, amber, and just him. I'm pretty sure just the scent of him alone has me instantly wet. Damn it again. I'm going to need to come up with a new expletive soon.

I step around him and into the diner, irritated that he's once again wearing sunglasses in the rain. "Those sunglasses still look stupid. The sun hasn't been out all week."

I hear the rumble of a chuckle from his chest as I pass, and I remember the way it felt laying on his chest when he would laugh like that. My libido is doing backflips at the memory, the smell of him, and the nearness. Stop it. Control yourself, Lena.

"Thought you'd been too busy pretending I don't exist to notice."

I stop dead as I cross the threshold and feel him step behind me as the door creaks shut. Hard muscles from his thighs brush against my butt, and images of him hugging me from behind flash through my mind.

Stupid height difference always was one of the best things.

Gunn's is packed. I'm glad to see he at least isn't going to struggle for business while the rain is unseasonably heavy for the end of tourist season. There are only two seats left at the bar.

The pit of dread and anticipation growing in my stomach is not helpful as he stays alarmingly close to me as we walk through the diner. With relief, I pull myself up onto the tall bar stool and sling my purse over the back. At least in a chair, I don't have him lurking behind me, reminding me of just how good it feels to have him close.

"Well, it looks like I'll get that lunch date after all," Tom's high-pitched voice floats from my other side.

Shit, shit, double shit.

"Oh. Tom, I didn't see you there. Date? This isn"t a date. I just need lunch. I don't date."

Tom's unnerving stare shifts from me to Cyrus behind me and sours immediately.

"I don't date," I repeat, feeling like it definitely bears repeating with these two.

There's tension between the two of them. I don't like being in the middle of it. I don't enjoy being close to Tom anyway, but the feeling that Cyrus is about to climb over me is so palpable that I put a hand on his thigh in caution.

Regret instantly floods through me as that familiar warmth races up from my hand. I look down at my hand, his thigh, then up at his eyes, but they're still focused over my shoulder at Thomas. Oh boy.

I squeeze my hand and watch as a muscle in his jaw feathers, but his eyes don't budge. Tom makes some sort of shift, and I glance back at him. I feel a bit like I'm in the crowd of a tennis match as my eyes snap from one to the other, my head following slightly as it goes. What the heck is wrong with both of them?

He drops his hand to his thigh to cover mine and squeezes it back. I want so badly to just lean into the feeling of safety his nearness seems to bring my body, while my mind is still struggling with how to handle the proximity.

Tom has always been a bit creepy. I have never been able to place it. Everyone else likes to argue with me that he's really very charming, but I feel like he puts up a front. Something about him screams dishonesty to me. He seems downright hostile towards Cyrus.

I don't remember Cyrus being jealous, but we also didn't come up for air much other than to be with Rose. We'd kind of kept to ourselves. Since he's been back, it's like he's in full-blown caveman mode. Maybe it is just another side of him along with the abandonment issue that I need to keep in mind. Just something else I can remind myself is a negative when my body wants to lose itself around him.

I'm grateful when Mrs. Lee Gunnison walks up with a frazzled but happy smile on her face and a cup of coffee in hand for me.

"What can I get you two today? Is he with you, Lena?"

Her eyes dip to my hand on his thigh, then back up to my eyes expectantly, and I can see that nosey glint of hope and glee in her eyes.

I pull my hand back like it was dipped in acid and shake my head furiously. I can't shake the loss of his hand making me feel less whole. It's confusing, and not helping me navigate this complicated mess.

The absolute last thing I need is for Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Susan to get it in their heads that I am interested in Cyrus, let alone any man. They will pounce like a pack of hyenas on it, and I'll never hear the end.

"Oh, no! Not with me. I don't know him. I don't date." I'm floundering, and I know it. I can feel the blood rushing to my cheeks as I blush hard.

"You've already said that. You're also a terrible liar, Lena," Cyrus sighs.

His voice is low and smooth, like honey. Mrs. Lee giggles a little while Tom makes some sort of snorting sound in the back of his throat. Wonderful.

I level him with a glare, but he still doesn't meet my eyes. He is still looking down over my shoulder at Tom. Maybe he's more interested in Tom than me.

"Really," I reassure Mrs. Lee, "I don't. He's not with me. He doesn't know me. No."

Smooth, Lena. Real smooth. The verbal gibberish is very convincing.

"I know Lena from a while back," Cyrus offers, his tone softening as he turns to face Mrs. Lee. He graces her with a warm smile, "We have just been trying to get reacquainted, and apparently, I fluster her. Could I get some coffee as well? I'll have to rely on Lena to tell me what's best to eat here for lunch these days."

He sounds so confident and smooth. I want to elbow him hard over it. It's not fair that he gets to leave like he did, and then he suddenly shows up and is perfectly in control. Absolute jerk.

He reaches an arm around me, resting it casually on the back of my bar stool, and I feel myself sway slightly as my traitorous body wants to melt into that circle of his arm. Mrs. Lee bites her lips in a feeble attempt to keep from laughing at whatever she sees on my face before she turns away to go and find more coffee.

"You're an ass," I whisper while trying to ignore the sulking Tom next to me or the weird tension that is still seeping through my body while stuck between them.

I'm doing my best to stare ahead at the wall that contains a collection of antiques and town history. I am not going to give him the satisfaction of interacting with him. Not doing it.

"It takes one to know one, Dear."

"That's rich," I snap as I turn and glare up at him, finding his eyes trained back on Thomas over my shoulder. "I am pretty sure you have no right to call me an ass in this situation. At least I can take comfort in the fact that you seem to have found a new love interest in Tom. You two want me to switch places so you can have your moment uninterrupted?"

That snaps him out of his obsessive glaring at Tom for some reason. Cyrus looks down at me in confusion with a look of intense hurt behind his eyes. It's not fair. His eyes, carrying that little bit of hurt, make me pause. It thaws my icy resolve just a smidge. I don't want to acknowledge it, but deep down, I don't want him to hurt. I'm just trying to protect myself here.

"There's no one else. Never was and never could be," Cyrus whispers softly, and I feel like my bar stool is turning to liquid underneath me. I just need to melt into the floor.

He can't be serious. Can he? One, I was definitely joking. Two, there is no world where a man who looks like him has stayed single for eight years.

Mrs. Lee's return gives me a welcome excuse to break the far too intense eye contact. She's bubbly and asks us again what we'd like. She insists on getting Tom some more of his water, even though he stiffly tells her he's fine.

"You may as well just go with it, Tom. There's no arguing with Mrs. Lee when she sets her mind to something," I laugh awkwardly with a nod in his direction, trying poorly to diffuse the tension, "Let me guess, she talked you into the meatloaf too?"

Tom gives a strained nod and laughs awkwardly. "How'd you know?"

I can feel Cyrus tensing behind me again as I try to engage in conversation with anyone else, especially Tom. Cyrus's presence is smothering, and I am not sure I will last a whole lunch trying to think clearly, resist the urge to climb in his lap, or avoid choking on my food like an absolute idiot all at the same time. Or even choking him in a fit of irritation. That sounds like a perfectly rational response right now.

"It's Tuesday. You can't go to Gunn's on Tuesday and get anything besides the meatloaf. Those are just the rules. How have you been here three years and not discovered that yet?"

Something funny passes across Tom's face. I'm not really sure how to place it.

"Tom rarely comes in, so it's nice to finally see him here. How about you? Two meatloaf lunch plates then, Lena?" Mrs. Lee asks with a twinkle in her eye.

She and her husband Marty had been running the diner since he took it over from his father over fifty years before. They still got around well enough most days. Still, they had hired a new cook, Bobby, last year to let Marty take two days off a week, and much as he tries to keep offering other specials, Bobby seems to have only really mastered serving up green beans and mashed potatoes with Mrs. Lee's meatloaf on his Tuesday shifts. As a town, we just enable him as an unspoken rule.

"Yes, please," I nod in Cyrus's direction, "Much as I may want to punch him in the throat, I wouldn't want to be responsible for poisoning him with Bobby's burgers. No one deserves that. Can you make mine to go, please? I forgot something, and I think I need to get back to the shop."

"No worries, Lena. I'll send one of the boys down with it when it's done."

I pull a twenty out of my purse and push it across the counter but stop as Tom's hand reaches out and clamps down on mine. A wave of instant revulsion courses through me and I shrink back against Cyrus's arm, which tenses around me.

"Let me buy you lunch. I'll bring it down when it's ready." Tom's voice is weirdly insistent. I don't like it.

"No, Tom. That's kind, but I couldn't possibly accept. Thank you for the offer, but no. I really do mean it. I don't date." I try to pull my hand back, but he clamps down harder on it. I can feel Cyrus's breath hot on my neck as he leans closer to me.

"Let her go. Now."

I want to snap at Cyrus and tell him to back off and that I have it under control, but there's something dark and desperate in Tom's eyes that causes me to pause before the words leave my lips. I resist the urge to lean back further into Cyrus for comfort, as tempting as that may be.

Tom's eyes flick from mine up to Cyrus over my shoulder, and a strange tension settles deep in my stomach. I don't know what male pissing match I just landed in the middle of, but I want no part of it. I pull my hand back hard and, this time, Tom lets it go.

I leave the twenty on the bar and spin to slide off the bar stool, which puts me directly in the circle of Cyrus's arms, between his legs, and staring at his chest. I look up and he's still fixated on Tom over my shoulder. I jab him roughly in the abs.

"Earth to caveman. Can I please get out of here?"

He looks down, almost surprised to see me standing in the close space in front of him between his muscular thighs. I can't take this much closeness. Between the look in his eyes that seems to burn straight through to my soul and the smell of him that's so familiar, I am fighting for control over myself. He still doesn't move.

A groan of frustration slips out of me, and I stamp my foot like a petulant toddler. This seems to finally be enough to snap him out of it, and he moves his arm and leg out of the way as I push past him.

"Thanks, Mrs. Lee," I call over my shoulder as I bolt for the door, "Just let Tommy or whoever run that down when they get a chance. No rush."

My eyes pause on the image of Cyrus and Thomas locked in the world's longest staring contest across my now empty stool. Ridiculous. Both of them. I don't like this weird possessive thing that Cyrus is doing. He has no right. I'm also not totally willing to admit to myself how grateful I am that he was there. I have no idea what's gotten into Tom, but I don't like it.

I let my mind wander as I duck from awning to awning back to my shop, dodging the rain and puddles as best I can. My train of thought is decidedly single-minded on the topic of Cyrus. I frown as I approach the door, finding it open. This storm must have been stronger. I could have sworn I shut it behind me.

I make it two steps into the shop before a flood of dread hits me seeing glass shattered across the floor from my copper nugget display case. There's a sharp crack as something impacts the back of my head, and the room fades to black.