Chapter Thirty-Four

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Crow

It felt like I blinked and the snow was melting. We’d spent the last of winter fucking, working on the truck, and painting. Our nights reading together and playing cards.

I still liked to do the cooking, but I trusted Cyrus to make food for me. He took Sundays as his day—while Cyrus liked the control I still needed, he also didn’t want to only do the taking. His words, not mine. I didn’t see it as Cyrus taking from me. He gave me more than I could ever give him.

I enjoyed feeding him, not just by making the meals, but feeding him from my hand, which had now become part of our life. Not every day, but we both felt it when the other needed it, wanted it, and like everything else between us, it slipped into place perfectly, this thing that was always meant to be.

We had retrieved the snowmobile, but it was shot and would need parts to fix. I could likely do it, but it was something that had to wait until we went down the mountain again…which brought me to today. I’d been dreading this day for months, probably since the first day I brought Cyrus up the mountain with me. It was time to go into Tranquility. Cyrus had things to deal with, a life to sort out. I trusted him, believed in him, but a part of me would always fear that he would wake up one day and realize he didn’t belong to the mountain the way I did. And that I would have to leave it because now Cyrus was my true home.

“Are you okay?” he asked as I drove. My only answer was to tighten my hands on the steering wheel and nod.

“The words are trapped? That happens when you’re emotional.”

The way this man understood me, the way he supported me, made the chaos in my soul begin to ease.

I gave another nod. He deserved to know what I was feeling.

“I’ll be okay, Crow. I’m not going anywhere. Ever. I promise.”

“I wouldn’t allow it.”

He chuckled.

“I wouldn’t.” Because I would go with him.

“Good. It makes me feel wanted that you would never let me go. While everyone else threw me away, you cherish me. It gets me horny.”

This time it was me who chuckled. He could always unwind me when I was strung too tightly.

“I’m going home with you, Crow. I will always go home with you. We belong on the mountain together.”

Maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe it wasn’t smart. There were things we had to figure out. That was proven by me getting sick and the wreck, but the mountain was ours.

We didn’t talk much the rest of the way down. The plan was to go to his apartment. We were going to pack it up, and what we didn’t bring up the mountain, we’d donate or take to the dump. Once we had the apartment cleaned, Cyrus was getting out of his lease.

He was planning on meeting Melody for lunch while I went to pick up the parts I’d ordered for the snowmobile, which were at the post office. Then I’d make a trip to the hardware store.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go with Melody and me?” he asked when we got to the apartment. It already felt like I didn’t fit in my skin, like my whole body was in a cast and I couldn’t move. It was like that every time I left home.

I grunted out my reply.

“She wants to meet you…”

I shifted uncomfortably. “Not… I can’t…”

“Maybe one day,” Cyrus replied, and I nodded. One day I would find a way to give him that. He deserved it, but I couldn’t yet.

“Have you ever been to a restaurant?”

My head whipped in his direction. I was scandalized by that question. Cyrus laughed, clutching his stomach as the sweet sound fell from his lips.

“Okay, dumb question.”

It wasn’t as if Chosen had ever brought us to one, allowed us to go to one, and I refused to eat out when I was in foster care. How could I ever trust people to make food for me like that?

But it was something Cyrus would want to do sometimes. Just another thing to figure out.

We went into his apartment. It smelled musty from not being lived in. We spent the next couple of hours working together. We had just gotten the back of the truck filled for me to take to the dump, when Melody arrived in Cyrus’s car.

She gave me a wave from inside, and I appreciated that she didn’t get out, likely because of the man standing beside me. He would have warned her for me.

“I’ll be back, okay?” Cyrus gave me a small, unsure smile, then started toward his friend.

I grabbed his wrist, pulling him to me, then took his mouth with mine. The need to claim him was too strong to deny. I rubbed my face against his, as if I could bathe him in my scent, warning everyone he was mine and to stay away.

“Okay, that was hot. Hold that thought until I get back.”

I tried to smile but couldn’t.

“I love you,” Cyrus said, and the ball in my chest loosened.

“I love you too.”

I could live off the smile he gave me in return.

I watched until the car was out of sight.

After the dump, I made my trip to the hardware store, then the post office. When Cyrus came back to the apartment, Melody wasn’t with him. He would be following me up the mountain in his car. I didn’t like the idea, worried it wasn’t safe, but Cyrus stood firm in his decision.

The second he reached me, I pulled him into my arms, kissed him, then fucked him over the kitchen counter.

“God, I needed that,” he said breathlessly, fingers clinging and touching. “I missed you too. It was hard to be away from you.”

I nodded, sucking and licking at his throat.

“Can we go to the grocery store and then hurry home?”

I breathed out a sigh of relief. “Yes.” My voice was rough with the same need as his.

There were some foods Cyrus wanted, things he’d been craving that we hadn’t had all winter, like ice cream and Cool Ranch Doritos. Apparently, he was a big fan of both, and I didn’t eat either, so there hadn’t been any at the house.

We met at the grocery store and parked close to each other at the end of the lot. My nerves twisted up my insides, tying me into tight knots. I hated the eyes on me, but even more than that… “They will look at you differently, treat you differently because of me.”

Cyrus frowned, looking at me like he couldn’t believe I’d said that. “Fuck them. All of them. I don’t care what they think. I’ve spent my life being an outsider. It’s where I belong.”

“It’s where I belong too.”

Cyrus nodded, grinned, then interlaced our fingers. I didn’t pull away, wanted the stares from others now because they would see he was mine.

And stare they did, whispering, pointing, but we shopped together, heads held high, hands tight together as we got Cyrus’s junk food and flavored coffee creamer.

When we went through the line, the cashier, a woman who looked to be around fifty, with slight lines around her eyes, looked at us and smiled. “How are you two today?”

Again, relief escaped me on a whoosh of breath.

“We’re good, thank you. Just getting some essentials,” Cyrus told her. I couldn’t give her words, couldn’t give them to anyone here.

“Cereal?” She quirked a playful brow.

“Obviously.”

She and Cyrus chatted while she finished checking us out, before she said, “Have a good day.” Then looked at me. “You too, Crow.”

I would still never belong here. There would always be people who treated us badly, but maybe, just maybe, it would all be okay.

I gave her a nod in return.

We took the groceries out to the vehicles, Cyrus pushing the cart while I kept my hand on his nape in support.

My body stiffened as we got closer and I noticed a police cruiser on the other side of my truck. I stopped Cyrus, putting him behind me, worried they were going to try to take him away, take me away.

“Crow?” he asked as Officer Paulson approached.

“I heard the two of you were in town. News travels fast.”

I growled, and he held up his hands. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

Cyrus stepped around me, gave me a comforting smile, then approached Paulson. I watched him, fought every instinct inside me to pull him close and keep him safe.

Cyrus reached out…and shook Paulson’s hand. “Thank you, for your help last year. It means a lot to us. I…I don’t know how to thank you.”

“It’s not necessary,” he replied. “It was the right thing to do. The two of you weren’t hurting anyone.” He looked at me. “You can trust me. If you need anything, just let me know.”

I couldn’t move, not at first. I studied him for any sign that he was lying, that he was waiting to pounce, but he wouldn’t do that, would he? Officer Paulson had helped us. There was a kindness in his eyes that couldn’t be faked.

I nodded.

He smiled. “Billy has been a bear to deal with lately. Be careful when you’re down here, okay? And if you want to call me before you come to town, you can. I’ll keep an eye on things.”

“Thank you,” Cyrus told him. “We appreciate that.”

Paulson nodded, told us goodbye, and then was on his way.

Cyrus came to me, held my face in his hands, and pulled me down for a kiss. “It’s all going to be okay. For the first time in my life, I know it’s going to be okay.” He kissed me again. “Come on, Crow. Let’s go home.”

“Home,” I told him. We put the bags in his car, then went home together, to the mountain, where we both belonged.