26. Cyrus

26

CYRUS

B zz, bzz.

My eyes fluttered open and I turned to look outside through the window. It was pitch black and far too early for my alarm to be going off. I must have been dreaming. I turned over in bed and closed my eyes again, letting out a tired exhale.

Bzz, bzz .

I opened my eyes again, this time staring up at the ceiling. The noise wasn’t in my head. My phone was ringing, and at this time in the night, it could only be bad news.

In the dark, I pawed around for the device before my hands closed over it and I grabbed it, answering the call a second before I got the phone up to my ear.

“Hello?” I mumbled.

“Hello, Cyrus. Were you asleep?” If I wasn’t conscious enough before answering the phone, Irving’s serious, sobering voice was enough to jolt me awake.

“I was, but no matter. Has something happened?” I sat up in bed, heart pounding as I waited to hear what tragedy had befallen my coworker. “Is Sylvan all right?”

“Yes, Sylvan is perfectly well, as am I. But we do have a surprise visitor tonight and he needs a ride home. I would take him myself, but my car is parked out by the road proper and you know how long a trek that is from the cabin. Only a truck like yours could make it all the way down the dirt road safely.”

I blinked a few times, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. The time on the clock read just past midnight.

“A visitor? Who might the visitor be?”

Before Irving could answer, a voice in the background broke through: “I told you it’s no trouble at all; just give me some directions and I’ll walk back home. I was already planning to do that when I got lost.”

Nico .

“It’s your boyfriend,” Irving said dryly.

“He’s not my boyfriend anymore.”

“He told me as much. Listen, if you don’t want to come, Nico can sleep on the couch for the night and Sylvan will take him back to his apartment in the morning.”

“I don’t mind,” Nico called out.

Irving sighed and paused, waiting for Nico to pipe up a third time. When he spoke again, his tone was hushed. “You don’t have to come get him, but you’re a fool if you think he’s not still into you. That man has not shut up about you once since he arrived on our doorstep.”

“Really?” My heart skipped a beat.

“Yes. I would never lie to you, Cyrus. This poor fellow is smitten.”

“Tell him I’ll be there in an hour.” I was already getting out of bed and unbuttoning my pajama top so I could put some proper clothes on. “Don’t let him go back out into the cold.”

“I won’t.”

“You promise you won’t let him leave?”

“Of course.”

“All right, I’ll see you soon.”

“Bye, Cyr–“

I hung up, dressed into day clothes, and tried to run a comb through my tangles before giving up and dropping the comb back onto the bathroom counter. I brushed my teeth with the toothbrush that was twice the size of the one Nico had left before returning to the bedroom to throw the sheets back over my bed. It wasn’t made well, but at least it would be more inviting to pull back the covers and get into when I got back home – if I got home before morning at all.

The road to Sylvan’s cabin was empty, allowing me to drive faster than I usually would, but as the paved road turned to gravel and eventually dirt, I was forced to slow to a crawl. My truck could handle the bumpy path well enough, but overgrown tree branches scraped at the sides like fingernails on a chalkboard.

I made it to the log cabin in record time and parked my truck outside, hoping Sylvan wouldn’t be too upset about the fumes poisoning his perfect garden and overgrown field.

I was about to knock on the door when it opened before me and the freckle-faced fae on the other side grinned, waving me inside.

“Come in, come in. There’s tea in the kitchen and some leftover cake in the fridge from a few days ago.”

“Oh, thank you, but I’m not hungry.” I smiled politely and ducked through the door, taking in how small the cabin was inside.

It was not made for an orc, that was certain, but Sylvan and Irving looked happy and cozy in their little home, and that was all that mattered. A pang of loneliness shot through my chest. If I were a fae – or a human – I might have been able to have something like this too.

“Where’s Nico?” I asked.

“He went with Irving to get some ice from the freezer chest out in the back,” Sylvan explained. “They should return in just a moment–“

The door opened and Irving stepped inside with Nico in tow. One look from Irving told me everything I needed to know. He hurried over to the kitchen after a quick nod for a greeting, dragging Sylvan with him.

Nico walked up to me sheepishly, hands clasped behind his back. “Hello, Cyrus,” he said quietly.

“Hello, Nico. I heard that you’re in need of a ride home.”

He nodded. “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble getting here.”

“Not at all. Shall we get you home before it gets too late? I’m sure you want to get to bed as much as I do.”

“Yeah, that would be great. Um, thanks.” He glanced up toward the kitchen. “And thank you both for your hospitality.”

Irving nodded. “Any time.”

Sylvan scurried over, grabbing Nico’s wrists so he could hold his hands. “Remember what we talked about,” he whispered.

Nico smiled awkwardly. “How could I forget?”

“Good.” Sylvan patted the top of Nico’s hand like one might pat a puppy’s head. “That’s what I hoped to hear.”

He let Nico go and we left the cabin together, getting back into the truck in utter silence. I revved the engine and the sound washed away the eerieness for a bit. The bumps in the road kept me focused ahead, but by the time we reached the main road, I knew one of us would have to talk eventually.

“What did you and Sylvan talk about?” I asked as casually as I could muster.

“Oh, dating and stuff,” Nico replied dismissively. “I went on that date with another orc, remember?”

“Ah, yes, I do remember now.” I’d never forgotten, but it was the last thing I wished to bring up. “How did it go?”

Nico shrugged. “Fine.”

“And did you go home with him?” My tone was even, but my hands trembled on the steering wheel as I waited for the answer. I gripped it tighter, my knuckles turning ashen.

“Yes,” he said hesitantly. “But, Cyrus, we didn’t do anything together. I couldn’t, so I left. That was how I ended up lost.”

I relaxed my grip on the steering wheel. It wasn’t up to me to tell Nico whom he could and couldn’t have sex with, but the thought of another orc holding him at night filled me with a level of jealousy I’d never experienced before and, quite frankly, didn’t think I was capable of experiencing until Nico left me. It had nearly consumed me before I finally fell asleep a few blessed hours earlier, and it came back with a vengeance now as Nico spoke about my replacement.

“He wasn’t like you at all,” Nico continued. “He was nice enough, and I think he was going to fuck me like I wanted an orc to, but he was a logger and he made fun of Sylvan and – and…” his voice trailed off.

“He wasn’t the right match for you,” I finished for him.

“No.” He shook his head. “Once I got to his house, I realized that I didn’t even want to hook up with him before getting out of there. There’s only one person in the world I want to be with these days, and, I’m beginning to think there’s only one right match for me in the whole entire world.” He glanced in my direction and inhaled shakily. “Except that I’m an idiot and I already let that match go.”

I could have sworn my heartbeat stopped for a second before returning harder and faster than ever before. “Oh?”

“Yeah, and I’m not sure how to get him back.”

“Maybe you don’t have to try to find a way to get him back. Maybe if you just tell him what you told me, he’ll be happy to take you back.” I turned onto the road that led to my neighborhood, driving straight past Nico’s apartment.

“You think so?” he asked.

“I know so.” I pulled into my driveway and parked the truck. “Look at that, we’re home already and it’s not even morning yet.”

“Yes,” Nico smiled, “we’re home.”