Cyrus (The Henchmen MC 9)

It lowered the standard for all other books.

It was, well, cringy.

I physically cringed while reading it.

"Just give them what they want," Cy said from where he was perched on the long, low, curved, cherry wood circulation desk. Where I had repeatedly told him not to plant his butt every single time he dropped in. Which was at least twice a week. For the past month.

Apparently, I had an actual, real-life best friend.

That alone was beyond new for me. I don't ever recall having any tight friendships. In school I was shy and a bit nerdy, always keeping to myself during recess. After school, well, Mom generally kept a really close eye on us, or when she wasn't around, my grandmother or aunts. We weren't exactly around to just head out and try to find new after school friends. It wasn't a good area for girls to be walking around alone. Even as a kid I understood that.

Besides, books seemed better than the catty, back-handed meanness I saw a lot with the other kids at school.

As I got older, well, friendships were simply not easy to make as adults. I had the casual acquaintances I had made from the book clubs through the library, but no actual people I went out to eat or to see movies with or anything like that.

I never knew what I was missing out on either.

But, let me tell you, this having a friend thing was pretty cool.

I had always maybe figured that someone calling or texting and asking me to hang out was going to be a nuisance. I mean, what if I was in the middle of a really good chapter? Or only had one-hundred pages left, and wanted to power through?

Except, oddly, I found that whenever my phone rang, and I picked it up and heard, "Yo, angel face, what are you up to?" I almost always answered with 'nothing' even if I was in the middle of a war and my hero was critically wounded. Yes, even then, I put a bookmark in the page - because I wasn't some animal who dog-eared their precious paperbacks - got dressed, and met up with him.

I will admit that the first trip out or two, or maybe even three, had been a bit awkward. Or, maybe it would be fair to say they were somewhat awkward for me. Cyrus, well, he didn't seem to have an awkward bone in his body. Meanwhile, all two-hundred-and-six bones in my body were straight up awkward as could be. I fumbled for topics of conversation, relying a bit too heavily on book references, and maybe tripping over my words a bit.

Eventually though, and this was likely thanks to Cy's laid-back ease and confidence, things just sort of fell into place.

So far, we had been to The Creamery three times, out to dinner a couple towns over twice as much, to the movies, and several times, to the bookstore.

We hadn't seen each other's places yet though, except him seeing the outside of my apartment building when he picked me up occasionally. That was just not something we even discussed. I think, though he didn't say as much, that he was kind of trying to get me out of the house more, take me places, get me a little more comfortable with social interactions. When we went places, he made sure he struck up a conversation with a person or two, including me with it, coaxing me out of my shell little by little.

And, miracle of all miracles, it seemed to actually be working a bit. Sure, I'd never been some social butterfly. Also, possibly I only ever felt comfortable with it because he was there to jump in if things got awkward or the conversation got stale, but it was still nice to not feel like I was choking on my own tongue when I tried to interact with people outside of work.

It was nice.

An improvement.

Thanks to Cyrus.

We actually didn't have any plans to hang out after work tonight, but he would occasionally drop into the library if he was bored. It was just a short walk from the compound after all.

That was another place that had a seemingly unspoken 'do not enter' attached to it. He didn't invite me, not even when there were parties going on.

I would say I didn't think twice about this. But I thought twice. And thrice. And fifty-millionth.

Why?

Well, that was a good question.

He was my friend.

And friends sometimes went to parties without you. You know, like when it is with other friends that you don't know and possibly might not like. That kind of thing.

It shouldn't have bugged me.

Friends did things like that, and it was no big deal.

See, the problem was, even in my own darn head, when I thought of Cy, I had to make sure the word 'friend' was italicized, emphasized, blown up into huge neon letters, floating over my brain like a city billboard.