Cyrus (The Henchmen MC 9)

I totally did do that when the book was pocket-sized.

He got me.

I wasn't sure if anyone had ever truly gotten me before.

People knew me, sure. Like my family. They knew my habits and quirks. But no one seemed to understand me.

Cyrus did.

"Exactly," I agreed.

"So, you're going to need to pack about... four of them in your bag," he concluded.

"Four sweaters for a day? I don't... what?" I asked when he gave me another keen smile.

"We're going for a long weekend."

"Wait... what?"

"We'll go up today, explore a little, then do Bookjam tomorrow, and then checkout is Sunday morning, so we can head back then."

A whole long weekend in the city with Cyrus?

In a hotel room?

Oh.

In, um, the same bed?

"What's the matter?" he asked, always seeming to read me far too easily.

"Nothing. I was just thinking. We'll be back by like two on Sunday right?" I asked, trying to cover my discomfort with a change in topic.

"Don't worry, I'll have you home before the Wrath of Kenzi befalls you."

I had maybe gone off one late Sunday night when we met for coffee after a particularly stressful cooking session with my sister.

The monster actually took my book and hid it so I couldn't sneak off to read.

"Okay, good."

There was another pause, and Cyrus clinked my mug with his. "Guess that hasn't kicked in fully, huh?

"What?"

"You gotta pack, angel. Chop chop."

I laughed, shaking my head as I moved down the hall.

I noticed about five feet down that he was following me.

"What?" he asked innocently, tucking his hands into his front pockets, making his shoulders hunch forward slightly. "I didn't get a tour."

And the apartment was in no shape for one either. But there was no stopping him, I was sure, with an argument as weak as that one.

So we passed Kenzi's old room, the walls still as she left them. Except now there were a ton of Ikea bookshelves lining them, and a big, old, lumpy, amazingly hideous burgundy couch that had been around since I was a little kid. My mom was ready to throw the old thing - that she had been keeping in her spare room - away when I intercepted it and saved it. I spent way too many hours laying in various positions, falling in love, having adventures, seeing new worlds on that couch for it to end up in a trash heap.

So what if the cushion was dented in the very center and the wood part would dig into your butt? Who sat directly in the middle of a couch anyway?

"Damn, there must be ten grand worth of books in here."

"Um..."

He turned to me, brow raised. "More?"

"More than double that. Average eight a book. There are about three thousand books here."

"Christ. Fuck the jewelry; raid the library."

"Don't even joke about them getting stolen," I gasped in mock-horror, clutching a hand to my chest.

"Don't worry, with all those locks, I think your paperbacks are safe," he said, putting an arm over my shoulders as I moved back into the hall toward my bedroom.

There was an odd surge of insecurity as we stepped into my bedroom with its mellow light yellow walls, my full-sized bed with its white lacey comforter, my nightstands piled with books I was currently reading, or planned to read next, my small white desk near my closet, facing the wall, with piles of paperwork for the library, bills, and three coffee cups I had somehow forgotten to clean up.

"This is very you," Cyrus declared, making me even more self-conscious. What did that even mean? "It's very, I don't know, soft-looking. Like you," he added, bumping my hip before moving to sit off the end of my bed.

Soft?

Soft... how?

Soft as in, like sweet?

Or soft as in I could use to lose a few pounds?

I mean, I could, that was for sure.

But that would be a pretty crummy thing to say to me.

"Ree," Cy's voice called. When my head shot up, his chin ducked a little. "What'd I say?"

"That I'm soft," I answered without thinking.

"And you're taking that as a bad thing... oh, get the fuck out of here," he said, smiling huge, somewhat inappropriately big given the circumstances. "First, you're the right amount of soft in your body, angel. Fucking perfect. Second, I would never comment on a woman's weight because that's about the biggest dick move you can pull. And third, if I had said something like that, your reaction should be to tell me to get the fuck out of your apartment, not worry if it was true."

I knew he was right. I was even raised on that very same mentality. But where ideas like that really seemed to sink into Kenzi and take root, for me, there had always been a bit of a problem with my security regarding my appearance. No matter how badly I tried. And I had the self-help books and browser history to prove it.