Page 157 of At Her Pleasure
Proposing dinner at her place should have confirmed Cyn’s understanding of that point. However, insightful as ever, Vera had recognized a lack of direct acknowledgement.
Okay. Take the final step. Cyn swallowed. “It’s been difficult to invite you all to my home. I’m sure you all figured out why a long time ago.”
No disagreement. They waited for her to continue. Her emotions surged. Cyn guessed it showed how much her and Mick’s relationship had advanced in just three weeks that her first thought was wishing he was here, at her back.
He couldn’t be. Not for this. But she had support just as strong, right in front of her.
She normally expressed her affection by giving them a lot of shit, but this moment brought raw and painful things to the top, knotted with a history of professional success, personal triumphs and stumbles.
Every revelation about loyalty, friendship and what family could be when you created it, rather than letting others set the terms, had been hard-won for Cyn. Up until this moment, she’d held back on full trust, even as she’d known she’d walk through fire and break through chest-high ice for every woman here.
“I’m inviting you because it’s time to let that wall fall. I don’t need it anymore. I’m also inviting you because of Mick.”
She looked toward Vera. “It is hard. Hard to find I’ve let someone inside me so deeply that I’ve handed him the ability to tear me to pieces. With his pain, of all things. Knowing I have you at my back, to help me put myself back together, so I can keep putting him back together, until he gets through the worst of this…I need you. I need you to know that. And I need him, more than I’ve ever needed anyone or anything in my whole life.”
Vera’s initial reaction may have unsettled her, but her response now left no questions. She reached over and captured Cyn’s hand in an unbreakable grip, her fingers strong and steady. “Don’t cry,” her friend teased her. “You’ll scare us all to death.”
“I’ll scare me to death.” Cyn held the hand a nice long moment, letting Skye take her other one. Ros and Abby had the expression they’d so often given each woman when she hit a crisis.
Anything you need, we’re here.
When Cyn released Skye and Vera, she pulled out her phone and sent a group text. “That’s my address. I don’t want to hear a damn word about it, by the way,” she warned. “Yes, it’s in the suburbs.”
“We figured it was a cottage deep in the forest, where everything was made of candy.” Skye used a monotone, Jenna Ortega Addams Family “Wednesday” voice. “To lure children.”
Cyn rolled her eyes. She could draw a deep breath again. Obviously realizing it would help her if they behaved as if nothing momentous had happened, everyone rose with their usual chatter. It brought the meeting to an official end. Vera left the room first. She met Cyn’s gaze before she disappeared, and though the smile was warm, there was something…sad in it.
It wouldn’t be until later that Cyn would reach a astonishing thought about that. Only Cyn and Vera had been left in the single life, and they’d known it was just a matter of time for Vera. She wanted to settle down, have a couple kids. She wasn’t actively seeking it, but when the time came, she’d welcome it.
Cyn had been sure it would happen for Vera, while she’d never expected it for herself. When the others went off at the end of the night, Vera would usually stay to have an extra drink with her, but Cyn had thought through what it would feel like when that wasn’t the case. Not in a worried-that-she’d-feel-alone way. It would just feel different. Being on her own, figuring out her own shit, because she could take care of herself—Cyn was good with that.
No. Cyn had to be mistaken about that expression. Vera was a “things happen when they’re supposed to happen” kind of person. Serene and balanced. Spiritual. She liked her life, her club regulars.
But it had never occurred to Cyn, to any of them, what Cyn choosing Mick meant.
Vera hadn’t expected to be the last to find the man she wanted to call hers forever.
* * *
But it had only been a moment, and Vera had been her usual normal self ever since, enough to have Cyn doubting her impression.
And tonight was about other things.
Skye was getting off the bike from behind Tiger. As she handed him her helmet, he hooked an arm around her neck for a kiss. Her hands slid over his thigh and hip before she backed off with a smile and headed for the door. Tiger stowed the helmet and nodded to Cyn, then exited the driveway, the engine roaring in a way as head turning as the man himself.
Skye came up her walkway, her attention on the house, the potted flowers on the stoop. The cheerful welcome flag with gnomes on it. Her face wreathed with a grin.
“Shut up,” Cyn said. “Damn chatterbox.”
Skye’s smile grew deeper. “Does Mick know it’s just us girls?” she signed.
“He does now.”
“Think he can keep his balance?”
“Absolutely. Until I knock him off it.” In the right ways.
She brought Skye in, and Mick greeted her with an affectionate cheek kiss, one-armed hug, and the wine cooler. The others arrived shortly thereafter. Cyn had braced herself for teasing, but though she was ribbed, it was in amiable, low-key ways, like Skye’s nudge about gnomes.