Page 4 of Ly to Me

Lyra

The Liar

“Fuck!”

Coins clattered along the diner floor, a quarter rolling to the edge of a man’s boot. I narrowed my eyes on him—just shy of six-foot, presumably short hair beneath hisStetson, boots unmarked and made of richly-colored leather. Fixing my hair, I forced a shy smile as he leaned down and picked it up. Ostentatiously white teeth flashed, a faint scar on his chin standin’ out because he’d shaved that baby-face of his a little too closely.

“You dropped this, little lady.” The stranger’s voice came out deeper than I expected, but I righted myself from the floor and took the quarter from between his fingers. His beady eyes roamed my body, hovering on the curves of my hips for a few seconds too long as he smacked his teeth. Nothing I wasn’t used to. “Why don’t you let me take that check for ya, hear?”

“Thank you.” I mustered up some heat to my cheeks, pushing my change back into my fake Louis Vuitton. It was good enough to give me that edge, putting me in the same class as him, though truly I belonged beneath a gutter.

Far beneath.

He took my receipt and paid for both his and mine, giving me plenty of time to walk out of the diner and bolt to my car. He wouldn’t find me in my broken down sedan—wouldn’t even think twice about me sitting in one to check it.

I was used to that, too.

Appearances had a way with people’s minds. My mama always told me that the eyes were the gateway to the soul—or, maybe, that had been my pastor who’d said that growing up. Either way, my eyes seemed to lead men away from their souls—and mine, for that matter—and down toward the path of Hell, curving further south to their dicks. However way they intended me to use that gateway to the soul, I blew it right from the very waters that silly little notion had come from. Batting my thick lashes, letting men look at my ass in a pair of tight jeans and showing a sliver more skin across my chest and waist with low-cut crop-tops equaled one thing, and one thing only in my mind—

Money.

My phone rang as I pulled out of the parking lot, not a single country boy with possibly good intentions in sight. Probably already sidled-up in whatever lifted American-made pickup he undoubtedly drove.

“Why haven’t you called me yet? I only asked about his dick size three times in the past hour, and you ignored me every. Single. Time.”

I sighed into the phone. “Sophia, you know I don’t kiss and tell.”

“We both know if you did, that rule wouldn’t apply here. Not with us, anyway.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” I found another parking lot down the road—older, with an abandoned building resting in the heart of it—then sifted a cigarette from the middle console. “He took a shower, and I was fast asleep by the time he came out.” I scrunched my nose and took a drag. “He’s a cuddler, though.”

“Ugh. Hate that for you.”

“Tell me about it.”

She sighed. “He didn’t offer to drag you in the shower with him? Shower sex is fun. You’ve heard my stories, at least.”

I wrinkled my nose again at the reminder of Jamie, half naked and wearing only a towel. “Yeah, he tried that. Told him I didn’t want to get my hair wet.”

Sophia huffed. “It almost sounds like you don’t want to let loose and have fun. I thought going back to your hometown would, I don’t know, spark something in you.”

The sun beamed in through the windshield. I flipped the visor down, then pressed my hand to my forehead. Sophia was a good friend—too good to know why I’d come back in the first place. “Wasn’t feeling it.”

“Well, are you going to see him again?”

What choice do I have?“Yeah, he invited me back.”

She paused, and something clinked in the background like metal on glass. “When do you think you’re coming back to visit? The house feels empty. I miss you already.” I blew out smoke from the cracked-open car window. Still-lit ash fell into my lap as I thought about telling Sophia the truth—at least, part of it. I cursed under my breath and wiped it away, then tried to rub the ashen stain out of my light jean shorts. “You there?”

“Yeah, sorry. Miss you too.”

“Is that where you are now? At his house?”

“No, I’m getting some errands done.” I tapped my fingers along the middle console. “He said he owns a weed farm. I’ll steal some and send it your way if I can find it on that huge plot of his.”

“Just bring it with you whenever you decide to get your ass back to this side of the world.”

Thatside of the world.I didn’t even want to think about being onthisside of the world again. I never thought I’d be back. Hearing I had somewhere I could go back to that wasn’t Alliston Springs made my chest tighten.