Page 36 of Hell and Hexes
Chapter 14
Sylvie
“You’re not seriously sleeping with him?” Cassie hissed. She was washing dishes with Adrienne drying as I scooped leftovers into containers.
“Do you want the details? Because, wow, my life is pretty much like a porno right now.”
Cassie shuddered. “No, I most definitely don’t want the details.”
“I do,” Adrienne chimed in.
Screw it. The moment I’d made the decision to let Eshu stay for dinner, I knew that there was no way I could play this off as just friends. My sisters believed I was kinky as all get out. I specialized in relationship counselling dealing with sex issues, and I loved to shock them by recommending specific sex toys or positions. My boinking someone casually shouldn’t come as a shock to any of them.
But it did come as a shock. For all my talk, I’d never been one for partying it up or promiscuous behavior. The fact that it was Eshu probably bothered Cassie the most. I knew she didn’t see the attraction.
Andthatbothered me. Lucien, Hadur, and Nash didn’t appeal to me beyond my acknowledging they were good-looking dudes, but I didn’t doubt how my sisters could be attracted to—or in love with—them. Not that I was in love with Eshu or anything, but why couldn’t Cassie see how he was fun, exciting, and sexy? How he made me laugh so hard I felt like I was going to pee my pants? How sex with him was a wild, uninhibited ride?
“Chill out, Cass,” Adrienne scolded. “I’d do him. Damn, the shoulders on that guy… And I’ll bet he’s got some serious moves.”
“He does,” I assured her. “I barely got any sleep last night, and I’m doubting I’ll get any tonight, either.”
“No details!” Cassie turned to me, drying off her soapy hands. “Sylvie, you’re a grown woman and who you’re sleeping with isn’t any business of mine, but why Eshu? He’s such a screw up. He’s not smart. Lucien hates him. He doesn’t seem your type at all.”
I wasn’t sure what to address in all that first. “Lucien hates Hadur as well, and you’re not telling Bronwyn to leave him home.”
“Hadur saved Bronwyn’s life,” Cassie shot back.
“That’s not the point,” Adrienne chimed in. “Lucien’s your boyfriend. He’s not family. His likes and dislikes carry no weight on whether Sylvie gets to bring Eshu to family dinner.”
“Secondly,” I continued, silently grateful for Adrienne’s support, “I don’t really have a ‘type.’ I like men whose company I enjoy and those who I’m physically attracted to. That encompasses a wide range of men. He might not beyourtype, but he makes me laugh and he’s incredible in the sack.”
“And he’s not stupid,” Adrienne added. “I think he acts like that to piss Lucien off.”
I got the impression Eshu loved to throw people off balance, to have people underestimate him, to operate under the radar. It didn’t matter to him that everyone else thought he was dumb and a screw up. All that mattered was enjoying life and being a living personification of the id.
And as a therapist, I appreciated the value of that—especially in my own personal life.
“Is he your boyfriend?” Cassie took me by the shoulders, her eyes on mine. “Is he? If you care about him and think this is something that’s going to last, then I’ll back you one hundred percent, Sylvie. He’ll be welcome here in our house, and I’ll tell Lucien to just deal. But I need to know what’s between you guys is real and not you just having a wild fling because you almost died two weeks ago.”
I hesitated because I didn’t really know how to answer that question. And it was a bit unfair of Cassie to ask me this. Had she known Lucien was going to be a long-term thing when she’d first met him?
“All I know is that right now, I don’t want to date or sleep with anyone else. I’m happy with him. Am I going to feel that way in two months or two years or two decades? I don’t know. I only know that for now, you all should consider him my boyfriend.”
It scared me a bit to say that. Two weeks he’d flirted with me while I’d recovered on Cassie’s couch, and I’d thought that was as far as things would go between us. Two nights of what I’d consider dating. One night of intimacy. It seemed kind of fast to label that an actual relationship, but here I was doing just that.
“Good enough for me,” Adrienne said, folding the dish towel and hanging it on the oven handle.
Cassie sighed. “Good enough for me, too.”
“And Lucien?” I asked.
She laughed. “He got used to Hadur. He’s going to have to get used to Eshu as well.”
With the most difficult topic of the evening out of the way, I attempted to broach the other one. “About tomorrow night….”
Adrienne’s eyebrows shot up. “What about tomorrow night?”
Cassie sighed. “I meant what I said before. I spoke to Sheriff Oakes about Stanley, and he’s going to put a deputy out there. I also told Lucien that I want us to go over just before midnight, because that’s when everyone likes to do whatever it is they plan on doing. He’ll be safe. I give you my word on that.”
