Page 22 of Nyx
“What is it?” I inch even closer to sniff the sweet earthiness of the plant.
“Corn,” he says as he hands me the vegetable that remained after the leaves were shed. “This is the part we eat, and it’s called the cob.” I wrinkle my nose at the funny word and run my fingertips over the bumps, turning it to inspect every piece.
“There are so many.” My eyes roam the plants. They’re large—much taller than me—and take up almost a third of the garden. They grow dense like a small forest, so thick you could disappear in their depths.
“There are,” he agrees as he sits an enormous basket between us and starts picking the cobs. “They’re delicious fresh when they’re cooked, but they can also be dried for cornmeal. It’s like flour.”
“Flower?” I ask, my brows knitting as I search the plants for blooms.
Reyes chuckles, and I tilt my head up to give him an impatient scowl because I want my answer, but it only makes him laugh harder. “Someone’s sassy today,” he teases, and my cheeks heat as he taps the brim of my hat. “Who knew giving you a diva hat would turn you into an actual diva?”
“What is thisdee-vuh?”
His smile spreads as he puts his hands on his hips. “Someone who always wants their way, and wants it fast.” I scrunch my nose again and gesture at Ronan barking orders at the others, and Reyes’s laugh is louder this time. “We call Ronan a drama queen, because he makes everything more serious than it needs to be.”
“Human words are confusing,” I mutter, and Reyes’s humor dissolves as he recognizes my shift to discomfort. His eyes burn gold and chestnut in the mid-morning sun, and I focus on them as he speaks.
“They really are. Most humans don’t have a good grasp of their own language, if it makes you feel any better.” It doesn’t, and I fight against that fresh kernel of panic that flares in my gut. It’s silly how quickly the fear of never belonging can overtake me, and I take a few breaths to steady myself. “Nyx? Are you alright?” he asks, leaning closer but never crowding.
I nod, running my hand over the stiff leaves of the corn stalk beside me to soothe myself. He waits patiently, always so patiently, and just as my heart rate is settling, Ronan barks another loud order at Xeni from across the path.
“This looks like someone tried to use a fucking rock instead of a knife. Learn to chop evenly!” Ronan shouts, glaring at a bucket of green vegetables cut into pieces.
“Oh, my gods,” Xeni groans, waving the pointed tip of his knife at Ronan. “Does the pretty princess need it to be perfectly bite-sized for those tiny teeth to handle it?”
Cameron covers his mouth with his elbow and coughs, though it sounds suspiciously like a laugh. Elas doesn’t hide his laughter, and throws his head back in a bellow. Ronan’s eyes twitch, but they stay on Xeni.
“If you are going to do a job, do itright,” he snarls, but Xeni just shakes his head and returns to cutting vegetables.
“Maybe Reyes should be the one chopping,” Xeni says with a smirk. The single eye not covered by his black leather patch darts in our direction. “Rumor has it he’s getting good with that knife, and you could stand to lose a little more hair.”
“Not cool, man,” Reyes hisses through his teeth. “We’re trying to make him forget about that!” Xeni’s irritated smirk turns into a genuine smile for a moment, and it warms his entire face. Ronan carries on, muttering under his breath before stomping away to find someone else to criticize.
“This is drama queen?” I ask Reyes, gesturing to where Ronan stands with his arms crossed.
“It is, yes. Major drama queen. You know, I’d actually do a lot of questionable things to see you call him that to his face.”
“And I am… diva?” I glance down at my dirty, baggy clothes. The wide straw brim of the hat shadows half my body as I stare at my bare feet, toes digging into the soil.
“No, Nyx, you’re not a diva. I was just teasing.” A warm rush of gratitude fills my chest. It’s such a ridiculous thing to be thankful for, but if he’s talking to me in this way, if he’steasing,he isn’t worried I’ll shatter at his words. It means he believes I’m strong enough to handle it, or at the very least, that he’s willing to stand by and help me reassemble myself if I break.
I peek up at him to find him watching me, and my pulse knocks in my chest at the intensity of his eyes. “If I am not this diva, what am I?”
“You’re… Nyx,” he says, one side of his lip tilting up again in a sweet, lopsided grin.
“That is all?”
A surprised, breathy huff of a laugh leaves him as that grin spreads to both sides of his mouth. “That is more than enough, sweetheart.” Nervous breaths shutter from my lungs as my pulse speeds up even more, and the swirl of emotions low in my stomach is overwhelming. I lick my lips, and my fingers squeeze the corn in my hand.
He thinks I’m enough.
Scared, awkward Nyx.
Strange words and cluttered mind.
Broken, broken, broken.
Enough.
