Chapter 22 – A Ride That’s Way Too Long.

Cya's car wasn't a normal car.

That was the first thing Lyon thought when the back door opened in front of him.

It was big. Too big. Long, black, with tinted windows and a body so clean it reflected the streetlights as if it had just come out of a showroom.

The kind of car that didn't look like it had been bought by a person, but by an organization with too much money and too much fear of an important person dying in traffic.

Lyon got in on the right side.

He settled in carefully, adjusting his t-shirt, still a little uncomfortable with the fact that he was leaving his apartment in the same clothes he'd had on ten minutes ago.

But it wasn't the moment to complain about that.

Now he had something else to focus on.

Specifically, that Cya was getting in through the other door.

And Lyon waited, with his eyes fixed on the roof of the car, for Cya to settle in on the other side.

The opposite side.

Like any person with the minimum amount of common sense would do in front of such an enormous seat.

But Cya did not go to the opposite side.

Cya sat down next to him.

Not exactly stuck to him.

But close.

Very close.

So close that her shoulder ended up a couple of centimeters from his shoulder, and the skirt of the pajamas-that-weren't-pajamas-but-still-looked-like-pajamas barely brushed his comfy pants.

Lyon blinked.

'...Okay.'

He looked forward, and in the rearview mirror of the car he saw the driver's face.

The driver was a young woman, with black hair tied in a low ponytail, an impeccable gray uniform and a gold pin on the lapel with the Hogwarts guild logo.

She had the straight posture of somebody used to driving expensive cars with important passengers, and on her face she had the neutral expression that people who had practiced for years used to keep themselves from reacting to anything.

At this moment, however, that neutral expression was failing.

It was failing very discreetly.

The driver's eyes darted to the mirror for a second. Then they went back to the front. Then, almost imperceptibly, they went back to the mirror again.

Lyon, who was looking at her in the reflection, noticed the small tremor at the corner of her lips.

"Hotel," said Cya.

Lyon gave a small jump in his seat. Cya hadn't raised her voice.

She had set it at exactly the right volume for the driver to hear her without having to strain, and the driver, as if somebody had pressed a button on her, straightened her back even more.

"On our way, Leader Cya," she answered in a professional voice, and without saying another word she started the engine.

Vroom.

The car started up, silent.

And so, in the silence, Lyon finished processing what was happening.

He was in the backseat of a luxury car, with a woman who was a guild leader stuck to his shoulder, on his way to a hotel to watch a movie, with his hair badly cut with scissors and a t-shirt he hadn't even bothered to check before leaving.

'How did I end up here?'

"Rhetorical questions," commented the voice. "Fascinating."

Lyon cleared his throat.

There was a silence inside the car that he felt the obligation to break.

Not because it would be mandatory in any normal situation, but because in this specific situation, with the driver looking at the mirror every three seconds and with Cya not moving a single millimeter, he felt that if nobody said anything he was going to explode from the pressure.

So he said the first thing that came to his head.

"So what movie are we going to watch?"

Cya turned her head toward him.

And Lyon, upon seeing Cya's face turn toward his from so close, realized that the distance between the two faces was considerably smaller than he had calculated.

He backed up very slightly.

Cya didn't notice. Or if she noticed, she didn't care.

"Anything," she answered. "Except horror."

Lyon laughed involuntarily.

"Are you scared of ghosts?" he asked, with a small smile.

Cya looked at him.

After a full second of silence, she answered in a flat voice.

"I don't like things that don't have much of a logical or scientific explanation..."

Lyon looked at her. And there, just barely, he noticed something.

He noticed that Cya's shoulders had tensed up a little just from mentioning the topic. And that her fingers, resting on her knees, had closed just a bit, as if the mere act of remembering had been physically uncomfortable.

And he noticed, in addition, a small tremor.

'Oh, no.'

"What?" asked the voice.

'I'm seeing her tremble.'

"Maybe it's the air conditioning."

'It's not the air conditioning.'

"It could be the air conditioning."

'It's not the air conditioning.'

Lyon hesitated for a second.

Then, almost without thinking, he did the first thing that seemed normal.

He raised his arm, passed it behind Cya's shoulders, and pulled her slightly toward him in a small, almost clumsy hug, the kind you give to a friend who's going through a bad moment.

A generic comfort hug.

Neutral.

Friendly.

Without any other intention.

'There. Neutral. Friendly.'

"Uh-huh."

'What?'

"Nothing."

Lyon waited for Cya to react.

He waited for Cya to pull away, or throw him one of her signature flat looks, or say something like "please don't touch me."

Cya did none of that.

Cya did not pull away.

Not one centimeter.

On the contrary, she stayed completely still, with her eyes fixed on the driver's seat, as if Lyon's arm behind her shoulders were a weather event that she had decided not to comment on.

Lyon, for a second, didn't know what to do.

In the rearview mirror, something caught his attention.

The driver's face.

The driver's face, specifically, was no longer making the effort to maintain neutrality.

The driver's face had its mouth open.

◇◆◇

In the front seat, the driver had both hands on the steering wheel and her eyes fixed on the road.

At least officially.

Unofficially, she had a whole eye on the rearview mirror, and in that eye she had installed a level of shock that she hadn't felt since the day she had started working for the guild.

'W-what?' she thought, gripping the steering wheel with more force than necessary. 'W-what is happening back there?'

The driver had been driving Cya Hogwarts's personal car for three years.

Three whole years.

And in those three years she had learned several things about her boss.

She had learned, for example, that Cya hated small talk, and that if you tried to talk about the weather she would answer with silence.

She had learned that Cya never ate anything inside the car because she didn't like the smell of food in an enclosed space.

She had learned that Cya preferred to arrive ten minutes early rather than one minute late, and that if traffic got heavy, she wouldn't complain, but you could feel the silence get heavier.

But, above all, the driver had learned one fundamental thing about Cya Hogwarts.

Cya hated being touched.

She hated physical contact with a force that was sometimes scary.

Handshake greetings she skipped with a tilt of the head.

Welcome hugs she cut short with a small smile and a step back.

Shoulder squeezes from her subordinates she accepted once, and that person never tried it again.

In three years, the driver had seen exactly two people voluntarily touch Cya without receiving an icy look in return.

Two.

And both were people she had known for more than a decade.

Now there was a third.

A university guy in a t-shirt and comfy pants, with badly cut hair, sitting in the backseat, with one arm wrapped behind the shoulders of the guild leader, and with the guild leader not pushing him away.

Not pushing him away.

'W-who the hell is this guy?' thought the driver, and by professional instinct, with the hand she had free, she reached over to the small panel to the left of the steering wheel and pressed a button.

Click.

The car's internal cameras turned off.

The internal cameras of the car were installed in all official guild vehicles for security reasons, to protect the leaders in case of incidents.

The driver had authority to turn them off whenever it was necessary to preserve her boss's privacy, and she had used that authority, in three years, exactly four times.

This was the fifth.

And it was the first time she was turning them off for a reason that wasn't a confidential phone call.

'A brother?' thought the driver, trying to find a logical explanation.

She looked sideways at the guy in the mirror.

Brown hair, green eyes. Cya, on the other hand, had black hair, and red eyes.

'No. The red eyes are a genetic mark of the Hogwarts clan. If he were her brother, he'd have red eyes too… Maybe he's a cousin?'

The driver discarded that idea too, almost immediately.

She knew, because it was impossible not to know when working at the guild, that Leader Cya had been practically estranged from her family since the moment she had risen to the leader's position.

The rumors said there had been a big disagreement with her father.

The rumors said Cya hadn't gone to the clan's last family gathering, and probably wouldn't go to the next one either.

Cya wouldn't invite a cousin to get into her car.

Cya wouldn't let a cousin hug her.

Cya wouldn't let anyone hug her.

'So... who?'

The driver increased her grip on the steering wheel slightly.

And there, while she was asking herself the question that was going to torment her for the rest of the ride, something happened in the backseat that made her open her eyes even wider.

◇◆◇

Cya moved.

Not much. Very little, actually.

But she moved.

She tilted her head slightly toward Lyon.

And Lyon, who had already assumed that the situation had reached the maximum possible level of awkwardness and that from that point on it was all going to be a matter of hanging on until they got to the hotel, felt something weird near his collarbone.

A breath.

A very faint breath.

As if somebody, with their nose very close to his neck, were... inhaling.

Lyon froze.

'One.'

'Two.'

'Three—'

"Ahmm..." Lyon cleared his throat, without moving. "Cya."

"Yes?"

Cya didn't lift her head.

Cya, in fact, didn't pull away one millimeter. Her voice came out slightly muffled by the proximity to his neck.

Lyon swallowed.

"What... what are you doing?"

Cya stayed silent for a second.

Then she answered in the same flat voice as always.

"Nothing."

'Nothing?'

"Nothing," she repeated.

And she did it again.

Sniff.

A tiny, calm inhale, the kind you do when you're smelling a coffee in a store trying to decide whether to buy it or not.

Except Lyon wasn't a coffee.

"Cya."

"Yes?"

"You're sniffing me."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Cya, I can feel your breath on my neck."

Cya stayed quiet.

Then, without pulling away even a centimeter, with her voice flatter than ever, she answered:

"That could be."

'THAT COULD BE?!'

And there, at the moment when Lyon was about to turn his head to demand an explanation from Cya, Cya did something else.

Cya, without saying a word, raised her arms.

Both arms.

And she wrapped them around Lyon's torso in a full, tight hug, without any kind of embarrassment.

As if he were a plushie.

A big plushie.

A big plushie that she had decided, in that instant, to claim.

And not only that. Cya, in addition, pressed herself closer.

She pressed herself so close that her chest ended up leaning against Lyon's side, and her head ended up resting right below his jaw, and her right leg lifted just slightly, with the knee rising over Lyon's thigh as if she were one movement away from ending up sitting on top of him.

Lyon stopped breathing.

Thunk.

The folding armrest in the middle, which Cya had lifted without Lyon noticing at some point in the last thirty seconds, fell softly to the other side of the seat.

And there, in the surgical silence of the interior of the car, the voice inside Lyon's head exploded.

"GET THAT PERVERT AWAY FROM YOU RIGHT NOW!"

Lyon gave a small internal jump.

'WHAT?!'

"YOU HEARD ME! RIGHT NOW! PULL HER OFF! PULL HER OFF PULL HER OFF PULL HER OFF!"

'Why are you shouting?!'

"I'M NOT SHOUTING!"

'YOU ARE!'

"I'M TALKING AT A NORMAL VOLUME!"

'YOU'RE IN ALL CAPS INSIDE MY HEAD!'

"BECAUSE IT'S URGENT!"

Lyon clenched his jaw, trying to concentrate.

Cya was still leaning against him, with her breathing calm, as if absolutely nothing weird were happening and as if the fact of being practically climbing on top of a guy in the backseat of a car driven by her personal driver were part of an absolutely normal plan.

Lyon didn't know what to do.

'I... I don't know what to do.'

"PULL HER OFF!"

'I can't just push her off just like that!'

"YES YOU CAN!"

'She's a guild leader!'

"PULL HER OFF IN A DIPLOMATIC WAY THEN! BUT PULL HER OFF!"

'I don't know a diplomatic way to tell a woman who's climbing on top of me to get off!'

"MAKE SOMETHING UP!"

'I already used my one trick which was the diarrhea one! I can't repeat it!'

"THEN MAKE UP ANOTHER ONE!"

'I can't think of anything!'

"LYON, I SWEAR IF YOU DON'T PULL HER OFF RIGHT NOW I'M GOING TO TAKE CONTROL!"

'DON'T YOU DARE!'

"I DARE!"

'We're in a car! If you transform right now, the driver will see us!'

"THE DRIVER HAS ALREADY SEEN ENOUGH!"

And there, while Lyon was in the middle of a mental shouting match with the voice, Cya's leg went up a little more.

And it stayed halfway.

As if Cya, at this stage of the hug, no longer knew how to finish getting comfortable without help.

As if she were waiting for something.

Lyon looked down, just barely.

He saw Cya's knee suspended over his thigh.

He saw the edge of Cya's skirt slid slightly up.

He saw, above all, the expression on Cya's face, which had not changed a single millimeter since the beginning of the ride, and which in that instant, resting against his neck, looked like that of a person who was absolutely determined to pretend that nothing weird was happening.

And there, without thinking about it, without planning it, without reasoning it through, Lyon did the worst thing he could do.

Lyon reacted on instinct.

He lowered his right hand.

He grabbed Cya under the knee.

And he lifted her leg up.

Fwup.

Cya slid, almost smoothly, until she ended up completely sitting sideways on Lyon's lap.

The skirt of the pajamas-that-weren't-pajamas-but-still-looked-like-pajamas arranged itself in the process, and her entire weight ended up resting right on top of his thighs.

And Lyon, at that moment, with Cya sitting on top of him and with her face still resting on his neck, felt how his body, without asking anyone's permission, reacted.

A small twitch.

Lyon opened his eyes wide.

'...No.'

"..."

'No, no, no.'

"...Lyon."

'Don't talk to me.'

"Lyon."

'Don't talk to me, don't talk to me, don't talk to me.'

"Lyon, I'm feeling it too."

'I KNOW! OH, GOD, I KNOW!'

"You're—"

'DON'T SAY IT!'

"—turned on."

'I TOLD YOU NOT TO SAY IT!'

The voice went quiet.

Only for a second.

Then, in a tone completely different from the one from ten seconds ago, the voice spoke again.

No longer in all caps. No longer shouting. With a calm that was worse than the shouting.

"...Okay."

'"Okay"?'

"Okay."

'What "okay"?'

"Nothing. Just... okay. Have fun."

'HAVE FUN?'

"Yes."

'WHAT DO YOU MEAN "HAVE FUN"?'

"Just that you should have fun. Both of you. You and her. And her... climbing skills. Have fun."

'IT'S NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE!'

"No?"

'NO!'

"She's sitting on top of you."

'I know!'

"And you're—"

'I KNOW!'

"I didn't say anything. I was just stating facts."

'You're not stating anything, you're jealous!'

"I'm not jealous."

'YES YOU ARE!'

"No."

'YES!'

"I just think that if you like that girl so much, you should get a room. A room which, by coincidence, is where she is taking you."

'THAT'S NOT THE POINT!'

"That's exactly the point."

Cya, at some point during the exchange, had moved just barely. She had lifted her head from Lyon's neck just enough to look him in the eyes from very, very close, and had put her hand on his chest.

Not on his chest in an aggressive way.

On his chest in a curious way.

As if she were checking the rhythm of his heart.

◇◆◇

In the front seat, the driver was going through the five stages of grief in real time.

First, denial.

'This can't be what I'm seeing.'

Second, anger.

'Who is this guy?!'

Third, bargaining.

'Maybe it's just a long hug. Long hugs are normal between friends. Long hugs where one person sits on top of the other are... are... are...'

Fourth, depression.

'They're not cousins. They're absolutely not cousins.'

And fifth, acceptance.

Acceptance arrived when the driver, with her eyes back on the rearview mirror, saw Leader Cya Hogwarts, the woman who in three years had never allowed anyone to touch her without warning, rest her hand on the chest of the university guy in the backseat with the absurd tenderness of a young girl with her first love.

The driver breathed deeply.

She closed her eyes for a second.

She opened them.

She looked at the navigator screen, where a blue line showed the shortest route toward Cya's hotel.

Eight minutes. Five kilometers. A direct path down the main avenue.

The driver, with a calm motion, tapped the screen.

She changed the route.

The blue line reconfigured itself, and now, instead of showing eight minutes down the main avenue, it showed twenty-two minutes down a scenic route that circled the central park, passed through the historic district and came back along the riverside promenade.

Perfect.

The driver eased off the accelerator slightly.

The car, silent and large, started to roll just a bit slower down the street.

Slow.

Very slow.

In fact, the driver decided, with impeccable professional calm, to respect the speed limit very strictly.

And by respecting the speed limit, what she understood was: drive five kilometers per hour under the limit, for greater safety.

With the rearview mirror full of the spectacle in the backseat.

'I didn't see anything,' thought the driver, without stopping seeing everything. 'I didn't see anything.'

And, with that deeply professional philosophy, she took the detour toward the riverside promenade.