Page 101 of With Stars in Her Eyes

“You can’t be serious with this.” Courtney pointed at my escape route like I was the one who had gone bonkers.

“Oh, I sure am.”

“Because of Demetrius?”

“Because when it turns out people have been lying to me formonths,I know the best strategy is to exit through the nearest—er—exit.” I tapped the window. “Exit.” I pulled it open again, letting in a gust that felt more like March than June.

“Thea, the last three days were…”

Transformative. Everything. Life-changing.

“No. Don’t even finish that sentence because… Because my brain is telling me that last night was a mirage—”

“But itwasn’t.”

“My brain is telling me…” I felt like I was going to throw up. “Telling me that this entire thing between us was a mirage. Monthsof nothing but a pretty mirage.” I bit the inside of my cheek, forcing my focus on anything except how goose bumps were pebbling on Courtney’s pale skin from the draft. “I’m just done.”

“You said you always quit things. Isthisyou quitting things?” Courtney’s forehead furrowed. “Pleasejust let me see what he wants. Then I’ll tell you everything…”

“I’mnotquitting. I can’t believe you would say that to me…”

“I’m sor—”

“No. I’m just… I’m just done… I have to think.”

I grabbed on to the tree and shimmied down it, landing as gracefully as any person can land in a climbing wild rosebush. I stifled gasps and groans from the sharp thorns in my ass and checked that my keys were still firmly attached to the carabiner that had been next to my phone.

I skulked along the yard, ducking beneath the windows, trying not to allow the full absurdity of what I was doing hit me because I might die of either embarrassment or the sexual frustration. I crawled through a hole in the fence and emerged on the sidewalk.

While Courtney bringing up the quitting thing hadfeltlike a dig, Courtney was right. I had excelled at quitting things ever since that Little Miss Huntsville Starlight Princess Pageant.

Now I would just have to quit being in love with Courtney Starling.

Quit being in love with her after finding out she also wrote some of my favorite music.

Dang it all to hell in a Longaberger basket.

No. I could do this. It would be my magnum opus of quitting. Completely doable.

Because Courtney didn’t even care about me enough or trust me enough to tell me who she was…

I swallowed against a giant, swollen lump in my throat.

Just as I plucked the most stubborn of the thorns out of the ass and thighs that had been so close to getting some attentionthis morning, a small chuckle concealed behind a cough jolted me into the fence.

Marshall grabbed hold of my elbow and gave me an appraising up-and-down glance. “You all right, Thea?”

I growled. “If anyone asks, I absolutely didnotspend the last three days fucking a secret rock star.”

CHAPTER 35Thea

“Okay, so are we just saying things we didn’t do but want to? In that case, I didn’t spend the last three days trying to beat a video game my nephew left at my house. Now it’s your turn again. Oh wait, I think I got that mixed up… because I did do… I mean… never mind.” Marshall rubbed his beard.

“Remember me telling you about Kestrel?”

“The vodka?”

“That’s Ketel, you dumbass. Kestrel is the mysterious cellist-slash-songwriter-slash-singer with the husky voice of a chain-smoking angel who quit her rumored debut tour for an indefinite but mysterious hiatus after supposedly getting hammered and doing drugs onstage? The Violet Trikes. The one I said I wanted to get Courtney and me tickets to go see?”