Page 109 of With Stars in Her Eyes

“I’m still not sure if this is a good idea.”

It was easier to look at the photo than at him. Had I really taken that on Friday? Two days ago?

Demetrius pulled a small pad of paper from his jacket pocket. “Write down your number. I’ll have my manager reach out to you.”

“Oh… okay.”

“Now, can you tell me where this book fair is? My phone’s dead.”

“You reallyareCourtney’s friend, I guess.”

He chuckled. “Inattention to battery life is definitely a problem she and I share.”

I wrote down my number, and when I handed it to him, his face spread in a smile that could have taken anyone’s breath away. But the air had gotten knocked out of my lungs when I ran off without letting Courtney explain this morning.

Demetrius glanced at my face and then to the photo again. “Been there, luv.” He gave me a tiny nod.

“I—I—No it’s just.”

“I’ll see you over at the book fair, then?”

“Sure. Yep. Sounds good.” The last words sounded as feeble as they felt.

The door shut, leaving me alone again.

Maybe I could just run away or pretend I was sick.

I was really going to have to go to the book fair and smile and take people’s photos and read people’s auras while Courtney was working feet away from me?

Footsteps tromped in the hallway.

I leaned my head against the wall, sure that Demetrius was about to come back and make me feel worse about being so heartsick over someone like Courtney Starling.

But the door swung open, and it wasn’t Demetrius. It was Marshall.

Marshall with red eyes and shaking shoulders.

“Oh my god, Marshall. Are you okay?”

The only answer he could muster was a small shake of the head as he flopped onto the studio futon.

CHAPTER 39Courtney

I pushed the last box from Sam’s car onto the emptiest of the large folding tables set up in the brewery. My eyes kept going in and out of focus, but it wasn’t a migraine. It was pure exhaustion. I rubbed them hard enough to see spots and blinked until I couldn’t stop a yawn from coming. My brain had been on overdrive all day.

I needed to fix shit with Thea.

But since she wasn’t supposed to be here for another half an hour, I also needed to stop looking out the brewery windows for Thea’s Outback.

After several more unsatisfied minutes with my eyes cemented to the space where she would be pulling up, I opened the first box with a sigh.

Once the first table was arranged with full rows of books, I moved on to the next. One of Sam’s hand-lettered signs indicated that this was the designated historical romance section. If I wasn’t an emotionally repressed survivor of religious trauma, I probably would have burst into tears while stacking seven copies of the book that Thea had read aloud while taking the star trails photo.

When every box was empty, I allowed myself to look out the window again.

She still wasn’t here.

I headed to the area where Sam was setting up checkout. I grabbed a box of Menagerie Books canvas tote bags and hung them behind the checkout table. One of theWE’RE ALL MAD HEREstickers was on the top of the stack of stickers that still neededto be set out. It was a twin of the one I had given Thea all those weeks ago.