Page 11 of With Stars in Her Eyes

Courtney

I had been banging my head on the bookstore front desk for several minutes while my best friend squealed at every detail of getting snowed in over the weekend. At least Mondays were slow enough that there weren’t any customers to listen to the embarrassing grilling.

“And then what?”

“After she was reading?”

“Right. Then what happened?”

“Then we fell asleep. Well, Baxter fell asleep first. Then I fell asleep. When I woke up, Thea was sleeping on the other side of the cushions and the power had come back on. She got up when I did, and then said thanks and left.”

Samantha’s expression was a mixture of exasperation and awe. “I can’t believe you were snowed in with her and didn’t make a move. Have all those romance books taught you nothing ?”

“Ms. Jeannie was sleeping in the office .”

“Neither of you suggested getting naked and warming each other under the blankets with body heat?”

“ Impressionable piglet with us too.”

Sam was still growling when the bell over the door jingled, Jeannie herself entering as if her ears had been burning. I greeted Jeannie as Sam mumbled into her coffee.

“Calling me Auntie Cockblock is not a very polite good morning, Samantha Elizabeth Powell.” Jeannie gave Sam a stern look over her glasses.

“Sorry, Ms. Jeannie.” Sam sighed. “I’m just saying, the piglet could’ve slept on the couch with you, which would have allowed Courtney to potentially live out any number of romance book trope scenarios. In a bookstore.”

I picked up my coffee mug, checking to see if it was cool enough to drink yet.

“You wanted your best friend to have first-time relations with a lady friend next to a traumatized piglet with me right down the hall?”

I spat out my coffee.

Jeannie patted my back.

“Well, when you say it like that, it just sounds pervy.” Sam plopped onto the stool by the counter and resumed both putting complimentary bookmarks in preorders and pouting.

Throat still smarting from choking on coffee, I managed to find my voice again. “Also, I had a migraine—one of the rough pressure-change ones—and I’m not at my best when that’s happening.”

“Fine. You’re excused then.” Sam put down the bookmarks. “Hey… that’s the first one like that in a while though, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I think the new medications are working. That’s something.”

Jeannie spoke before I could answer. “Sure is something, isn’t it? So Courtney—”

“Yes, so Courtney—” Sam cut in to save me from the question Jeannie was going to ask about my plans for the future and the summer tour, which I was still refusing to think about. “So speaking of Thea, can you—”

“No.”

Sam frowned. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“I’m pretty sure the answer would be no, no matter what the question is.”

“What if I was going to say can you—um—hmm.”

“I’d love to hear this too.” Jeannie stared at Sam expectantly.

I chuckled. “You can’t even think of a hypothetical question you were going to pretend to be asking I might’ve said yes to.”

“Shush. One’ll come to me.” Sam tapped the spot between her eyes. “So, here’s a question… can you confirm there was no further mention of the pluralization of marine animals during this little bookstore slumber party?”

Jeannie gaped at Sam as if worried my best friend had lost her mind.

“Ha.” Sam snapped her fingers in victory.

I glared at my best friend. “ No —wait, I mean yes . Gah. That was a confusingly worded question.”

She made a little curtsy. “You’re welcome.”

“And again, for the last time, that was accidental sexy talk.” I picked at a fingernail I’d broken while wrangling Baxter during the storm.

Jeannie went around to water all the plants in the bookstore, leaving Sam and me to have an emotional but thoroughly nonverbal exchange of facial expressions about what I should be doing about Thea.

When Jeannie was in the back of the store checking on a snake plant, Sam gave me a puzzled look. “Why do you look terrified right now?”

“Getting a crush when I’m here… it’s just not a good idea. Even if I’m…”

“Even if you’re what?”

“Never mind.” I slipped off my stool and grabbed the next box of new releases that needed to be set on the front table.

After Jeannie left and my coffee kicked in, I faced my best friend.

“Thea’s literally gorgeous and carefree and put together.

I truly do not understand people like that and how they move through the world.

” I swallowed. “Basically, she’s fucking terrifying.

I’m just trying to figure out my life right now, so it’s probably not the best time to—”

“I’m sorry did you say she’s terrifying ? The woman with a face that looks like it was created to see how many dimples could fit on a human face? The woman who looks like the human embodiment of sweetness?” The worry lines on Sam’s face smoothed into humor again.

“Oh my god, the dimples. They should come with those warnings they put on high-sugar foods in California. Not even mentioning the tattoos. Hazardous.”

“Hazardous?” Sam doubled over with laughter.

“I love her tattoos. They give her a little edginess. The ones on her fingers are new since I saw her at Marshall’s game last year.

She has some other cool ones on her arms too if I remember right.

Not that anyone has been able to have bare skin on display with how cold it is. ”

“The ones on her arms are pretty. I saw them when I got my daith done.” I touched the new hoop. “And yeah… I like the finger tattoos too.”

“Yeah, you do.” Sam said this in the exact instigating tone of the friend in a 1990s raunch-com.

“God, you’re such a bad influence.”

“You’re welcome for that too.” Sam grabbed her phone; the alert on the screen lit up her face with a smile so wickedly elated, it should come with a danger warning.

“Oh my god.”

“What?” I braced myself.

“Guess who just joined your book club?”

As Sam pushed the phone in my face, the alert from the sign-up program displayed the name on the screen in bold purple letters.

Historically Hot and Bottled new member form received from Thea Quinn

“ Frick .” My words were getting garbled in my mouth, and this time it had nothing to do with a migraine. I rubbed sweat from my forehead and batted away Sam’s hand when she tried to pretend to take my temperature.

“Having another completely unexplainable hot flash like the other day, friend?”

“I’m—ugh—I’m totally fine. Totally fine. Calm.”

“Good, because isn’t that Thea outside and about to come in here?”

I did a completely not-ridiculous-looking-at-all whirl around to look out the window. “Double frick.” I tried to ignore Sam’s laughter echoing off the bookshelves behind her as the bell over the doorway rang. Sam was down the hallway to the office before I could inflict her with a withering stare.

“ Hey .” Thea smiled as she pulled off her hood, the dusting of white snow on it immediately melting into a glistening sheen of water.

“Hi,” I said in a slightly chirpy voice that was nothing like my normal one.

I coughed a little and lowered the pitch.

“How’s it going?” Okay, that was too low-pitched.

Now I sounded like an eighty-year-old who smoked a pack a day in between the shifts worked in the coal mine since age eight.

I cleared my throat in a final attempt at speaking like a human.

“Good to see you, Thea.” There . That was my normal voice. “How was the rest of your weekend?”

“It was good.” Thea was kind enough to smile with only the barest hint of mischief and not verbally acknowledge the humiliating vocal-pitch modulations that had just taken place in the last ten seconds. She glanced around the cages and the floor. “No more Baxter?”

“His owner picked him up yesterday morning after you left.”

“Aww… I was hoping for another chance to see the rascal. Too bad.” Thea knocked once on the counter. “I came by for two reasons other than wanting to see if Baxter was here. One… I need a book.”

“Definitely in the right place for that.” I was grateful that I had a counter in front of me. I needed to remember a normal way to have your hands during a conversation if you weren’t holding anything.

“Two… I’m a thief.”

“Bold of you to just admit that with your full voice. Should I call the cops?”

“I’m hoping I can just pay for what I stole, buy another book along with it, and then maybe we can call it even?” Thea slipped the copy of A Wrinkle in Time out of her bag. “This ended up in my bag.”

“Oh… oops. That was my fault. I was an accessory I guess. Should we run off and be outlaws?”

“An enticing idea.” Thea leaned over the counter conspiratorially. “But if this is going to be a Bonnie and Clyde scenario, I’m going to insist on being Bonnie because she had the best hats.”

“The best hats?”

“In the movie. My grandfather watched a lot of old movies with me when I was growing up. All I remember about that movie was Faye Dunaway’s hats.”

“Pretty sure the main point was that they had guns and did crime?” I swiped on my phone to google the movie. “Also, no way am I being Clyde. He was played by Warren Beatty. I didn’t know he was an actor. I thought he was just a rich guy.”

Thea nearly cackled. “That’s Warren Buffett .”

“Wait, who’s Warren Beatty, then, and how iconic are his hats if this is the role I’m being forced into?”

“All I know about him is that he had a reputation with—er—the ladies.” Thea’s eyes went to the side like a gossiping church lady.

I looked closer at my phone. “Google says he slept with how many women? Jesus . But he was married to Annette Bening. Well, she’s a ten, so well done, Warren, I guess?” My face was probably fixed in a half grimace.

“Celebrities.” Thea shrugged.

I shook my head solemnly. “Seriously. They lead different lives.”

“How did we get here?”

“Hats,” I said flatly. “And petty theft.”

“Ah. Right. If I’m going to live here permanently, I want to avoid felonies.”