Page 22 of With Stars in Her Eyes

Courtney

“Absolutely not.” I launched myself over the middle console from the back, the seatbelt nearly strangling me, to grab the CD out of Nic’s hand before he could sneak it into the car stereo.

It was a shitty, low-budget cover album I’d recorded in my early twenties, and I would need to steal and destroy it later.

“It’s my turn to pick, Courtney. I’ve let you and Sam control the music all morning.

” We were on our way back from our third and hopefully last trip to the dump.

Thea’s first two appointments canceled, giving us time for this last trip before she had to go into work.

But since Nic still hadn’t upgraded the stereo in his ancient truck, we were subject to the whims of his CD collection.

He might be three years younger than me, but he acted like an old man.

An old man whose expression clearly said he was trying to show off my talent rather than mortify me, but that didn’t mean I would let him do either.

“Let Thea pick,” Sam said as she stirred from her catnap. She always fell asleep in the car.

“But it’s my truck.”

“Lemme put this in terms you can understand, Nic. Today is about Thea’s quest, padawan.” Sam snickered.

“I said I was a paladin , not a pada—that’s Star Wars not…” Nic growled and passed the CD binder into the back seat to Thea. “Fine.”

“ Hey , you finally got some new stuff.” I scooted an inch closer to Thea to look in case Nic had any other embarrassing old CDs of mine in there.

“I grabbed some new ones at a festival in the fall. Check the back.”

Thea lit up. “Ooooh. She’s good.” Thea passed the CD forward, and once Nic inserted it, Irish fiddle music played through the speaker.

“And don’t let their teasing get you down, Nic.

” Thea offered me some of the pack of peanut butter M&M’s she had gotten at the gas station.

“Courtney has been helping me heal my inner child through animal encounters since I came to town. Well, animal encounters and smut.”

Nic choked on a sip of his water bottle.

I covered my face. “Books. I’ve been suggesting books. ”

“Could someone explain the animal encounters because I don’t think I want to know about the smut.”

Thea beamed. “Well, first there was a dragon.”

“Are we back talking about fantasy role-playing games?” Nic accelerated onto the highway with a perplexed expression.

“Weirdly enough, nope.” Sam yawned and rolled over to face the window.

“But Courtney did have to defend my honor once.” Thea laughed, obviously still thoroughly enjoying Nic’s confusion.

After the next stop at the dump, we drove straight into a torrential rainstorm that made it difficult to hear anything between the front and back seat for a while.

Thea rubbed her hands together.

“Cold?” I asked, looking down at Thea’s fingers.

“A little but I’m fine.”

On an impulse I couldn’t explain, I took Thea’s hands in mine and rubbed them between my palms. “The heat works a little better on my side of the truck. Want to switch?”

“I’m fine.”

I still hadn’t let go of Thea’s hands, and I didn’t want to. “Nic’s probably got a blanket in the back. I can ask—”

“You don’t have to take care of me, Courtney. I still can’t believe y’all are doing this for me.”

“Don’t thank us. Thank Ms. Jea—”

“Jeannie. Yes… I’m starting to think she must be blackmailing everyone.”

I smirked. “Wouldn’t put it past her.”

Thea’s gaze went between Nic and me. “So… why were y’all’s childhoods unconventional? You said that earlier. I know your parents are musicians and you moved around a lot and were religious, but is that—”

“Yeah. That’s the main part of it. Nic moved around a lot too.

Different situation.” When I looked down, my hands were twisting together.

I hadn’t remembered dropping Thea’s. Nic met my eye before shifting back to concentrate on the road.

The man had the ears of a fox despite the continued deluge against the windshield. “What about yours?”

“My childhood?” Thea adjusted her nose ring. Her round cheeks were flushed prettily. Only two dimples visible, but that was enough. It really would have been easy to spill every detail of my life and Nic’s.

“Mm-hmm.” I looked down at Thea’s hands, wishing I could trace the tattoo lines on her fingers.

“Sounds like basically the opposite of yours.”

“Stayed in one place and were atheist?”

Thea’s pinky grazed my thigh. “More like Easter-Christmas Methodists. But yes, I stayed in one place. My parents still live there. My sisters and brother all still live with their families there too.”

“Big family?”

“One of five.”

“Oldest?”

“The youngest.”

“Ah…” I leaned an inch closer.

Thea narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to psychoanalyze me based on birth order?”

“I wouldn’t dare.” I tried to keep my face as innocent as possible, but I didn’t have Thea’s dimple superpower. “I’ve always found sibling dynamics sort of fascinating. Only child thing, I guess.”

“Do you have other cousins or just Nic?”

“Probably distant ones.” I stared at the back of Nic’s head. There was a scar on the right side, and he never would tell me where it came from. There was so much I hadn’t been able to protect him from. “Nic’s the only one I’ve ever met though. His mom was my mom’s sister.”

“Best friends?”

I barked a laugh, and Nic was laughing too based on the way his shoulders shook. “Hated each other’s guts.”

“I get that.” Thea sighed.

“You hate your sister?”

“Not actual hate. I just have nothing in common with my siblings. I’m really close with my mom.

We still talk all the time. I love my family a lot, it’s just my siblings are all more ‘normal’ and are married with kids.

They wanted things I’m not sure I’ll ever want.

We grew up in a small suburb outside Huntsville, and they all moved in with their spouses to the neighborhoods near my parents.

Joined country clubs. Play in the same pickleball league.

Kids wear monogrammed polo shirts, that kind of thing. ”

“Your brother is why you had to move the stuff on short notice, right?”

“How much did Ms. Jeannie hear?”

“She likes to know everything, and she does take control of situations sometimes. But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.” I hurried the last sentence out. “She’s really not a gossip. She only told us the bare minimum of details, so we understood the urgency of the timeline.”

“I’m really not upset. I grew up in a small community. It reminds me of home in a weird way… though back there, it is gossip and it wasn’t always very altruistic. Oh, I have bonkers stories I could tell you.”

Before I could hear any of the stories, Nic pulled into the parking space in front of the door, and we all headed up the stairs to finish clearing out the room.

“I like her.” Nic stood beside me at the window I was cleaning. He rubbed his stubble and stared down at Thea, who was pacing in front of the truck. She was stuck in a heated discussion on her phone with either her brother or her mother.

“You like everyone.” I tossed my rag in the bucket.

“No, not everyone. I still plan on strangling those label execs if I ever get a shot at them.”

“They’re very hateable. But it really wasn’t completely their fault. I didn’t stand up for myself.”

“You should have.”

“I know that now.”

Nic knocked on the window frame a couple of times. “Thea likes you. You should ask her out. Sam warned me, but I wasn’t prepared to watch the intense flirt-tacular I’ve witnessed today.”

“Flirt-tacular?”

“A flirtstravaganza? Or a flirt-… a flirt… hm … Nope. Those are the only two I’ve got.”

“Wonderful.”

“But you two are—”

“Speaking of flirting…” I pursed my lips. “Sam asked me if you’re ready to let her set you up with any of the single people in Abbott’s law class. She’s got a list of interested men and women, apparently.”

His answering horrified grimace had me shaking so hard my eyes watered.

“Guess I know how you feel about that plan, Nicky.”

“Keep Sam away from my love life, please. My person’s out there somewhere, but I’m one hundred percent sure that’s not how I’m going to find them. But it’s sweet she cares.” An oddly thoughtful look came over Nic.

“You know Sam thinks of you like family.” I smiled out the window and paused my scrubbing.

Thea had stopped her pacing in favor of an adorable but completely silent set of hopefully cathartic angry hand motions like she was wringing an imaginary neck.

She pulled the phone away from her ear and took a deep breath and then put it back to her ear, clearly forcing herself to remain calm.

“You know, even with everything going on with her brother—and her mom seeming like a piece of work—I think Thea still really loves her family and wants things to be right with them. She’s going on vacation with them next week and drives hours and hours to go back and help them with stuff. Talks to her mom multiple times a day.”

“ Christ , that’s novel. Can you imagine?”

“No, I really, really can’t.”

Probably at the abrupt change in my tone, Nic’s attention snapped to me.

I leaned on the window frame. “I don’t think about my parents hardly ever. Haven’t talked to my dad in nearly a decade. Do you think that means maybe I’m irrevocably fucked up and could never actually make a relationship work because—?”

“ No . Is that why Sam says you’ve been stuck in a flirt-loop for weeks and meeting for lunch every day instead of just asking her out?”

“A flirt-loop? And you didn’t even let me finish my question.”

“The answer’s still no.”

“Fine.”

Nic chuckled. “Now, this does feel a little different, doesn’t it?”

“What does?”

“My whole life you’ve tried to protect me and coddled me like I was your baby brother, but now I get to be the one who’s all wise and telling you to stop devaluing yourself.” He looped his fingers through invisible suspenders. “Feels mighty gratifying.”

“Fuck off.” I smacked the top of his beanie and then pretended to spray him with the Windex before drenching a spot I had missed on the window. “Or I’ll tell Sam you’d love to be set up on a blind date with a future personal injury attorney.”

“Anything but that.” He slung his arm around my neck and hugged me close. “But maybe you could try opening up a little though.” He kept his tone light, but he was talking about all the ways I’d deflected talking about my childhood earlier.

“Maybe.”

Thea noticed our attention at the window. She smiled and waved. I waved back. Whatever my face was doing had Nic doubled over with laughter so raucous I nearly actually sprayed him with the Windex this time.