Page 29 of With Stars in Her Eyes

Thea

I wasn’t exactly jogging to the pub. But I wasn’t not jogging either.

I checked my bag again to make sure I’d remembered the book.

My last client had been trickier than I’d expected.

She kept changing her mind about whether she actually wanted the septum piercing.

She took forever picking what she wanted for her initial jewelry, then she was extremely twitchy in the chair.

A large shadow appeared at my elbow. I didn’t even have to look up to know who it belonged to.

“Doing some early spring conditioning, are we?” Marshall said, his tone in full-on little brother mode.

I scowled. It didn’t help that his strides were so long, his leisurely pace was my power walk. As casually as possible, I slowed my steps.

“The club is called ‘hot and bottled,’ but you, Ms. Thea Quinn, seem already quite hot and very bothered.”

“Courtney wasn’t in the bookstore today.”

“I’m sure she’ll still be here.”

“What if I scared her off?”

“With your little show me your aura, and I’ll show you mine move.”

“Shut it, you. It wasn’t a move .” I flinched. “Not a move move. Like it wasn’t supposed to be sleazy or anything. It was just—gah…”

“Gahhhh?” His imitation of me was a little too accurate.

“Right before she left, it looked like she was about to cry. What if kissing me was so bad she wanted to cry, and she didn’t know how to tell me? She said it was just dust in her eyes, but… I don’t know.”

“I’m sure she wasn’t crying about the kiss if she was crying at all. Maybe she had allergies.”

“The whole thing was supposed to be romantic. I was going to ask her to dinner after, but she had already asked me to come over tonight after book club, so I got flustered and… ugh. I thought she was just being cute, but now I’m pretty sure she couldn’t wait to leave because I came on way too strong, which is exactly what I’ve been trying not to do with the whole sandwiches and soup slow burn we’ve had going on.

I haven’t overtexted. I don’t even have her number, which was for the best given how little self-control I have…

and ugh. Now she’s probably run off with someone who didn’t info dump at her about cosmic energies before making out with her. ”

“Well, I do declare, Ms. Quinn, maybe you should’ve asked your paramour to the ball before trying to deflower her virtue in your studio like a cad.”

“How many of these books have you read since signing up for this, Marshall?”

“A completely nonembarrassing number.”

“Give or take…?”

“Thirty?”

“How did you read thirty of them?”

“I’m grieving my career. I’m in a fight with my father… Don’t judge me. How many times did you watch Battlestar Galactica after you found out you didn’t get into that photo fellowship thing?”

“Definitely less than thirty.”

“Well, whoop-de-do for you, Dorothea.”

“I will kill you if you embarrass me tonight, Marshall.”

“You’re so ornery today.”

“Because she’s not going to come. I scared her off. She probably fled the state, taking the potatoes, cupcakes, and Colin Firth with her.”

“You think one little make-out session sent a local bookseller on the lam with an Oscar award–winning actor?”

“Probably.” I glared. “And you better not have taken any of the books from my nightstand today. Those are Courtney’s. She loaned them to me weeks ago, and now I’ll have to ship them to her with a note of apology probably.”

He grimaced. “I might have borrowed the one on top about the scoundrel and the pirate since it seemed a little intriguing. The cover had swords on it.”

“You better put it back when you’re done with it.”

“When have I ever just stolen your stuff?”

I stopped and put one hand on my hip, using the other to count off items. “Let’s start with recently since I’ve been staying at your house. My new beanie—which I saw you wearing. My reading light, and I guess that makes a lot of sense now, and my favorite travel mug.”

“The mug’s in the car. I just keep forgetting to bring it inside. I’ll make it up to you by buying your beer tonight.”

“It’s your pub. You’re buying beer from yourself.” We were several minutes late, thanks to the indecisive client, which was already making me stressed. My breaths were coming faster than they should. I wasn’t in running shape.

“True.” He put a hand on both of my shoulders to stop me from my furious movement.

He’d done this when we were kids too and I needed a pep talk.

It was like a coach trying to refocus a star player.

He starts with the look-me-in-the-eyes gesture, then takes a deep breath.

“You got this, kid. You did not scare her off. She’s going to be inside and waiting.

We’re going to talk about the banter and discuss the best plot points and the Regency-era hot-duchess-on-lady-in-waiting sex, and then you’re going to go over to her house and—”

“I’m literally begging you not to finish that sentence.” I exhaled. “But okay. I can do this.”

“You sure can.” He released my shoulders, and if I were a dude, I was pretty sure he would have smacked my ass and pushed me onto the field to score a touchdown.

We marched up the stairs to the old church building that was split between Marshall’s pub and Jeannie’s plant shop.

It really was a cool building. As I stepped inside, the first thing I noticed with a pang for Marshall was how empty and dingy it looked.

This didn’t really make sense with the money that Marshall was putting into the place, but I filed that away to talk to him about later.

The second thing I noticed was that in the group of ten people in the far side of the restaurant, there was absolutely no sign of a soft blond pixie cut. Samantha sat in the center of the group beside Jeannie.

“I’m sure she’s just running late.” Marshall patted my shoulder.

She was not running late.

Courtney never showed up at all.

I tried to pay attention as the group ran through the list of discussion questions.

I laughed when everyone else laughed. I tried to seem interested when someone asked if something was an anachronism versus artistic license.

I fiddled with the pages of my copy of the book and pretended to page through to remind myself of some specific detail in the text.

My ears perked up when Ms. Jeannie said the first kiss was just about the hottest thing she had ever read in a voice that sounded both chronically cranky and wry, which made Marshall blush.

Everyone laughed again, but I couldn’t bring myself to join in that time.

My mind was back to last night and the hottest kiss of my actual life and how it didn’t seem to matter at all to the woman I had shared it with.

My finger snagged on the corner of the copy of the photo I had taken of Courtney. Part of me wanted to ball it up and throw it away, but I was spiraling. I’m sure there was a logical explanation, but my heart refused to be reasonable.

Somehow I had downed four beers by the time Samantha closed her own book. This was more than I had drunk in a long time. Hot and bottled. More like Hurt and Empty Bottled.

I was so stupid.

After Samantha said goodbye to the first group who stood to leave, she turned to me. “Did she get in touch with you today?”

My mind was too hazy. “Who?”

Samantha’s expression held an amount of pity that would be alarming if I were sober enough to care. “Courtney.”

I scratched at the beer bottle label. “I thought she would be here tonight.”

“She had some legal stuff happen out of nowhere and had to get a flight out really early this morning.”

“So, she is on the lam?” I snickered and reached for the dregs of my last beer, but Marshall slid a glass of water into my hand. “Did she take the potatoes? What about Colin?”

Samantha frowned. “Huh?

“Drink up, kid.” Marshall nudged the glass another inch forward.

“Fine.” My rings clinked on the water glass as I guzzled it. Had I eaten anything today?

“And what have you been doing all day?” While Samantha’s voice had been gentle with me, it sharpened when she directed it at Marshall.

“Reading about scoundrels and dukes crossing their swords, of course,” I answered for him in a sloshy, way-too-loud slur of words.

“Oooh.” A husky laugh came from the seat beside me. Jeannie must have sat beside me at some point. “Marshall has got good taste. That one’s one of my favorites.”

I might have snorted water up my nose as I laughed. Whatever happened, it ended in a coughing fit that had Jeannie patting my back. “I’m getting that useless fuckboy chef Marshall won’t fire to make you something to eat.” Jeannie pushed to standing before I could object.

“Why are you looking daggers at me, Samantha. What’d I do?” Marshall said.

“You have thirty-six missed calls on your phone, Marshall Greene.”

“So?”

“So, three of those were me calling you to try to get Thea’s number so Courtney could call her and explain why she wasn’t going to be here tonight.”

“She really didn’t just run away?”

“No, sweetie. She didn’t. She wouldn’t do that.” Samantha pushed my empty glass at Marshall. “Can you go get her some more water? And call your dad back too.”

Marshall looked happy to have a job that would allow him to escape Samantha’s fury, so he hustled off to the kitchen.

Samantha sat beside me in the chair Marshall had vacated.

“I don’t know what happened between y’all.

She didn’t tell me, but she was freaking out this morning before she left for the airport because she needed you to know she felt bad about leaving last night and was going to talk to you about it today.

She said something about crying and then leaving too quickly, and that she was worried you would get the wrong idea.

I just sent her your number, so she’ll call you as soon as she can. ”

“I knew it wasn’t just dust in her eye.” A plate slid in front of her with steam rising off it. Jeannie gave me a crooked smile. “Are you a french fry angel?”