Page 46 of With Stars in Her Eyes

“It’s not about what you think though.”

“I’m really not sure that matters. I decided a million years ago I wasn’t going to chase women who lie to me. I’m not going to be with people who lie to me. I’m definitely not going to be with people who hide who they really are from me.” I wiped stinging heat from my eyes.

What was wrong with me that it always ended up this way? Why did no one trust me enough to show me who they really are?

I needed to leave.

I was supposed to be breaking old patterns, and I’d fallen into the same traps as before.

“Thea. I really wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t figure out how. I didn’t think it would matter that I played with him.”

“Does everyone else in the neighborhood know?”

“No…” Courtney grimaced. “Well… Sam. And Abbott, I guess. Ms. Jeannie obviously. Sam’s grandpa knows and Mr. Greene, and I think Denise has guessed because the other day she asked me something about—”

“So basically, all the people who have been watching me make a fool out of myself with you for months now probably knew you were keeping me in the dark about your shiny actual life you’re on vacation from.”

“ Marshall doesn’t know. At least I don’t think he does. It’s not everyone. I’m just not telling people. And I don’t have a shiny real life. I didn’t have a personal life at all. I had a career. It ended, and I came here. I don’t tell people here about the other thing because—”

“I’m not people . You were the one who said… you said I knew you. Do you understand how that seems like a line now? That can’t have been true.” My eyes burned. “And then last night I said… shit… because I thought you wanted to know me too, and—”

“I do.”

I shook my head. “I have to go.”

“I lied about one thing. It’s not… it’s not what you think…” Courtney scraped her fingers through her hair. “It’s embarrassing and complicated and has to do with my childhood and how I didn’t want you to see me differently.”

“Because nothing that I said to you in the last few months was embarrassing or complicated?”

Courtney squeezed my shoulder. After a split second of letting myself feel the warm, intense pressure of Courtney’s fingers, I shook her off.

“I thought last night was one of those magical nights of radical honesty that catapult you into something special, something more real than anything else I’ve ever… damn it. ”

“It was .”

“I thought it was one of those complete baring of souls moments.”

Courtney’s shoulders slumped as she let her hand drop. “I thought it was too. I texted him last night I was done. That’s why it didn’t matter. I’m quitting.”

My mouth fell open. “You made that life-altering decision right in front of me, and you still think all those omissions wouldn’t feel like lies when I found out?”

Courtney opened her mouth and then shut it. She had frozen again.

“I was trying to help you. I thought that’s what we were doing last night—helping you figure out a way to get over the PTSD and get back up onstage.

” I leaned my forehead on the cool window frame.

“I’ve heard you play. Your soul’s in your music, and you hid that from me.

I didn’t meet your soul. It was all hints and misdirection and trying to make me believe you were this quiet, shy bookseller who used to play in an orchestra and sing at church with stage parents.

That day you left… oh my god, you were filming The Tonight Show, weren’t you?

You were in the back, but I saw the clips online.

Even with the wig and the sunglasses… God , I should’ve seen it. ”

“Fuck.” Courtney took a step closer to me but didn’t touch me. “So you’ve…” Courtney’s voice was almost childlike now. “You’ve really heard me play as—?”

“ Yes . I’ve listened to your music since college.

” My hand curled into a tight fist and braced on the window.

“So, I know how much what you do and who you are matters. Which makes it clear that the only person I got to know over the last few months is your goddamn secret identity. Like—like—like fucking Spider-Man or something. I met Peter Parker. And I refuse to be Mary Jane. Because for starters, she has a stupid name, and I don’t have red hair.

And did you know she dies in the comic books? ”

Courtney’s snort at my sudden, completely inappropriate to the tone of the moment joke broke the tension with a sound so adorable it almost made me want to jump back into bed and follow through with my original plan for the morning, ultrafamous, unexpected visitor be damned.

“I—I swear I’m not jumping off buildings at night and can’t shoot webs. ”

“Hey, Courtney?” Samantha’s muffled voice called down the hallway. “Demetrius made me worried you were dead, so I came over for a wellness check. I… I’m thinking you’re fine… but maybe need a few minutes, so I’m going to make him coffee. Take your time.”

“Oh, hell to the no. Y’all have lost your ever-loving minds if you think I’m…” I lifted myself onto the window.

Courtney was still just wearing nothing except that bra-and-boy-shorts underwear combo that had always driven me wild on women, but she had pulled a blanket around her shoulders.

“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 for months, 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 it wasn’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. Months of 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. Is this you quitting things?” Courtney’s forehead furrowed. “ Please just let me see what he wants. Then I’ll tell you everything…”

“I’m not quitting. 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 had felt like 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 attention this 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 did not spend the last three days fucking a secret rock star.”