Page 47 of With Stars in Her Eyes

Thea

“Okay, so are we just saying things we didn’t do but want to? In that case, I didn’t spend the last three days trying to beat a video game my nephew left at my house. Now it’s your turn again. Oh wait, I think I got that mixed up… because I did do… I mean… never mind.” Marshall rubbed his beard.

“Remember me telling you about Kestrel?”

“The vodka?”

“That’s Ketel, you dumbass. Kestrel is the mysterious cellist-slash-songwriter-slash-singer with the husky voice of a chain-smoking angel who quit her rumored debut tour for an indefinite but mysterious hiatus after supposedly getting hammered and doing drugs onstage?

The Violet Trikes. The one I said I wanted to get Courtney and me tickets to go see? ”

“Now I remember. The one that was on a soundtrack, right?”

I inhaled sharply through my nose. “Yes. Please don’t start about the soundtracks again. I really try to pretend that every conversation I have with you about music never existed.”

“You’re very mean and judgmental for a woman currently pulling thorns out of her butt while allegedly not on a walk-of-shame.” He adjusted his baseball cap. “And all I said was that I felt like Nickelback gets a raw—”

“Please don’t repeat it. It’ll just make it worse.” I put my fingers in my ears and sang to myself until he stopped defending trash bands.

“You have to love me anyway.”

“You don’t have to make it harder. I can’t lose you. I’ve lost enough in the last twelve hours.”

Marshall squinted. “Looks like you’ve got moss growing in your hair. A new trend in the witchy folk circles? And what’ve you lost in the last twelve hours? Other than your shoes apparently.”

I looked down and, yep, my feet were bare. Lovely. “Shit, moss? Probably bugs too. Shit .”

Marshall took pity on me and began to pick out the worst of it. “Can we get back to what you lost?”

“Oh, just all my hope for the future.”

“You’re a millennial who still had hope for the future?”

“I had glimmers of it, damn it.”

Marshall plucked a literal twig from my head and held it up like Mary Poppins pulling the hatstand out of her bag.

“Exactly.”

“Exactly what?” He tossed the twig into the hedge. “Is this one of those situations where I should just let you keep spinning and eventually, you’ll calm down enough to actually tell me what’s actually going on?”

“Probably.”

“I’m refereeing a charity flag football tournament today. Can we walk and talk?”

“I don’t look too much like a swamp witch for you to be seen with me?”

“No more than usual.”

“Comforting.”

“What are best friends for.” We turned the corner that would take us toward the park. “You said you’d fill me in when you came home and then you didn’t come home last night. Guessing you were with Courtney. And ohhh…”

“Caught up?”

“Courtney’s a rock star ? Barely ever says two complete sentences in my presence Courtney? That Courtney? I thought you said she just does a classical thing.”

“Apparently your dad knows all about it. Also, your dad and Ms. Jeannie are apparently secret drug dealers too, but we can talk about that later. It’s like an open secret. You swear you had no idea ? Everyone here knows.”

“It’s an open secret my dad’s a drug dealer ? He’s a retired pharmacist, not a—”

“No. Not that. Everyone knows Courtney’s some secret rock star who performs in disguise.” I grabbed his arm and made him look me in the eye, accentuating each of my next words independently of each other. “Did… you… know?”

“I swear I didn’t know she was a rock star.” He shrugged. “I told you everything I knew before. Well, good for her, I guess? Can we get back to my dad dealing drugs because…” He glanced at me. “Wait… Why does this make you mad?”

“Because Kestrel .” The sound I made was definitely not a scream.

He stopped walking for a moment and then pulled out his phone and typed.

I rubbed my temples. “Courtney Starling is Kestrel. Kestrel is fucking Courtney goddamn Starling.”

He looked up from his phone. “Just to be clear, not the kestrel that’s the smallest bird of prey in the falcon family native to North America?”

“Not the goddamn bird either.” I tugged the sleeves of my stolen sweatshirt down over my cold hands.

“I used to watch all her YouTube videos. I lost my shit when I found out she was touring with the Violet Trikes. I was a fan. I was saving up to see them as soon as they came to the States. Demetrius Adeyemi is British. I had always assumed she was British too but sang in that vague American accent that—”

“So, just to be clear though, you said you didn’t fuck a rock star… meaning you didn’t spend the last three days with her? Because… not to be ungentlemanly, but you just climbed out of her hedges in a backward sweatshirt I don’t think belongs to you.”

“Of course I did . I was just trying to pretend. Gah.” I checked the collar. Sure enough, the tag was in the front instead of the back. I sighed. “But… last night, really the last few days, it was…”

“Was…?”

“Amazing. Transformative. And…”

“And?”

A lie.

At least that was what my brain was screaming.

Marshall nudged my shoulder. “You’re just staring.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Just checking you’re okay.” He checked his watch. “I’ve got to run—uh—literally. I’ll come see you downtown later though.” There was more in Marshall’s voice than mere curiosity.

“Downtown?”

“Aren’t you still bringing that nutty woo-woo camera of yours to set up at the book fair tonight? Isn’t it still—”

“Oh, fuuuuuck.”

“Wasn’t that why we cleared out your trunk last week to bring it over—”

I growled, hands tightening into fists. “Yes.”

“But you still forgot about it?”

“Obviously.”

After giving my shoulders a quick squeeze, he hoisted his bag of gear onto his shoulder and hustled off toward the baseball field.

I hurried toward my studio, hugging my arms around me as I recalled everything I needed to get done in the next three hours.