Page 65 of With Stars in Her Eyes

Thea

I stood on a platform in the dunes, hoarse from yelling at everyone to make sure there wasn’t a single lumen of light in the surrounding area unaccounted for. The sky overhead was perfectly clear. The stars and the Milky Way burned as brightly as I had ever seen them.

The five members of the Violet Trikes stood on a similar platform in the foreground of the shot with their instruments.

The plan was for them to play through their entire two-hour set acoustically while I shot.

I would take no chances on this and I planned exposures on four separate cameras using four separate techniques.

If the long exposure failed, I could splice together the sky shots on the timed camera to create the star trails Demetrius and the band were looking for.

I would also use two digital cameras, one with a rotating mount to make sure I had other photos to go along with the main photo they were hoping to achieve.

I hadn’t slept in a few days, not just because of being reunited with Courtney, but because I had been out every night practicing with my equipment to make sure I had mapped out the angles properly.

Courtney and Marshall were both as exhausted as I was.

They’d been lugging equipment at all hours too and tolerating my intermittent losses of confidence.

Richard had hired a small crew as well. I still hated that asshole, but I couldn’t deny his efficiency.

The crew was easy to work with, but I didn’t trust anyone except myself to carry my grandfather’s camera and manage the rolls of rare and discontinued film it had taken hours of internet searching to find.

When Demetrius and his bandmates gave me the nod, I grabbed the megaphone.

“I’m about to cut the extra lights. No extra light.

Once I cut the spots, there needs to be no light except for the red emergency lights.

Everyone get it? And when I say no extra light, I fucking mean it.

If any of y’all want to send flirty texts to your significant others, you have five minutes to do it. ”

A chorus of laughter and “Got it” came from everywhere.

The sand had been painstakingly smoothed of footprints in front of the platform with the band, so I still had to yell for Demetrius to hear me.

“Hydrated and ready for the long one this time?”

“This is your show, Thea Quinn. Once you give us the go, we’ll be playing until you tell us to shut up.” Demetrius winked.

A videographer moved somewhere in the corner of my eye, but I tried hard to ignore them.

I took several deep breaths and rechecked all my settings.

When I stepped away from the cameras and turned, Courtney was there.

She hadn’t left my side for the last four days.

I reached toward her, content to know that Courtney wouldn’t give a fuck about how sweaty my palms were.

Courtney’s hand squeezed mine.

After final walkie-talkie checks, I flipped on the megaphone again. “I’m about to cut the lights.”

Courtney’s proud smile was the last thing I saw before the lights went out. I cued the band to begin playing and then began my work.

An hour into the shoot, Courtney forced me to drink some water while I switched out cameras.

After she seemed satisfied I wasn’t dehydrated, she stood at the table and held an extra red light to help me safely stow a roll of film.

Before I lifted the camera to begin shooting again, I grabbed Courtney’s hand and brushed a whisper of a kiss over her knuckles.

“How are you feeling?”

“Weirdly energized?” I placed the strap over my head. “I know I should be so tired, but holy hell, this is so fun.”

“You’re so good at it.” There wasn’t a hint of surprise in Courtney’s tone, but her awed pride filled me with courage and staved off any last doubts or dread.

“Don’t say that yet, baby. You’ll jinx the genius out of me.” I kissed Courtney’s nose.

Taking advantage of the darkness, Courtney gave my ass the tiniest of squeezes as I walked back to take the next set of photos. I had been expecting to see some regret on Courtney’s face while she watched Demetrius walk to the platform with his band without her, but her face betrayed none.

When the band stopped playing, a small amount of applause came from the crew. Remembering the way they planned the extra time, the band continued standing where they were for an additional thirty minutes.

One by one, they all looked up at the sky.

As they gazed at the swirl of galaxies circling above them, a hush fell over everyone else in attendance.

The noises of night creatures filled the hollow space left by the now still instruments.

The first timer went off to signal I could shift the lighting slightly.

The crew moved to grab the instruments and clear the space.

The band now stood as stark silhouettes in front of the tapestry of sky.

In thirty more minutes, I had everything I needed.

I grabbed the megaphone and channeled all the behind-the-scenes documentaries I had ever watched. “I think we got it. That’s a wrap, folks.”

Cheers came up from everywhere. After I put my camera back in its case, Courtney caught me in an earth-shattering hug. “You are incredible.”

“Thank you.” I grinned. “I really think it’s going to be good. I have a feeling.”

The lights came back on, but somehow Courtney’s pride shone even brighter. “Me too, Thea.”

I followed Courtney out to the roof deck where she spread a picnic blanket.

“I’m going to murder you if you don’t just tell me what you keep tantalizing me about.”

Courtney grinned. “I made a choice I want to tell you about. But first I have to apologize for everything—”

“You already have.”

“I know, but I understand why I fucked everything up before now. When I get scared, I hide. And I don’t mean that figuratively. It’s a little embarrassing. And the problem is when I’m hiding, I have trouble figuring out what I want.”

“That makes sense.”

Courtney wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “But you know what you want. You always seem to know what you want.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“You were talking about how you tried things and then quit them when they weren’t right for you. I could not fathom how you could just know that. I have spent so much of my life masking I can’t even always trust myself to know how I feel about things and what I want.”

“What do you want?” I rested my head on her shoulder.

“I don’t like performing at big venues. I don’t like smoke machines and strobe lights.

I don’t want to try to achieve anything near the kind of fame that Demetrius has.

The idea of that many people knowing who I am makes my skin crawl.

I want to tour and perform and record, but I want to do it for shorter periods of time.

I want to have an actual home somewhere where I feel peaceful. ”

“Really?”

Courtney nodded. “So I guess I want to come up with a plan for that.”

“You should. And you should probably text me about it.”

Courtney twisted to face me. “You’re sure you’re ready… you’re sure you trust me enough? I don’t want to make you more anxious while I’m still on tour.”

I smiled. “I trusted you enough to send you that papaya, didn’t I?”

“Well, I guess if you trust me enough to let me text you now, maybe I should tell you something else.”

“What?”

“I love you.”

“Courtney—”

“I should have told you before I even left Kansas because I knew it then. It’s probably crummy I’m telling you that when I still have to be gone for most of seven more months with my contract, and you have a life and a career you’re building back in Kansas, but I want you to know that the only way I picture coming home now involves coming home to be with you. ”

“That’s really what you want?”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted anything more. I’ve been dreaming about it since I left.”

“Seven months…”

“I know it’s a lot, but—”

I drowned the rest of the sentence in a kiss that seemed to brighten the stars above us. “I’ve spent the last four months loving you while you were away from me, so I’m not sure why you think I’d stop now.” After kissing a tear from Courtney’s cheek, I leaned on Courtney’s shoulder.

Courtney told me all the plans she had been making. Small venues. Limited tours. A backup band of women she thought deserved more attention in the industry.

A house in Kansas with the hope of someday adopting a potbellied pig.

The calls of night birds punctuated the symphony of swaying trees and cicadas in the strengthening wind.

Neither of us spoke for a long while.

My voice was hoarse when I found it again. “You dreamed about coming home to me?”

“It wouldn’t be coming home if it wasn’t to you, Thea.”