Page 7 of With Stars in Her Eyes

Courtney

The bookshop door slammed behind me, and I leaned on the counter with my chest heaving. Sam popped up just as Billy Gibbons had a few hours earlier. I didn’t scream like Thea, but I did hop backward before mustering up a bland expression.

“How’d it go?”

“Fine. Completely fine.” I pointed to my ear. “Got a new hole in my body. Check.”

“That’s an interesting way to put it. You seem flustered.” Sam’s shrewd, steely eyes appraised me. “What happened?”

“Nothing. Just don’t like needles.” I scanned the room for a task. “Where’s that last—”

“I got all the boxes unloaded and broken down. And I got the sales rep to assure me that the rest of the preorders would be here in time for the new release party on Monday.” Sam walked closer. “Hmm…”

“Stop looking at me like that. My migraine is better than earlier. I’m fit as a fiddle.”

“Who says fit as a fiddle anymore?”

“I do.”

“Since when?”

“Since now.” My attempt at a grin might have looked more like a grimace.

“If we’re going to talk about your emotional and physical state using dated, music-related idioms, then why are you so keyed up—?”

“Probably just having a side effect from that new med the neurologist put me on.”

“What side effect?”

“My heart keeps racing. A little bit of nausea. Hot flash. Throat constricted when I’m trying to talk, but I’m talking way more in front of random people than usual too.

Maybe I should let my doctor know.” The sticker display next to the counter was a disaster. Exactly the type of task I needed now.

Sam clicked her tongue. “When did these mysterious symptoms begin?”

I sorted the stickers into neat stacks. “Uh… earlier?”

“As in right after book club when I was on the phone?”

“I guess so.”

“And these mysterious symptoms are worse right now?”

“Definitely.”

“Ah. Okay. So… I have a theory.”

“Hit me with it.” My fingers kept failing at peeling apart two stickers that were stuck to each other.

“You’ve got an insta-crush. On Thea.”

“Do not .” After several more attempts, I passed the stubborn stickers to Sam, whose nails made quick work of the problem. “I’m just coming down with a cold. All those tweens and their germs.”

“You developed symptoms in two hours?”

“It’s a very aggressive virus.”

“You certainly have something very aggressive going on if it’s got you this flustered.”

“I’m the epitome of chill.”

“You’re so chill I think you might be a running a fever out of sheer horniness. Were you like this over there with her? You’re practically vibrating.” Sam snickered. “How’d she get you to stay still enough to poke you with a sharp object?”

“I was completely still. She even commented on it. I barely said a word.”

“Sounds like your attraction provoked a perfect fuck, flight, or freeze moment,” Sam said through chortles. “Now just answer me this. If, hypothetically, she had said you were a good girl , what would you have—”

“Stop.” I scowled at my sticker piles. “We are not, absolutely fucking not, in a romance book right now. I don’t hook up with people when I’m here. It’s just too complicated.”

“You certainly haven’t in the past.” Sam grabbed a seltzer and popped open the can. “How many times do you estimate you said the word clitoris during that first conversation? Because I stopped counting after six.”

“It’s very rude to eavesdrop.”

“I was just shocked because I’ve literally never heard you talk that much to anyone in the store until you’ve gotten to know them for a few months .”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean—”

“Hey.” Sam held up her hands defensively. “Just making an observation. You’re sure there was no more discussion of anatomy?”

“Not unless you count the where-to-poke-me-with-the-sharp-object conversation.”

“Poking. Dirty.”

“ Samantha .”

“Fine. I’ll shut up about it.”

After a few more minutes of stacking and restacking stickers until they might actually be more disorganized than before, I gave up, mixed them all together, and dumped them back in the case.

I’d fix them in the morning. “Right, so I might have said something after she was done doing the piercing about screaming that, in retrospect, could’ve been interpreted a couple of different ways. ”

Sam snorted seltzer bubbles, sending her into a fit of half-coughing, half-hysterical laughter. “Back up. Tell me exactly what happened during this conversation.”

We spent the entire time closing up the shop doing a thorough postmortem of the short conversation at Squid.

When Sam opened the door for us to walk home, we were almost blown backward. “ Fuck that’s frigid. I should’ve driven.”

“Ugh…” I pulled on my hat and mittens.

Sam frowned as she wrapped her scarf around her neck several times. “Will you seriously be okay this weekend? It’s supposed to snow. I hope it’s not going to be bad, but I don’t have to go to the conference. I wouldn’t have signed up if I thought Fran would already be out with the baby.”

“You’ve been excited about the conference for months. I can handle it.”

“And your head’s going to be—”

“My head’s been so much better. I’m good. You need a break. And you need to stop worrying about me. Ms. Jeannie said she could help while you’re gone if I have any trouble.”

Sam took my arm as we headed into the wind. “I know you can handle it. I just wasn’t planning on a potential natural disaster for your first weekend covering.”

“Never a dull moment, and that’s why I love it here.

” I smiled, feeling the absolute honesty of the words.

I was happy here in this strangely compartmentalized part of my life.

Even with the lingering embarrassment of the awkward conversation with the beautiful woman working next door, it was strange to feel that certainty in saying how much I loved it here.

“I love having you here.” Sam shivered. “I’m glad I said that to you since there’s a chance we’ll both get frostbite and die while walking home.”

“Always with such happy thoughts.”

“Always.” She pulled me into a fast trot down the sidewalk against the blistering wind.