Page 11 of With Stars in Her Eyes
“Very, verygood to know.”
Okay, this is a complete disaster. Sam should fire me immediately.
“I’m sorry. Like I saidI’mnot good at peopling. Never have been. When I’ve helped Sam—Samantha—out with the store before it was less of this part of it.”
“The talking to people part?” With an unfaltering smile, Thea adjusted her earring from where it had gotten caught in her beanie, her rings glinting as she did.
“Yes. Exactly.”
Despite Thea’s obvious amusement, I wouldn’t be surprised if steam was spurting out of my ears. I was nervous enough about leading the book club without thinking about this stunning, classy yet enigmatically artsy and tatted-up goddess coming—not coming, stop thinking about coming—rather,attendingthe book club.
I had spentyearsperforming. Years being able to speak and sing and play multiple instruments in front of crowds of thousands, and somehow it was always the one-on-one conversations with strangers intotallynormal situations that defeated me.
“Well, you make a really solid pitch for the book club.” She slipped the flyer into her coat pocket. “But I am in and out of a lot for the next few months, so I’ll have to look at my calendar. I’d better get back.”
“Can I get the door—”
“I got it.” She pushed the door open, the bell above it jangling. “Nice to meet you again, Courtney.”
“Same. And sorry again about Billy Gibbons.”
Thea’s departing snort of laughter made my heart play hopscotch against my chest again.
The door to the office creaked open. Sam’s head poked out from the hallway like a vaudeville actor who had just been pulled offstage. “I tried to come out when my call ended but then I heard you bantering about genitals. Figured I shouldn’t intrude on that…”
“Thanks a lot.” I twisted the top of my water bottle and gulped down electrolytes to avoid the question probably written all over my best friend’s face.
Deflect.
I rubbed my eyes. “Did you know that octopodes is a lesser used but acceptable plural of octopus?”
“Nope.”
“Good. Me either.”
“So… do you want to fill me in on what happened in the last,I don’t know…” Samantha checked her watch. “… fifteen minutes since book club ended?”
“Not even a little bit.”
Despite this, I was on the verge of spilling the rest of the details of the conversation when an alert pinged on my phone. It was a calendar reminder for an appointment I really regretted making right now. “Ohfuck.” I passed the phone to Sam.
She chuckled. “Well, that should be interesting, shouldn’t it?”
CHAPTER 3Thea
I stacked the boxes on the counter and sat back on the desk stool. My boss had moved on from the crybaby client to a long appointment with a regular, so the ambiance felt less like a horror movie. My next appointment wasn’t for another hour, which meant plenty of time to get some photo editing done. I had four more events over the next few months that I’d agreed to photograph as a favor for my mom, then I’d be done with making the stupidly long drive back to Huntsville for a while.
My phone buzzed.
Mom again.
I would call her back later.
So far, this job was better than the daytime piercing gig at home for so many reasons. No creepy redneck boss telling me to smile more. Better hours. Better pay. And Marshall was right about getting away from my family. It felt freeing. As much as I loved my mom, the whole point of moving here was to stop falling back into old patterns. Their patterns and mine.
Granted, I hadn’t exactly explained this to my mother before moving…
Absently, I slipped the orange book club pamphlet out of my pocket, flipping the corner between my thumb and forefinger as I clicked through photo files.
