Page 27 of With Stars in Her Eyes
God, I missed being a musician on tour. When I was Kestrel, I had no issues flirting with women. Why was it so much harder flirting as myself?
“I’m looking for the book club book for—”
“Oh, that’s right. Sam said you joined.”
“Wow, Sam’s quick. I just filled out the form like five minutes ago.”
“She—uh—gets alerts on her phone, I think.” After a great start with the whole hats-and-crime bit, I had officially made this conversation ten times more awkward than it should have been.I had already spent a night sleeping next to this person and now somehow all it had taken was one conversation to feel like I had accidentally put the brakes on something.
Whyyyyy?
“Ah. Found it.” Thea snatched a book off the shelf near the door that had all the book club book selections on it.
“Oh… great. I could have— Wait, that’s not the one for this month.”
“I know.” She frowned. “I’m going to be out of town when the next two meetings happen but I wanted to get it because sometimes I’m slow at moving through books. I should be good for the June one though. First Thursday of the month, right?”
“Yeah. First Thursday.” I messed up scanning the book three times before the stupid scanner read the barcode properly. I dropped it in a bag and handed it to Thea. “Oh. Okay. Is that all you need today? I appreciate you stopping in.”
“No worries. Wouldn’t want to take up too much ofyourtime.” Thea’s voice was a little clipped.
“Oh.”
“Oh?” Thea asked.
“When you said you were a thief… Ishouldhave said—don’t worry I don’t think Sam will have the authorities throw thebookat you.”
A beat passed.
Then a second one.
Thea suddenly chortled. “Ding. Ding. Ding. All right you win this round with the dad joke.” The corners of her mouth perked upward again.
I felt brighter. “I really am happy you joined the book club.”
“Really?” The word had a little too much feeling in it. That was my fault. “I was worried—I don’t know…”
“It’s probably obvious, but sometimes I suck at talking to people. Strangers especially aft—now. Now in this new role, I want to do better though. Hopefully by the June meeting I’ll have it down.”
Thea’s lips quirked to the side. “Looking forward to seeing you there.”
“Yay.” I gave a small, dorky cheerleader woo motion that might have come across as sarcastic rather than enthusiastic.
“Yay,” Thea echoed with slightly less awkwardness. “See you later, Courtney.”
As soon as she was out the door and around the corner, I lowered my forehead to rest on the counter again.
“Ahh… why…” Sam said, emerging from the hallway to the office looking either appalled or entertained or maybe both. “Whydid you shut her down when she was flirting?”
I spoke directly into the wooden countertop. “I was trying to flirt back.”
“Really? Because that’s not how it—”
“Iknowit’s not.”
“There, there, friend.” Sam patted her hand between my shoulder blades. “Don’t worry. We’ll fix it. Somehow.”
“I feel so comforted.”
