Page 65 of With Stars in Her Eyes
“Fuck.” As I read the first page, fear and anxiety doused every ember of heat from the kiss into a hissing mess. I grabbed my phone to call Sam. I needed Abbott’s help.
CHAPTER 22Thea
I wasn’t exactly jogging to the pub. But I wasn’tnotjogging either. I checked my bag again to make sure I’d remembered the book. My last client had been trickier than I’d expected. She kept changing her mind about whether she actually wanted the septum piercing. She took forever picking what she wanted for her initial jewelry, then she was extremely twitchy in the chair.
A large shadow appeared at my elbow. I didn’t even have to look up to know who it belonged to.
“Doing some early spring conditioning, are we?” Marshall said, his tone in full-on little brother mode.
I scowled. It didn’t help that his strides were so long, his leisurely pace was my power walk. As casually as possible, I slowed my steps.
“The club is called ‘hot and bottled,’ but you, Ms. Thea Quinn, seem already quite hot and very bothered.”
“Courtney wasn’t in the bookstore today.”
“I’m sure she’ll still be here.”
“What if I scared her off?”
“With your littleshow me your aura, and I’ll show you minemove.”
“Shut it, you. It wasn’t amove.” I flinched. “Not amovemove. Like it wasn’t supposed to be sleazy or anything. It was just—gah…”
“Gahhhh?” His imitation of me was a little too accurate.
“Right before she left, it looked like she was about to cry. What if kissing me was so bad she wanted to cry, and she didn’t know how to tell me? She said it was just dust in her eyes, but… I don’t know.”
“I’m sure she wasn’t crying about the kiss if she was crying at all. Maybe she had allergies.”
“The whole thing was supposed to be romantic. I was going to ask her to dinner after, but she had already asked me to come over tonight after book club, so I got flustered and… ugh. I thought she was just being cute, but now I’m pretty sure she couldn’t wait to leave because I came on way too strong, which is exactly what I’ve been trying not to do with the whole sandwiches and soup slow burn we’ve had going on. I haven’t overtexted. I don’t even have her number, which was for the best given how little self-control I have… and ugh. Now she’s probably run off with someone who didn’t info dump at her about cosmic energies before making out with her.”
“Well, I do declare, Ms. Quinn, maybe you should’ve asked your paramour to the ball before trying to deflower her virtue in your studio like a cad.”
“How many of these bookshaveyou read since signing up for this, Marshall?”
“A completely nonembarrassing number.”
“Give or take…?”
“Thirty?”
“How did you read thirty of them?”
“I’m grieving my career. I’m in a fight with my father… Don’t judge me. How many times did you watchBattlestar Galacticaafter you found out you didn’t get into that photo fellowship thing?”
“Definitelylessthan thirty.”
“Well, whoop-de-do for you, Dorothea.”
“I will kill you if you embarrass me tonight, Marshall.”
“You’re so ornery today.”
“Because she’s not going to come. I scared her off. She probably fled the state, taking the potatoes, cupcakes,andColin Firth with her.”
“You think one little make-out session sent a local bookseller on the lam with an Oscar award–winning actor?”
“Probably.” I glared. “And you better not have taken any of the books from my nightstand today. Those are Courtney’s. She loaned them to me weeks ago, and now I’ll have to ship them to her with a note of apology probably.”
