Page 68 of With Stars in Her Eyes
I sat up like a zombie erupting from the ground to hunt human brains.
Pain clanged through my head.
Vertical was very, very bad.
I managed to grab my phone but not without knocking over the stack of books on the nightstand. I could deal with that later. Standing would be… impossible.
My thumb fumbled trying to slide across the screen.Good job, me.
“Hey?” Courtney’s voice was soft crushed velvet on ears.
“Courtney?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry to call so late.”
“Whattimesitanyways?” There probably should have been spaces in that sentence. “Itstotallyfinelyfinestfine.”
“Eleven-thirty.” Even as fucked up as I was, I could hear that Courtney was smiling. “Heard you had a rough first book club.”
“I’m a lightweight.”
“Marshall got you back home safe?”
My “yup” in response was more hiccup than word. “Everyone’s mad at him. This town is weird. They all know about us too.”
Courtney laughed. “They aren’tmadmad at him. They just love him and his dad. But I guess they might want him to make some different choices, maybe. But… what do you mean they know about us?”
“Samantha’s husband gave me a thumbs-up.”
“Ah…”
“And I think Ms. Jeannie called the pub chef a fuckboy. It was all a little con-fuddling.”
“Con-fuddling?”
“I was torn between saying confusing and befuddling.”
“I likecon-fuddling. Sounds a little likecuddling.” Courtney’s smiling voice was back. “Look, I wanted to say—”
“I want to cuddle you, I think. If you were into that.”
A few beats of silence passed, and time might not have existed until Courtney spoke again.
“Really?” Courtney said in a raspy whisper.
“I want to fuck you senseless too.”
Had an hour passed? Seconds? Was this conversation actually happening?
“Courtney?”
“I’m here. I—”
“I was sad you were gone today. I thought it was because of last night…”
“I’m so sorry. It wasn’t. I was trying to be all cool and cute and act like I wasn’t losing my damn mind over you, but I wanted toget home to clean my house and bake. But I know you saw me start to lose it a little. It wasn’t about you.”
“I didn’t make you cry because I kissed you badly?”
