Page 28 of With Stars in Her Eyes
“So youdolike her? Even though she’s ‘terrifying’?”
“Yes.” I groaned and lifted my face while making an exaggerated grimace.
Sam was smiling. “Then we’lldefinitelyfix it.”
“Maybe if I just keep reading romance novels, I’ll stop acting like such a socially awkward dork when I try to flirt as myself.”
“Oooooh… I didn’t even think of that. I guess all the other times I’ve seen you pick up women it’s been as Kestrel…” She hmmed for a moment, considering. “Interesting.”
“Interesting how?”
“Maybe it’s because you’re figuring out yourself as Courtney here.”
“I’ve always been Courtney when I’m here.”
“Yeah, but you’ve always used the Kestrel side of yourself as an excuse not to talk to people here, which totally made sense, and I’m not saying that was wrong… but now…”
“But now…?” I braced for the question I’d been avoiding.
“But now I’m just glad to have my best friend working with me every day and living around the corner.” Sam’s mouth shut again. All her unspoken questions were sitting behind her lips, and I knew her well enough to know how hard it was not to ask them. That had been a mutual agreement between us.
It was the question I could barely ask myself.
When are you going to start playing again?
In return, I knew not to ask for updates about Samantha’s own situation that was even more of a too-painful-to-talk-about subject, that she and her husband had been trying for a year to get pregnant while her entire staff seemed to have baby after baby. We’ve always understood each other.
Sam’s smile became a little forced, but the hug she wrapped me up in after was warm and comforting.
“Thanks, Sam.”
When she pulled away, Sam tossed me a book, and I managed to grab it out of the air before it flew into the sticker display. “Get to work on your book club reading, and maybe you can get over your pathetic yips about flirting.”
I gave my friend a salute, just like the one Thea had given Jeannie during the snowstorm, and then, since the store was in its typical Monday lull, I opened the book to the first chapter.
CHAPTER 8Courtney
Even though my rental house was only a block farther than Sam’s place, the part of the walk I did alone always felt the longest. Nevertheless, the frigid blast of air felt somewhat soothing on my cheeks, which burned any time I thought about Thea.
When I decided to leave Sam’s basement guest room and sign a lease of my own, I thought the small furnished house in Kansas would feel like a symbol of my biggest failures. It meant I was officially taking a break from my life as a nomadic working musician. The house wasn’t anything special. Two stories. Three bedrooms if you counted the tiny room off the kitchen on the first floor. Two bathrooms with vivid, dated tile. The tan appliances were from the seventies but still functional. The kitchen floor was cheap linoleum. I had expected renting this house to feel like the adult version of placing myself in time-out. I had expected to feel trapped. But instead, every night when I stepped onto the house’s old green shag carpet, all the tightness in my chest unfurled. It felt like… something. But I didn’t exactly know what.
I hung my coat on the peg by the door and exhaled.
Somehow this little olive-green house in Kansas felt like a refuge.
Strange.
I sat on the floor of the dining room and pulled off my hat. As the knit fabric slid over my ear, a tugging pain reminded me of Thea too.
Thea who wanted to stay here permanently.
When she’d said that so matter-of-factly, part of me felt jealous. I’d said some things to Thea I hadn’t said aloud to anyoneelse, and they had been clanging in my head over and over again ever since.
“I think I’m turning over a new chapter actually.”
“It might be time to retire from all that.”
There were too many feelings wrapped up in those words for tonight. I couldn’t believe I had said any of that to a practical stranger. Too bad that I hadn’t been able to be as open or normal today when I talked to Thea.
