Page 51 of With Stars in Her Eyes
“Big family?”
“One of five.”
“Oldest?”
“The youngest.”
“Ah…” I leaned an inch closer.
Thea narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to psychoanalyze me based on birth order?”
“I wouldn’t dare.” I tried to keep my face as innocent as possible, but I didn’t have Thea’s dimple superpower. “I’ve always found sibling dynamics sort of fascinating. Only child thing, I guess.”
“Do you have other cousins or just Nic?”
“Probably distant ones.” I stared at the back of Nic’s head.There was a scar on the right side, and he never would tell me where it came from. There was so much I hadn’t been able to protect him from. “Nic’s the only one I’ve ever met though. His mom was my mom’s sister.”
“Best friends?”
I barked a laugh, and Nic was laughing too based on the way his shoulders shook. “Hated each other’s guts.”
“I get that.” Thea sighed.
“You hate your sister?”
“Not actual hate. I just have nothing in common with my siblings. I’m really close with my mom. We still talk all the time. I love my family a lot, it’s just my siblings are all more ‘normal’ and are married with kids. They wanted things I’m not sure I’ll ever want. We grew up in a small suburb outside Huntsville, and they all moved in with their spouses to the neighborhoods near my parents. Joined country clubs. Play in the same pickleball league. Kids wear monogrammed polo shirts, that kind of thing.”
“Your brother is why you had to move the stuff on short notice, right?”
“How much did Ms. Jeannie hear?”
“She likes to know everything, and shedoestake control of situations sometimes. But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.” I hurried the last sentence out. “She’s really not a gossip. She only told us the bare minimum of details, so we understood the urgency of the timeline.”
“I’m really not upset. I grew up in a small community. It reminds me of home in a weird way… though back there, itisgossip and itwasn’talways very altruistic. Oh, I have bonkers stories I could tell you.”
Before I could hear any of the stories, Nic pulled into the parking space in front of the door, and we all headed up the stairs to finish clearing out the room.
“I like her.” Nic stood beside me at the window I was cleaning. He rubbed his stubble and stared down at Thea, who was pacing in front of the truck. She was stuck in a heated discussion on her phone with either her brother or her mother.
“You like everyone.” I tossed my rag in the bucket.
“No, not everyone. I still plan on strangling those label execs if I ever get a shot at them.”
“They’re very hateable. But it really wasn’t completely their fault. I didn’t stand up for myself.”
“Youshouldhave.”
“I know that now.”
Nic knocked on the window frame a couple of times. “Thea likes you. You should ask her out. Sam warned me, but I wasn’t prepared to watch the intense flirt-tacular I’ve witnessed today.”
“Flirt-tacular?”
“A flirtstravaganza? Or a flirt-… a flirt…hm… Nope. Those are the only two I’ve got.”
“Wonderful.”
“But you two are—”
