Page 50 of With Stars in Her Eyes
“Lemme put this in terms you can understand, Nic. Today is aboutThea’squest, padawan.” Sam snickered.
“I said I was apaladin, not a pada—that’sStar Warsnot…” Nic growled and passed the CD binder into the back seat to Thea. “Fine.”
“Hey, you finally got some new stuff.” I scooted an inch closer to Thea to look in case Nic had any other embarrassing old CDs of mine in there.
“I grabbed some new ones at a festival in the fall. Check the back.”
Thea lit up. “Ooooh. She’s good.” Thea passed the CD forward, and once Nic inserted it, Irish fiddle music played through the speaker. “And don’t let their teasing get you down, Nic.” Thea offered me some of the pack of peanut butter M&M’s she had gotten at the gas station. “Courtney has been helping me heal my inner child through animal encounters since I came to town. Well, animal encounters and smut.”
Nic choked on a sip of his water bottle.
I covered my face. “Books. I’ve been suggestingbooks.”
“Could someone explain the animal encounters because I don’t think I want to know about the smut.”
Thea beamed. “Well, first there was a dragon.”
“Are we back talking about fantasy role-playing games?” Nic accelerated onto the highway with a perplexed expression.
“Weirdly enough, nope.” Sam yawned and rolled over to face the window.
“But Courtney did have to defend my honor once.” Thea laughed, obviously still thoroughly enjoying Nic’s confusion.
After the next stop at the dump, we drove straight into a torrential rainstorm that made it difficult to hear anything between the front and back seat for a while.
Thea rubbed her hands together.
“Cold?” I asked, looking down at Thea’s fingers.
“A little but I’m fine.”
On an impulse I couldn’t explain, I took Thea’s hands in mine and rubbed them between my palms. “The heat works a little better on my side of the truck. Want to switch?”
“I’m fine.”
I still hadn’t let go of Thea’s hands, and I didn’t want to. “Nic’s probably got a blanket in the back. I can ask—”
“You don’t have to take care of me, Courtney. I still can’t believe y’all are doing this for me.”
“Don’t thank us. Thank Ms. Jea—”
“Jeannie. Yes… I’m starting to think she must be blackmailing everyone.”
I smirked. “Wouldn’t put it past her.”
Thea’s gaze went between Nic and me. “So… why were y’all’s childhoods unconventional? You said that earlier. I know your parents are musicians and you moved around a lot and were religious, but is that—”
“Yeah. That’s the main part of it. Nic moved around a lot too. Different situation.” When I looked down, my hands were twisting together. I hadn’t remembered dropping Thea’s. Nic met my eye before shifting back to concentrate on the road. The man had the ears of a fox despite the continued deluge against the windshield. “What about yours?”
“My childhood?” Thea adjusted her nose ring. Her round cheeks were flushed prettily. Only two dimples visible, but that was enough. It really would have been easy to spill every detail of my life and Nic’s.
“Mm-hmm.” I looked down at Thea’s hands, wishing I could trace the tattoo lines on her fingers.
“Sounds like basically the opposite of yours.”
“Stayed in one place and were atheist?”
Thea’s pinky grazed my thigh. “More like Easter-Christmas Methodists. But yes, I stayed in one place. My parents still live there. My sisters and brother all still live with their families there too.”
