The Stars Will Shine (16 page)

“How much is it?” I finally ask, feeling for the tag. Sixty-two dollars. “Holy sh…” But I break off in what I hope is a pleasant-looking-enough smile. That’s, like, almost one day’s paycheck. But then again, I’ve never owned anything this pretty.

As Leah and I leave Lacey’s Boutique, my purchase in hand, I can’t help a peek at Miles of Vinyls. I mean, we’re literally right next to it, and a large part of me is curious as to how they’re faring without me. Through the window, I catch sight of Amber at the register, and to my surprise, there are quite a few customers roaming the store. I slow to a stop until I’m standing there on the sidewalk staring awkwardly through those windows like a girl who’s caught sight of her ex-lover on a date with someone new. Okay, yes, I’m a bit jealous, but it’s my own damn fault. I ditched Trevyn just when his business started taking off, and after he came to my aid in the heart of the night to pick me up from a petty teenage party because I was a drunken emotional mess.

As I watch Amber bag some vinyls for a customer, her smile bright and genuine, a flash of light sweeps across my face. I turn to see Trevyn standing in the shop’s doorway, propping the door open with one foot, the sunlight a blinding shine off the glass. He smiles a little crookedly at me as he squints into the sun.

“You just gonna stand there like an outcast, or are you gonna join the fun?”

Leah sighs next to me, and I look down to see her staring dreamily at Trevyn. I laugh and pull her forward. Trevyn
slugs me on the shoulder as I pass through the door. There’s so many people in here, meandering down the aisles, climbing the ladders to reach the higher shelves, mingling with each other.

“Things seem to have picked up a lot since I was last…” I start and drop my eyes, but Trevyn’s expression holds no accusations.

“Those fliers have worked wonders. In just the week they’ve been up, they’ve drawn in loads of customers. Mostly tourists in the region, but some locals, too.”

“And the concert? Have you held auditions yet?” I hold my breath. He tilts his head and eyes me apologetically.

“Actually, yeah. We had so many people contact us that we decided to do it a couple days ago. I know you probably wanted to be there for that.”

I let out my breath as the memory of Aiden leaning in close to me, asking me if him being in a band turned me on, flashes through my mind.

“Hey, I played hooky for a week. I think I deserved to miss it.”

Trevyn says nothing in response to that and instead asks, “So, who’s your little friend here, Squirt?” He squats to high-five Leah.

“I’m Leah,” she answers for herself, slapping his hand with hers as hard as she can. “Delilah’s cousin.”

“Dylan’s sister,” I add as Trevyn crosses his arms and smiles down at her. She blushes.

“Really now? You know, your brother kicked some major butt at our auditions a couple nights ago.”

Leah cocks her head to the side, intrigued. “What were the auditions for? A play?”

Trevyn laughs. “A concert, actually. He rocked out on the electric guitar.” He holds one arm out to the side and wiggles the fingers of both hands to play air guitar. “Did you know your brother is a rock star?”

Leah brightens at this and stands a little taller, poised to convey some information she feels only she knows. “Oh, yes! He’s really good at guitar. He can move his fingers on the strings really fast. And he learns new songs like
that
.” She snaps her fingers for effect. “He even plays me any song I ask him to.”

“
Any
song?” Trevyn asks, widening his eyes at her. Leah presses her lips together with raised brows and gives a strong couple nods.

“The other day, he learned that one Kelly Clarkson song for me.”

I grin as Trevyn asks, “Which one?” then starts naming off as many Kelly Clarkson songs as he can think of, which is about eight more than I’ve ever even heard of.

“‘Since You’ve Been Gone.’ Yes! That one!” Leah squeals with excitement. “He even let me sing.”

“Well, wasn’t that nice of him,” Trevyn says, winking at me. I bite back a laugh, but I’m beaming at the two of them.

“So this is where you work?” Leah asks, tugging on my arm with a happy sigh. I glance at Trevyn and there’s a question in it:
Will you take me back?

“Squirt,” he chastises with a laugh and then answers my look with one of his own:
Are you seriously asking me that?

I pat Leah’s head. “Yep, this is where I work.”

“It’s really cool,” she comments as her gaze strolls up one of the tall shelves. She points to the ladder closest to us. “Can I climb that?”

“If your cousin spots you, sure,” Trevyn says. As Leah and I head to the ladder, he catches my arm to slow me down and tells me, “Aiden was incredible at the auditions.”

I let out a breath as he walks away. Against my will, I’m hit with the memory of my lips on Aiden’s, my body flush with his, and how, even though all I wanted in that moment was to feel numb, like a shell of a person, he wouldn’t let me. His unfettered laughter as we joked in the kitchen…His insightful gaze that saw parts of me no one has ever bothered to look for…His concern for me as I left with Trevyn. My knees feel weak and my head a little woozy as I help Leah up the ladder because no matter how hard I try to bury it and to lie to myself, my want for Aiden goes deeper than a desire to use him as an emotional anesthetic.

I think I’m starting to want him in ways I only ever wanted one person. And the horrifying thing is, I can’t seem to put an end to it, no matter how susceptible that makes me to reliving past mistakes.

Chapter Twelve

It’s a bit comical how oblivious Aunt Miranda is—that, while Aiden is the one person she has forbidden Dylan from hanging out with, he’s the one person that’s always around. I guess it’s the fact that she and Uncle Jim are hardly ever home; it makes it easy to disobey their rules. Not that them being home really makes a difference; Aiden still comes over even then. Sometimes, as I’m driving off to work in the morning, I see him hopping that wall where we once ran into each other. Sometimes, if he sees me, he smiles and waves, but I can tell it’s a little forced. I blame this on the fact that I haven’t said a word to him since that party.

I think I hurt him. He laid out on the table how he felt about me and in turn I told him I only wanted to use him. And ever since then I’ve been avoiding him, if I’m being perfectly honest. Whenever I hear him in Dylan’s room, playing guitar or video games, I lock myself in my room and don’t leave until either he or both are gone.

So that’s why it’s a bit of a surprise when he walks through the doors of Miles of Vinyls while I’m manning the shop single-handedly as my way of making it up to Trevyn and Amber, who are off on a romantic getaway in Yosemite.

Aiden is wearing a beanie like he was when we first met, red this time, and I can’t help but notice how well it goes with his skin tone, which seems to be getting darker every time I see him, as if he spends quite a bit of time in the sun. His hands are shoved into his pockets as though he’s unsure why he came, and there’s a tired look in his eyes.

My chest squeezes, and I go really still.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi,” I say back. And then there’s an awkward silence that stretches for eternity, and I rack my brain to come up with something more to say. “I’m sorry, you know, about the other weekend at the party—how I just took off and all.”

Aiden’s shoulders unroll, and he moves forward as if he’s riding on wind. He presses his palms to the counter and looks at me with pleading eyes.

“No, I’m sorry,” he says, and his voice catches a little. “What Dylan said…I got so mad at him, Delilah…I chewed him out like I never have before.” He drops his eyes then drags them back up to me. “I had no idea…”

“It happened a long time ago. I was young when she passed.” My heart aches again, though, a pain like its being stretched apart, held together by only a few thinning threads. It happens every time I think of my mother and how she wasn’t around when I needed her most. “And Dylan never knew her, so it’s not like he really ever thinks about it.”

Aiden’s hand gently covers mine, and the instant I feel his touch, my chest unfolds. We stand there for a moment, his thumb moving along the back of my hand, calming me, until there’s a different sort of feeling within me. One that starts to spin me dizzy, a rising tornado in my head and in my chest that tosses my heart against my ribcage. I flick my eyes upward to glimpse his face. He’s looking down at our hands, an aching in his expression now, one he looks to be trying hard to push away. And that look—I can’t breathe when he looks like that. Because it’s that kind of raw emotion on a face that makes me feel something powerful for even someone I don’t really know.

Slowly, I flip my hand so that we’re palm to palm with our fingers grazing the underside of each other’s wrist. His thumb stops moving, and he slowly lifts his gaze to mine. We stand there staring at each other for so long, and I don’t think it’s only him that has a burning in his eyes, a yearning for something he worries he may never have. The difference is that I am just as fearful of having it.

Heat rolls off me, pulsating with each punch of my heart, and there’s a tingling in my arms and shoulders that makes my muscles there go weak. But then my hand is gone from his and I’m cradling it to my chest with my other. A bitter cold washes over me as I look away, and I’m left feeling empty and…disappointed…

“Well, if you ever want to talk,” Aiden says, but it seems hard for him to get the words out, like he can’t build up enough power in his voice.

“Yeah,” I say, just as breathless.

“Okay.” He nods but seems out of it, then backs away from the counter, only turning away from me when he reaches the door.

Just as he pushes into the door and sends the bells jingling, I shout, “Aiden!”

He spins back around so fast, the door shuts at his back. He watches me, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but I know he’s hoping for something, and I hope it’s the same thing as me.

“Lock that door,” I say shakily and just loudly enough that he hears. He does so at his back without hesitation, still watching me. The line of his throat moves once, and it’s enough to make me round the counter because I want to feel that movement with my fingers and my lips. He moves forward and halts three feet from me.

We’re both holding our breaths, and when we move in a flash at the same time, closing the distance between us, we let them out in sighs just before our lips meet.

Aiden’s arms wrap around my waist to pull me against him. Mine wind around his neck so tightly I can feel my hands at my own shoulders. He stumbles backward a few steps then moves with me toward the back of the store, our lips never parting and our bodies holding fast to each other as if even the slightest space between us is too much.

We’re tripping over each other’s feet at the end of the aisle now, in danger of stumbling to the floor right here and finishing what we’ve started. I rip off his beanie and toss it back among the shelves, and he breaks apart our kiss to give me a look like he’s impressed. In the next second his hands are at my butt and he lifts me up and pushes me against the far end of a shelf so that we’re hidden from view of the window. I wrap my legs around his waist and find his mouth with mine once more, teasing his lips with my tongue. He makes a sound in the back of his throat and slips his tongue over mine, and that sound and his kiss, they send a fiery pleasure hot to my core. It turns me reckless, animalistic. I tear his shirt up, only breaking apart our kissing long enough to whip it over his head and cast it aside.

“Aiden,” I exhale, needing his name to ground myself. I grasp at his shoulders, at the muscles chorded in his back. I need the feel of my hands on him, the way his skin burns beneath my fingers.

This is feverish. And passionate. And nothing like I’ve ever felt before.

And I don’t want it to stop. I don’t even know if I could stop.

That’s when I hear the knocking. It’s loud and insistent, and it sends Aiden and me shooting apart like we’ve been zapped by lightning.

“Shit.” In this carnal haze, it’s the only word my brain seems capable of forming. Aiden frantically grabs his shirt and pulls it back over his head. I peek around the shelf to get a look at the door. “Oh, shit to the max.”

“What?” Aiden whispers. He’s breathing hard, and I feel like that lightning that zapped us isn’t gone yet; there’s sparks left over, skipping back and forth between us and dancing over my skin. “Who is it?”

I press myself out of view again and close my eyes as if in pain. “Oh, you know, just Dylan.”

Aiden curses. There’s more knocking. Dylan must suspect I’m here because of my car.
Oh, no
. My eyes flip open wide.

“Aiden, please tell me your car isn’t out there. He’ll know…”

Aiden relaxes. “I parked at that grocery store just a little ways down the street then walked here. I—” Red rises in his cheeks. “Well, I picked you up a Symphony bar.” He pulls the chocolate from his back pocket, and I can tell it’s kind of melted by now, especially after our hot fest. But the sight of him holding up that melted candy bar like it’s a bouquet of roses turns my insides fuzzy.