Untangling The Stars (6 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

A spectacular sunrise crawling up the sky in strips of yellow and pink delivered the new morning from behind Boulder’s Flat Iron mountains and into Andie’s open bedroom window. Always an early riser, normally she was up and out the door before dawn, but this morning Andie had taken great pleasure in sleeping in. It hadn’t exactly been planned, but the dream she’d just woken from had been worth it. It was going to take an extra round with the loofa to scrub away the remainders of her very—
very
—steamy nighttime fantasy about that incorrigible Guy Wilder.

The more Andie tried to remember her dream the faster it slipped away. All she could remember for sure was that they had been on a beach somewhere, and that Guy’s lips had tasted like the ocean as he rose over her, kissing and moving inside of her at the same time. The blazing sun behind him had cast a halo around his entire chiseled torso, his eyes the same piercing blue as the waves crashing in the distance, his hair soft and tickling against her skin…
Uugghhh
, Andie buried her face in the pillow. It was
too
much
. She’d had sex dreams before but
come on
.

It was too bad the man she’d encountered yesterday hadn’t been the same as the man she’d met in her dream. While every bit as heart-wrenchingly gorgeous in his unique way, Dream Guy had been…well, warm and open, confident without being cocky, if that made sense. Not anxious or aloof or whatever the hell that mood swing had been yesterday from the real Guy in her classroom, but something that stirred both the lower parts of her body
and
the more unreachable places in her heart. Two for two. Whatever had happened in that classroom—and whether or not it was some bored actor peddling his captivating, flirtatious wares to some love-lost fan girl—Andie would be a fool to deny that some sparks had flown between her and Guy. She might be many things, but Andie Foxglove wasn’t a fool. It was just a shame that those sparks had turned into the wrong kind of heat. But, Andie supposed, that’s what you get with those cheekbones.

Okay, time to get this guy out of your brain once and for all. Goodbye, Mr. Wilder, and thanks for the lovely evening
. Andie laughed out loud in the empty bedroom. Lovely was an understatement. Maybe she’d get a kitten or something and channel her frustration into the next Internet cat meme star. Anything was better than waking up from another dream like that, and some sickly sweet feeling that felt a lot like regret.

And with that, she slid out of bed, shoved the dream firmly out of her brain, and let her bare feet land firmly on the cool hardness of reality.
Let’s get this day started.

***

One hour and three changes of shoes later (she really had to stop binge shopping on Zappos), Andie wound a thin cotton scarf around her neck to quell the cool morning breeze, locked the door to her loft behind her, and made a beeline to her favorite little coffee shop on the edge of the university district. Tucked almost completely out of sight and sandwiched between a vintage record shop and a boutique furniture store, this little hole in the wall was known by many early birds for making the best red-eye espresso in Boulder. But, this late in the morning, most of the campus kids who weren’t already in class would be down at the trendier espresso bars near the Pearl Street mall, and most of the other professors and business-types would be avoiding the students and hitting up the Panera Bread on Twenty-Ninth Street instead. Hopefully she’d have the place to herself.

When she arrived, Andie was pleased to find that both halves of the Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Cafe—one with a cracked countertop and barista station, the other a crammed makeshift library with a hodgepodge of worn, overstuffed chairs and torn poetry paperbacks—was mostly empty, save for Scott the owner/barista and his faithful yellow lab, Oz.

“Well, lookit who’s finally here, Oz ol’ boy. You’re late, ya know, Fox.” Scott’s deep, rolling voice boomed across the empty café as Andie walked toward him. She grinned. Outside of the gala girls, Scott was Andie’s best friend in the universe. He’d won her over when she was a Boulder-newbie with his familiar charms and delicious lattes.

Scott flung the towel he’d been using to wipe down the counter over one shoulder and crossed both tattoo-covered arms across his chest pointedly in that gruff way that was more fitting for divey barbacks than baristas. But, it worked for Scott. He managed to look petulant and daunting at the same time, a rare talent reserved for the
Peter Pan
types of the world. It was a fitting analogy for Scott. “We were thinking you stopped lovin’ us or somethin’.”

“Oh, I don’t see how that could be possible.” Andie smiled apologetically. She knew she’d catch hell from somebody for sleeping in.

Scott kept the café’s stereo set dependably on hipster. Something vaguely bluegrass-y stopped and The Weepies’
Crooked Smile
started. Andie usually enjoyed the catchy tune about crooked smiles and how it would never work between the girl and guy, but today it seemed to be the soundtrack that went with the memory of Guy’s smile that kept trying to worm its way back into her thoughts. It wasn’t like her to fixate on one encounter so much. It was a bit absurd really. She’d spent a whole five minutes chattering with some who-cares TV star. A little bit of googly eyes shouldn’t be nearly enough to knock her off her game this badly.

Every time you think of Guy Wilder, I’m going to pinch you
, Andie scolded herself. If Pavlov could use reinforcement training on dogs, then she could use it on herself. That was one pathway to self-control.

“Besides….” Andie pulled herself back to the present and flashed a grin at Scott as she lapsed into her best puppy voice. She bent to pet Oz, who had ambled over and rubbed up against her leg. “Who could ever quit loving this sweet face?” The sweet beastie was such an old man at heart no one would ever guess he was only a two-year old pup. Decked out in his bright orange vest, Oz’s calm demeanor was a testament to his station as a post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, service-dog. Scott was barely two years out of the marines, and he’d come a long way in leaving whatever horrors he’d experienced while deployed in Afghanistan behind him over the many months that Andie had known him. Most of that progress, Andie believed, was directly because of the gentle giant nuzzling her thigh. Sometimes, dogs really were man’s best friends. On second thought, maybe she’d get a dog instead of cat.

“Sweet face? Oh, you must mean
this
sweet face,” Scott chided good-naturedly as he swept from behind the counter, carrying a steaming mug of something thick and warm in his hand. He handed her the mug and gave her a tight, squeeze with one arm and quick peck on the cheek. He stroked the top of Oz’s head with his free hand. “Because it’s the one bringing over your morning latte, little lady.” With his cocked fedora, thick-rimmed glasses, and layers of scarves and a cardigan, Scott looked remarkably like a younger version of Johnny Depp. He had that same endearing quirkiness, too, that made Depp so mysterious and captivating. It worked for him. When he wasn’t tending the coffee counter, Scott was one of the area’s most celebrated indie photographers. He was famous in local photog circles after he’d won an ICON award last fall for a very emotional self-portrait he’d taken with Oz. Andie had been Scott’s date to the award ceremony, and it had been without a doubt one of the best nights she’d had in Colorado. Of course, even though their date had been totally platonic, she’d still earned herself a few glares from some of the more territorial members of Scott’s fan club by being the girl on his arm that night, but that didn’t matter to Andie. She was just proud to be a part of his special night—he’d deserved it. And it had been a lot of fun too.

Mmmm.
Andie inhaled a lungful of cinnamon, nutmeg, and something else that she’d given up trying to figure out. Scott clung to his top-secret chai tea latte recipe as if it were a national treasure. Whatever it was he added, his lattes were nothing short of magical. She took a small sip of the hot milk, swooned a little, and moaned. “Scott, you know the way to a woman’s heart is through her morning beverage, right?”

“So they tell me, but so far you’re the only one who gets weak in the knees from chai.”

“It’s so good it’s almost scandalous.” Andie sank into one of the ragged club chairs on the library side of the café. She tugged up the tops of her tall brown riding boots over the ridge that sitting had made in her dark jeans. The knee-high boots were a much better choice than the ankle-booties, but it really was a shame she couldn’t wear more than one pair of shoes at the same time. First world problems, she mused.

Humming along to the music absently under his breath, Scott checked to make sure they were in no danger of customers walking in before settling into the armchair beside her. He lifted a tattered copy of a magazine from the side table and thumbed through the pages. Oz, jaws full of his favorite stuffed green duck, circled and then laid down on the floor at their feet with a heavy grunt. Andie, eyes closed, let her thoughts fade away as she drank her sweet tea. It was a comfortable silence, and a perfect way to begin the morning.

Andie had almost slipped into a chai coma by the time Scott spoke again. “So, how’s the gala planning coming? You pick a color scheme yet?” He gave her a sly smirk. “I bet Tandy voted pink. At least two different shades of pink, actually.”

It was hard to sip hot tea daintily when one was laughing, but Andie did her best. Scott and Tandy had a friendly albeit fierce ongoing rivalry. On the one hand, Tandy maintained that no grown man should wear so many accessories, and on the other, Scott insisted that Tandy leaked glitter wherever she went like some kind of faux-Disney princess. It was the kind of teasing boys and girls did to each other in the fourth grade when they were trying to hide their crushes. It was nauseatingly cute.

“Worse. In the words of Sally Fields, the whole thing is ‘pink and pink.’” She waved off Scott’s puzzled look. Movie references were no fun when you had to explain them. Suddenly, Andie remembered that she had something much more important to ask him. Tandy had given her executive orders to find a photographer for the event, and she’d not so subtly inquired as to Scott’s availability. “Hey, by the way, are you free that night? We need a photographer”—she batted her eyelashes imploringly—“you, preferably.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Fox…” Scott shut the magazine and nervously pulled at the hand towel still hanging over his shoulder. He flapped it against his denim-clad knee, the look on his face alternating between shy and nervous. Large crowds were not Scott’s cup of tea. The noise and shuffle of that many bodies in a confined space still caused him a fair amount of anxiety. “How many people did you say again?”

Andie tucked a honey-blonde strand behind her ear and gave Scott her most reassuring smile. “Three hundred,” she said the number slowly, doing the math in her head, “plus a dozen or so caterers, and a few other vendors. If you’re not up to it, I totally understand.” She set her mug on the side table and leaned forward, took Scott’s nervous hand in both of hers. She wouldn’t push it if he wasn't ready to face such a large event just yet, and she didn’t want to make him feel obligated in any way. But she also wanted to give him the opportunity to reach out and take, if he was up to trying. Friends don’t let friends wallow, right?

“There’s totally no pressure, Scott. If you’re not up to it, that’s absolutely fine. If, however”—she gave his hand, which was trembling just a tiny bit, a small squeeze—“you
are
, then I will be right there. I’ll stay right by your side, and you will rock photographing a charity gala like one has never been rocked before.”

“Seriously, won’t you be too busy wandering around and being the host?”

“Pinky promise. Plus, you’ll be devastating in a bright pink tie. Tandy will love it.”

Scott’s grin sped from sheepish to rogue in a split second. Andie had said the magic words. An eye for flair, he was a sucker for bold fashion statements. The last time they’d gone shopping together, he’d bought a pair of bright green skinny jeans from Express and hadn’t stopped wearing them until they had—mercifully—started to wear holes too big to be patched. If anyone could rock bright green denim it was Scott, but still no one should be allowed to rock them for two months straight. Even if the idea of sporting a bright pink accessory didn’t win him over, that bit about Tandy would. Of course, Scott would never admit it.

“Okay, lady, you talked me into it. But I—”

He was interrupted by the dinging of the bell as someone walked in the other side of the café. “I’m in,” he finished conspiratorially. “Fill me in later, okay? Oh, and you’re in pink too, honey.”

Andie rolled her eyes. She’d hoped to avoid such a bargain and fly in under the radar in a safer fashion choice of her own choosing. If she let her friends have their way she’d end up at that gala with a pink mermaid gown and coifed curls like some pitiful Marilyn Monroe doppelganger at a Halloween costume party. But, if a pink dress was the price to pay for snagging the best photographer in town
and
helping push a friend to take on the world at the same time, then pink it would be. Pink wasn’t
that
bad. Even Aerosmith had made a song about the color. If Stephen Tyler could rock pink, then she could at least give it a shot. That said, she was still going to exercise veto power if any sequins or glitter showed up. With Tandy and Scott both pushing pink, things could get a little too carried away.