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I slip the phone back into its cradle, force on my ‘happy face’ and head back inside. Break’s over.
Throughout my shift tonight, during my breaks and whenever I could find a minute of downtime between the rushes and the drama, I’ve been sneaking off to call whatever rentals and property owners I could find around town.
No one has an apartment or small house to rent. I’m not even being picky. There’s just nothing available in the area. No one-bedrooms. No two-bedrooms. No studios. No attics. No basements. Heck, I even responded to an ad about a tree house lodge earlier, just to be told that it's already been snatched up.
Figures.
Starlight Falls is a quaint, middle-of-nowhere Iowa town. But there’s always some hippie festival or spiritual event going on around town. And that means that rental accommodations can be hard to find at various times of the year. Like tonight, apparently.
Luck has not been on my side lately, and I’m starting to freak out. I promised Nolan that I only needed a place to stay for one night. Uno. And that one night came and went faster than I planned.
I might have had more luck finding accommodations if I’d spent the entire day apartment hunting. But when Nolan said I could have my old job back, I was thrilled to start immediately. Now, I’m realizing that was probably a mistake. Because my shift—and the night—is drawing to an end and I’ve got nowhere to lay my head.Again.
But I put on a pretty smile and I serve drinks and I deflect nosy questions without breaking a sweat, all while hiding the fact that I’m having a meltdown on the inside.
At the end of my shift, I’m still acting like everything is a-okay. Rather than dwell over my situation, I pour my attention into the closing list, because stressing about it won’t do me any good.
“Don’t stress over things you can’t control, Inez. Figure out what you can control and fix it,” I whisper to myself.
That’s what Shirley-Marie would always tell me when yet another one of my foster homes wouldn’t work out. It was quite a few years later before I truly figured out what my old caseworker was trying to tell me.
I may understand it now. But I won’t lie—it’s frustrating to still be trying to figure my shit out more than ten years later.
Before long, all the chores around the bar are completed and everyone’s said their goodbyes for the night. I grab my suitcase from where I’d stashed it in the employee room earlier and I’m now outside the bar, freezing my ass off and waiting for a taxi to go I-dont-know-where.
It may be spring, but the nights are still chilly in Starlight Falls. I should have a sweatshirt somewhere close by but I’m definitely not about to dig through my luggage here on the sidewalk. I feel self-conscious enough as it is, dragging my entire life around in this suitcase with me.
As I wait, my mind travels to Vance and the way he was crying in that television interview earlier. A part of me doubts that he really is that torn up over me—everything is a career move with that guy. But the larger part of me feels horrified at the idea that I may have caused all that pain to another human being, especially someone who claims to care about me.
That’s why I connect to the bar’s wifi network, open my email app and type out a quick message to Vance, inviting him to reach out to me if he feels like he needs closure about our situation. Then I put my phone away and try to shake the guilt and embarrassment from my mind.
A few minutes later, Nolan’s locking up and heading out, too. His steps falter when he spots me standing at the shadowy, deserted curb.
He frowns, his footsteps echoing as he saunters in my direction. “Hey. I thought you already left. What are you doing out here?”
I grip the handle of my suitcase and smile. “Oh, just waiting on my ride.” I try to play it off. But the cab I called should have already been here by now. I’m starting to wonder if one of the drunks out here stole my taxi before I got done with my shift.
Nolan eyeballs my bare arms and then my suitcase. “Where’s your jacket? It’s cold tonight.”
“It is,” I agree, rubbing away the goosebumps prickling my skin. “But it was so warm this afternoon, I didn’t think to grab a jacket before I came outside, Dad.”
Nolan shoots me a dark look. “Maybe next time you’ll remember, or you’ll get spanked.”
His words leave me speechless, standing there dumbfounded as he disappears around the side of the building, headed toward the parking lot. Wait. Is Nolan Brighton…flirting with me?
There’s a tension between us. A new kind of tension.
Has Nolan always looked at me the way he’s been looking at me tonight?I think I would have noticed a sexual tension this intense. As much as I like it, it’s too much.
I’m imagining this, right? I’ve got to be imagining it. Because this man has always been the picture of professional.
I’m still on the sidewalk, rolling the question over in my head when his rusty old car cruises out of the alley and pulls up to the curb in front of me.
“Come on, let’s go,” he calls through the front window.
“I’m alright. I’ll wait for my cab. Thanks, though.”
He cuts the engine and jumps out from behind the wheel. “I’m not leaving a young woman outside on the street at this time of night.” He oh-so-casually grabs my luggage and tosses it into the trunk. “We both know your cab’s not coming, Stargirl. Come on. I’ll drop you off.” He jimmies and wiggles his passenger door until it pops open, then he stands there, watching me impatiently.
