Written in the Stars

by Alexandria Bellefleur

  “It’s really nothing,” Darcy said. “You bought my dinner. And paid for our drinks that first night. Consider it an additional congratulations for closing your deal with OTP.”

  Darcy sniffed softly, the move making her nose twitch. All Elle would be able to think about each time she wore the jacket was Darcy’s pert little nose wrinkling.

  The box of wine wasn’t nothing and this, this was definitely not nothing. It was something, Elle just didn’t know what. But she liked it, liked that Darcy had thought about her, had gone out of her way to do something kind just because. Despite what she’d said, what they both had said, not once all evening did Darcy press Elle to commemorate the night with a photo she could post so Brendon would see them together. Elle didn’t know what any of it meant, only that it felt like this thing between them had shifted.

  Elle slid the jacket over her arms and pushed the sleeves up over her wrists. A perfect fit.

  “And you liked it. So.”

  There was that word again. So. Imagining what came after that teeny tiny word was too tempting.

  So tempting that later that night, as Elle lay in bed, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to her ceiling, the ones that brought her joy no matter how silly some people might think them, she let herself hope that something real could come from this fake arrangement.

  * * *

  “—and the engineers want to know how the planets could be represented visually. Like, with emojis. I was thinking eggplant and peach beside Mars since that’s most strongly representative of action and sex drive. And a smoochy face and diamond ring next to Venus for values and— Elle? Elle.”

  Elle blinked, tearing her eyes away from where she’d zoned out staring at the purple beaded curtain that partitioned off the private room inside Wishing Well Books from the public portion of the bookstore. Elle had had an in-person reading scheduled at five thirty and another at eight, so Margot had tagged along so they could get some prep work done for OTP between her appointments. “Sorry. Eggplants.” She frowned. “When did we start talking about dicks?”

  Margot snorted and chucked her pen at Elle. “Let me guess, daydreaming about”—she swooned, draping herself over the arm of her chair—“Darcy.”

  “Stop.” Elle lobbed the pen back at Margot where it left a fuchsia streak across her arm. Elle opened her mouth to argue, but paused. Anything she would’ve said to the contrary would’ve been a bald-faced lie. “Okay, yeah, I was.”

  While Margot still wasn’t pleased with the circumstances that had thrown Darcy and Elle together, or how Darcy had behaved on their blind date, Margot had taken the stance that if Elle was happy, she was happy for her.

  “Of course you were.” Margot set her notebook on the table between them beside the sage, cypress, and lemongrass scented pillar candle whose flame flickered softly in the dimly lit room. “What was it this time? The kiss? The jacket? The wine? Her nose?”

  “All of the above?” Elle shot Margot a subdued smile and shrugged. “I just . . . I want her to like me. Is that silly? You probably think I’m being ridiculous.”

  “Do I think you’re ridiculous for wanting the girl you like to like you back?” Margot tsked. “Of course not, Elle. I’m worried you might be playing with fire, but if you think this thing with Darcy, whatever it is”—Margot rolled her eyes—“is worth your time, then I support you. Although, speaking of time, have you given any more thought to how this is supposed to end?”

  “I don’t know.” Elle plucked at a loose thread on the hem of her sweater, avoiding Margot’s too-perceptive stare. “Who’s to say this has to end?”

  When Margot said nothing, Elle lifted her eyes, flinching at the way Margot’s entire face, from her furrowed brow to her pinched lips, screamed pity. “Elle—”

  “Maybe,” Elle tacked on. “Maybe it won’t end. Maybe she’ll . . . we’ll . . .” She sank down in her chair with a sigh. “Just because it started out fake doesn’t mean it can’t become real, right?”

  Margot shrugged. “Sure, Elle. Anything’s possible.”

  Right. “Thanks. I didn’t mean to get us off track. What were you saying? Engineers and emojis?”

  Margot snatched her notebook off the table and slid her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Back to business. “We’ve got to pick a sampling of placements because, according to the team, the rest of the chart won’t be accessible unless users go premium.”

  Fair enough. OTP had to make money somehow, and as far as incentives went, access to the rest of a match’s chart would be a solid draw for users to upgrade. Curiosity was an incredibly powerful motivator. Didn’t Elle know it.

  “All right. Sample . . . Sun’s a given so I’d say . . . Moon, Rising, Mars, and Venus. Shoot, Mercury’s important, too.”

  Without a complete chart, it was difficult to determine compatibility. But most people who hadn’t studied astrology extensively—and to be honest, few had, despite the absurd number of astrology accounts cropping up claiming to know what they were talking about—wouldn’t be able to parse out the nuances of a natal chart.

  Behind the scenes, she and Margot were working with engineers at OTP to fine-tune the algorithms behind matching in a way that considered a more thorough approach to synastry. Most users didn’t need the nitty-gritty. And if they wanted it? They’d have to pay.

  Margot twirled her earring between her fingers and frowned thoughtfully. “I’m right there with you about Mercury. So much of communication isn’t what we say, but how we say it.”

  Wasn’t that the truth. And not only when talking face-to-face, either. It was as important in text, which mattered more than ever. One too many exclamation points and you’d sound too eager. Whether you chose lol, rofl, or haha said something about you, about the conversation. How you spelled the word okay mattered, each iteration distinct in tone. K, of course, was in a league of its own, and if there was a period behind it? Chances were, things were not, in fact, okay.

  But not everyone was aces at that, understanding how what they said mattered or how it might be perceived. How a single reply could sink a conversation or how a joke gone wrong could get you blocked. Or ignored. Ghosted.

  Texting was a minefield of miscommunication and uncertainty, especially since everyone had unique styles of—

  “Margot, you are a genius.” Elle lurched over the table and kissed the side of Margot’s head.

  “What?” Margot’s eyes widened behind her lenses. “What did I say?”

  “OTP’s chat feature. You know how OTP already does an awesome job of encouraging dialogue? Like when a conversation lags and no one texts for two hours, you get a notification with a helpful hint from the person’s profile? ‘Jenna enjoys watching Euphoria. Why don’t you ask her about the latest episode?’”

  Margot nodded.

  “What if we pitch it to Brendon and the rest of the team that, in addition to those helpful profile convo starters, if users upgrade to premium, they’ll get guidance on how best to communicate with their matches based on what sign their Mercury is in?”

  “So premium users would basically be getting us as virtual dating assistants?”

  “When you put it like that . . .” Elle winced jokingly.

  For whatever reason, it was easier to solve other people’s problems than her own.

  A slow smile tugged at the corner of Margot’s mouth. “This is amazing, Elle. Not only would we potentially be able to increase the number of conversations that lead to first dates, but encouraging users to continue to text through the app versus their regular messaging platform would increase retention, which increases revenue from ads. Brendon’s going to eat this up with a spoon.”

  Elle snatched her phone, itching to tell him before he heard along with the engineers during their next meeting.

  ELLE: mar and i have the coolest idea about the apps chat feature. youre gonna have kittens

  On second thought, he’d have kittens and then demand to meet up for coffee to talk about their idea
ASAP because impatience was Brendon’s middle name. That conversation would undoubtedly somehow segue into a chat about how things were going with Darcy and no. Elle’s headspace was wacky enough when she was on her own; adding Brendon’s interference into the mix would only convolute her already tangled web of feelings. Elle pressed the back button, deleting the message. Maybe, for now, avoidance while letting Margot run interference was the smartest solution.

  While Margot jotted down a few notes for their next meeting with OTP, Elle started a new list for Oh My Stars based on How the Zodiac Signs Text.

  As soon as she was finished, she flipped over to her own text messages, rereading the last messages she and Darcy had exchanged earlier that morning.

  ELLE (3:14 A.M.): do you think hotel california inspired season five of american horror story?

  ELLE (3:19 A.M.): the whole checking out but never leaving part

  DARCY (5:32 A.M.): Why were you listening to Hotel California at three in the morning?

  ELLE (7:58 A.M.): because that’s the best time of day to listen to the eagles

  ELLE (7:59 A.M.): obvi

  DARCY (8:07 A.M.): You know the song isn’t actually about a hotel, right?

  DARCY: (8:09 A.M.): It’s about disillusionment and the American Dream.

  ELLE (8:16 A.M.): wooow

  ELLE (8:16 A.M.): what song are you gonna ruin for me next darcy?

  ELLE (8:17 A.M.): you’re beautiful? time of your life? every breath you take?

  DARCY (8:20 A.M.): Just a suggestion, but maybe you should google those.

  They had extremely different styles of texting, Darcy using proper punctuation and full sentences whereas Elle couldn’t be bothered. She could try, but so far it hadn’t seemed to hinder their communication, or her success rate. Darcy always responded, even if she wasn’t as instantaneous with her responses as Elle was. The way Darcy texted made it possible for Elle to imagine Darcy actually speaking her response, her sense of humor—often dry, sometimes dirty—shining through.

  Margot was still engrossed in her notes, so Elle opened a new message.

  ELLE (4:16 P.M.): favorite movie

  ELLE (4:16 P.M.): go

  DARCY (4:19 P.M.): Just one? That’s too difficult.

  ELLE (4:20 P.M.): fine

  ELLE (4:20 P.M.): action comedy rom-com and idk drama?

  DARCY (4:25 P.M.): Comedy would be History of the World Part One. Action . . . God, I don’t know. The Mummy, maybe? Rom-com . . . America’s Sweethearts. Drama would have to be Dead Poets Society.

  ELLE (4:26 P.M.): the mummy?!?

  ELLE (4:26 P.M.): i credit that movie for my bisexual awakening

  She waited, watching the little dots dance up and down, up and down . . .

  DARCY (4:28 P.M.): Oh?

  ELLE (4:29 P.M.): yeah

  ELLE (4:30 P.M.): did I want to be evelyn or did i want to ride off into the sunset with her?

  ELLE (4:30 P.M.): both obviously

  DARCY (4:32 P.M.): So you came out after watching The Mummy?

  ELLE (4:33 P.M.): no

  ELLE (4:33 P.M.): it actually took me a while to figure things out

  ELLE (4:34 P.M.): i tried to heterotextualize my feelings for a while

  ELLE (4:34 P.M.): in retrospect idk why

  ELLE (4:35 P.M.): all part of the process i guess

  DARCY (4:37 P.M.): You what?

  It took her a second to figure out what had confused Darcy.

  ELLE (4:39 P.M.): apply hetero context to a super not straight situation

  ELLE (4:40 P.M.): hetero + contextualize = heterotextualize

  DARCY (4:42 P.M.): Huh. New word. Thanks for broadening my horizons.

  Elle bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.

  ELLE (4:43 P.M.): i made it up

  ELLE (4:43 P.M.): but you’re welcome

  DARCY (4:45 P.M.): Of course.

  DARCY (4:49 P.M.): So when’d you stop? Heterotextualizing?

  Elle chuckled as she typed.

  ELLE (4:50 P.M.): shortly after I tried to heterotextualize my friend going down on me at a theater cast party when I was in high school

  ELLE (4:51 P.M.): just gals being pals

  ELLE (4:52 P.M.): the mental leaps and bounds were like, acrobatic

  DARCY (4:53 P.M.): You’re lucky you didn’t pull something.

  Cheeky. Elle could be bold, too.

  ELLE (4:55 P.M.): it was good head. I might’ve strained something. I can’t remember

  A minute later, her phone rang. Stomach fluttering, Elle swiped at the screen as soon as she saw the Da— appear on the screen.

  “I was kidding. I didn’t really pull a muscle when she went down on me, I just—”

  “Elle?”

  Elle cringed so hard she was going to need to see a chiropractor. “Mom?”

  Margot recoiled in sympathy, sucking in a soft gasp through her teeth.

  Mom cleared her throat awkwardly through the line. “I’m guessing you were expecting a different call.”

  Sweet Saturn, Mary, and Joseph. Da— as in Dad and Mom, the house phone. Kill her now. “Um, can we pretend that didn’t happen?”

  “Pretend what didn’t happen?” Mom asked.

  “Right, good.” Elle coughed. “You rang.”

  “I did. I hadn’t heard from you in a while.”

  “I guess I didn’t have much worth reporting.” Aside from finalizing the deal with OTP. Nothing to write home about. But she could try. “Except—”

  “I wanted to make sure you were still coming to Thanksgiving.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” It was Thanksgiving. Obviously, she’d be there.

  “I wasn’t suggesting you wouldn’t come, Elle. It was a question.”

  Arguing wasn’t worth it. “Right. I’ll be there.”

  “Good. Lydia’s bringing Marcus over on Thursday and Jane and Gabe will obviously be there with Ryland. Daniel and Mike are getting in on Wednesday so that makes nine—”

  “I’m bringing Darcy,” Elle blurted.

  Mom paused. “Who?”

  “You met her brother, Brendon? At breakfast a couple weeks ago?”

  Several seconds ticked by before Mom made a hum of recognition. “Oh, right. The actuary?”

  Mom had a terrible habit of reducing everyone to their professions. Jane, the pharmacologist. Daniel, the software engineer. Lydia, the dental student. She could only imagine what Mom referred to her as. Elle, the disappointment.

  “Yeah, she’s an actuary.”

  “You’re still seeing her?”

  “I’m still seeing her.”

  “It’s been a few weeks.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “Honestly, Elle, can you blame me?”

  Elle pressed her lips together, damming up the words inside her throat, none of them right.

  Mom prattled on, oblivious to Elle’s plight. “Ten for dinner. I’ll need to come up with another side dish. I wish you would have told me you were bringing her sooner. But I guess you couldn’t have known, could you?”

  After another two more minutes of back and forth, Elle managed to end the call.

  Margot whistled through her teeth. “That sounded fun.”

  “So much fun. Can’t you tell how overjoyed I am right now?”

  Margot snorted.

  Elle only hoped that phone call wasn’t a sign of what she had to look forward to at Thanksgiving.

  Chapter Ten

  Darcy sipped her coffee and stared at the check engine light on Elle’s dash, biting her tongue. When Elle forgot to flip off her blinker after merging onto I-90, Darcy couldn’t help herself. “Your turn signal’s on.”

  Elle made a soft noise of acknowledgment and flipped it off. “Sorry. I’m a little out of it. Didn’t sleep much last night.”

  Neither had Darcy.

  She had been up until two studying. Trying to study. Between practice sets, her mind had drifted, thoughts occupied with Elle. How soft her lips had been when they’d kis
sed. How she’d tasted like strawberries and how she’d made a tiny sound, no more than a catch in the back of her throat when Darcy had bit down on her lip. The way Elle’s absurdly blue eyes lit up when she smiled. The bright peal of her laughter when Darcy made a truly awful joke. How she’d clutched the jacket Darcy had bought her—a purchase fueled by the desire to put another smile on Elle’s face—with the sort of reverence most people reserved for precious, priceless finds they planned on cherishing.

  Elle might not have had on the jacket, but she was wearing a truly out-of-this-world Christmas sweater. Truly. Colorful bauble planets with sequined rings popped against the black knit, but it was the addition of actual light-up stars operated by a battery pack tucked against Elle’s back that set the sweater apart. Darcy fingered the hem of her atrocious Grinch sweater that she’d only purchased because it made Elle smile. She felt a little less out of place than when she’d tried it on.

  Thumbs tapping absently against the scuffed leather of the steering wheel, Elle pulled alongside the curb in front of a pale green bilevel house in a quiet, older-looking neighborhood. All the homes looked like they’d been built in the fifties, maybe sixties, but had been well-kept, the lawns manicured and the stoops swept free of leaves. In the driveway, there was an ostentatious green sports car parked alongside a white Honda CR-V and a silver Tesla.

  “This is it,” Elle said, hands clenching around the wheel. “Home sweet home.”

  “It’s nice.” Darcy rested her fingers on the handle, cracking the door. Elle continued to stare through the window, teeth worrying her bottom lip. Darcy wanted to reach out, tug it free. She cleared her throat. “Are we heading in?”

  Elle relaxed her grip on the wheel and nodded. “Yeah. Probably should. It looks like everyone else is already here.”

  Darcy wouldn’t say it, definitely not when Elle looked like she’d rather be anywhere else but here, but she was oddly looking forward to a family Thanksgiving even if it wasn’t her family and even if this thing between her and Elle was contrived. The last official family Thanksgiving Darcy had had was five years ago when Grandma was still alive. Even then, the family was broken up and small—just Grandma, Mom, Brendon, and her. Now, Mom spent every holiday other than Christmas gallivanting off to some foreign country, a ski lodge or a sunny escape like Bali, with her flavor of the week, leaving her and Brendon to fend for themselves. Nothing new. It was the sort of behavior she’d learned to expect from Mom—frivolous, self-centered, careless. Brendon had learned to shrug it off; Thanksgiving was never his favorite holiday anyway, no matter how hard Darcy had tried to make it something they could celebrate together even if it was just the two of them. If there weren’t costumes involved or some tie-in to a movie franchise, Brendon wasn’t interested. At least, for some reason, he still liked Christmas.