Star rolls her eyes. “I knew it! You’re still mad at me.”
It’s so weird. My being mad at her has nothing to do with this, for once. It’s about her wanting Santiago to be her good-Christian-virgin prop. I bet she’s already planning the FG photo shoot. He’s been through so much, she’d write. But with Jesus, we’re strong together.
“I said I was sorry.” Her eyes are glassy, and when I let out a defeated sigh, she smiles and sniffles. “I hate it when we fight.”
“Me too, Star.” I sigh again. “But it’s messed up to use someone like that. You have to know it.” God knows we both should. People are constantly trying to use me to get to Star and use Star to get their own slab of the pie in whatever form their greedy hands can touch. A shout-out on FG, free merch, or even cold hard cash, like that guy who once threatened Star, saying he had nudes. After a whole legal mess, turns out he was lying. Which we knew. But still. No one likes to be a stepping-stone.
Star nods and smiles a bit shyly. “I kind of like him, though.”
And my heart feels really, really weird. Like it’s stretching, you know? And I cough to try to get it back in place. “Oh wow. Mom approved? Of real dating?”
Star shrugs. “You know she’s fine with it as long as things stay respectful.”
I snort. My mom has extremely strong opinions on what’s considered respectful in the realm of dating. One, of course, is we don’t call it dating. It’s courting. Husband-catching. Hanging out with the opposite sex, preferably with a chaperone, always knowing your every move is being watched by a very judgy Jesus.
“Will you put in a good word for me? With Santiago?” Star asks.
And I swallow back a much larger snort, because why would Star ever need a good word from anyone? “Look, sis. You know all you have to do is flutter your eyelashes and flash him that dazzling smile of yours—yep, that one.” I cover my face like she’s shining a giant spotlight on me. “You don’t need anything from me. Trust me.”
Star hugs me tight, then says, “We have our birthday off. Did you see that?”
“Really?” Somehow I’ve forgotten I’m turning eighteen in, what? A week and a half? How did that come up so quickly?
“I was thinking we could do what we always do.”
“Go to Taco Bell and order one of everything on the dollar menu and gorge, you mean?”
“Yes!”
I wrinkle my nose because I can’t let myself get too excited. “What about that raw diet you were doing?”
Now Star wrinkles her nose. “Ugh, no way. I don’t want to see raw tomato sauce on raw squash pasta ever again in my life. Besides.” She shrugs. “It’s our birthday.”
“But just us, right?” I bite my lips.
“Of course,” Star says. “That’s the tradition.”
Now I smile. “Really, though?”
“Yes.”
“Really really?”
“Yes, yes!”
Before I even know what’s happening, I reach over and give Star a hug. We haven’t done this in what feels like forever, but it’s not awkward at all. In fact, if I close my eyes, it feels like we’re kids again. Before Dad left, before Mom made such a big deal about how different Star and I look. Before Star became the beloved one.
When I pull away, Star grabs some nail polish. “Pedicures?”
“Only if you brought something glittery.”
“You’re in luck! Chloe Lander sent one called Disco Ball.” She waves the silver sparkles in my face.
“Let’s do this, then,” I say. And then it really is like we’re little kids again, having stolen one of Mom’s old CoverGirl nail polishes and holed up in our shared bedroom. We giggle a lot. Talk about everything. Almost everything, that is. I mean, I don’t tell her about tarot, and she doesn’t mention any history with Belle, but I don’t mind. She digs up some fancy chocolates Oak got her, and we each stuff as much as we can in our mouths and fall over laughing because we look like rotten monsters. It’s ridiculous, since I bet these truffles are, like, thirty dollars apiece. But none of that matters, because I’m laughing with my sister.
I guess I just repress our earlier chat, because Santiago doesn’t come up again in my head, not until I’m in bed, watching the lights of the windows in the hotel across from us. And my stomach feels like there are tiny swords stabbing at it and it’s dumb that I would think of Santiago as my friend, like he’s the gold inside my dragon’s hoard. But it’s been a really long time since I’ve had a friend who wasn’t swept up in Star’s orbit and it makes me sad. I wonder if it will always be this way. Because right now it feels like it will.
I imagine all of Santiago as made of stars. His firm body mists and twinkles and he is as big as hundreds of light-years. I send him off deeper into space, where he can enchant any girl or star or alien he wishes. Away from me, the lone loser Moon-weed.
It was fun while it lasted.
But also, he was a bit of a douche canoe. So maybe it’s a good thing Star’s chosen to take him away.
Wish it felt more like a good thing.
30. My Sister’s Nemesis (Is Actually Nice? And Cool)
“MOON,” ANDRO SAYS as I’m filling up a cup of coffee at Honey Hut, the only gas station that provides a brownie-batter flavor. “The samples you sent? Ahhh-mazing. I really like the one you called Sun God.” Beside me, Santiago snorts. He’s too good for gas station coffee, so he’s filling up a ceramic mug with hot water for his Italy-imported hot chocolate mix.
“How much for the rest of the alphabet?” Andro asks.
I pause, my cheeks a little warm. I mean, Andro’s richer than Zeus, but I don’t want to sound like I’m taking advantage. “Forty.”
Andro blinks. “Forty dollars? You sure?”
“She means four hundred,” Santiago grunts.
I nearly gasp. “What? That’s—”
But Andro’s already got the four bills out of his wallet. “Rock and roll. Email it to me by tomorrow, okay? That’s when I need to send it to my designer.”
“Uh.” I take the bills with my fingertips as though they’re covered in aphids. “Oh, uh, okay.”
“Hey, Andro,” Van calls, and then Andro’s swept away into yet another thing. That guy is basically a tornado.
I turn to Santiago and smack his shoulder as hard as I can. He doesn’t even blink.
“What the hell was that for?” I hiss. “Four hundred?”
“Give it back to him if it’s too much.”
“No way.”
He smirks. “You at least owe me dinner.”
“In what universe—”
“Per my commission, as your salesperson.”
I sigh. “What do you want me to cook for you?”
He shudders. “You? Cook? No. No way. Nothing. Never.”
I roll my eyes. “You are such a…” I stop when I see Star strolling up, her lips glossy in rose-tinted lip balm, the only form of makeup she’ll wear, reserved for very special occasions.
“Hey, Moon,” she says. Then she angles a shy, sweet smile at Santiago. “Hi.”
Ah. So it begins.
“I’m going to…,” I say, and turn away, but Santiago puts an arm at my shoulder.
“What are you even drinking there?” he asks me, giving my cup a look of disgust.
I glance at Star, who looks mega-confused, and why wouldn’t she? She just used, like, half her moves on Santiago—in tinted lip balm—and he didn’t even say hi back.
“Coffee,” I say, shrugging his arm off my shoulder.
“Wait. You didn’t finish your sentence.”
“What?”
“I am such a…”
“Oh, you know exactly what you are.”
“Which is a…?”
I narrow my eyes. “You are a nematode. Covered in wasps! ” Never mind that the concept is physically impossible.
“Is that all?”
“No, of course not, you, you—you dried biscuit!”
And he smiles at me. Lik
e, a legit, real smile. “That’s what I thought.”
And then it hits me.
Santiago likes it when I lose my temper. He likes it. What a weirdo!
Scoffing, I whip around and run toward the counter, cash in hand. After paying, before rushing out the door, I peek back at them, where he and Star are now in line. She’s busted everything out. Hair flipping, eyelash butterflying, tugging at the gold crucifix at her chest.
But he’s staring ahead, grunting like a caveman, looking for all the world like he doesn’t have the slightest interest in Star Fuentez.
But that’s impossible. That’s impossible.
Right?
* * *
“Hey,” Belle says. “Is that Hearts and Stars? Looks great on you.”
I touch the edge of my lips, which have exactly two and a half coats of the hot-pink matte Brixstick on them. “Thanks.” I glare pointedly at Santiago, who’s just told me I look like a clownfish.
He flicks his eyes to me with a smirk, so fast that you’d miss it if you weren’t looking for it.
“Wanna get some ice cream?” she asks. “There’s a Marble Slab across the street.”
I pull up my schedule on my phone. “Ah. I can’t up and leave the merch.”
She makes a face. “Santiago can watch it, can’t you?”
“Yeah, right,” I say. “Mr. You Can’t Afford to Slack Off—”
“Bring me back some.” He looks directly at me.
“What?”
“You owe me, remember?”
Oh, right. Well, he did get me three hundred and sixty more dollars, so… If he hadn’t stepped in, I wouldn’t even be considering ice cream right now.
“What kind do you like?”
He shrugs. “Surprise me.” And then: “But no fruit!”
“So, strawberry covered in apple pie filling, got it.” He flips me off. I return the favor as Belle and I step out.
“Tell me about your art,” Belle says the second we sit down. She’s got three scoops of cherry cheesecake. I have a caramel sundae covered in whipped cream. So much whipped cream that I can’t even see the vanilla ice cream.
“How do you know about my art?”
Belle pauses. “Your sister told me a while ago.”
Weird. “Are you going to tell me what happened between you and Star?”
“Tell me about your art first.”
“Ugh.” I put my spoon down. “Fine. I’m making a photographic tarot deck.”
“No shit!” She’s grinning. “What’s the aesthetic?”
“Flowers and twigs, basically. Whatever I can find in the woods.”
“Rustic, earthy…”
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
“Can I see?”
I shake my head. “Sorry. It’s nothing personal. I’m really superstitious about showing it before it’s done is all.” I don’t mention that if I let people I know into this part of my life, it’ll become its own wild animal, creeping around with big paws and a long, swishy tail, and somehow my mother will spot it leaping across the lawn. And even though she can’t destroy my work, she’ll try. Even if it meant killing me.
“So you’ll let me see it when it’s done?”
“Yeah. I’m close.” I can technically do a practice print now, even without uploading my most recent work on the site, which I’ve been considering more and more. But I don’t want to get that deep. I’ve been talking about myself for too long already. “So. You and Star.”
Belle’s face becomes gloomy immediately. “Right.”
I feel like I’m imposing. “You don’t have to—”
“No, it’s fine. Just, remember the Sunrise Expo in Portland last year?”
Right. Normally I’m Star’s plus-one for events, but that one was so close, Mom decided to go in my stead, in an extraordinarily rare outing. Anything for Star.
“Well. Yeah. She and I hung out a lot. We were close.” Belle looks at me pointedly, like she’s waiting for me to have a very specific reaction. I feel completely lost, though, so she nods a little and says, “And at the end of the trip, we had a disagreement.”
“Over makeup?” I guess.
Belle smiles a little, a sad smile, and nods. “Yeah. Makeup.”
It feels like I’m teetering on the edge of something much more personal than I thought it was going to be. I’m not sure whether to dive in or take slow, deliberate steps back to where I was. Luckily, Belle quickly makes the decision for me: “So how’s the tour going for you?”
“Not bad,” I respond. Could be worse, could be better. At least I’m well fed now. “What about you?”
Belle sighs. “It’s all so fucking fake, you know? I want to talk makeup with people, and that, that’s fun. But I’m so sick of trying to act like everything about my life is amazing, how if only you’d try harder and support Fotogram, you can be successful too!”
“Yeah,” I say, making a face. I know exactly what she’s talking about. It’s so obvious when Star gives advice on her account. She only uses vague platitudes and Bible verses, which I understand does pull at some people’s heartstrings, but it never gets specific, you know? She never talks about anything difficult. Like having a mom like ours, or Dad leaving, or being poor before all this stuff. Like Belle said, there’s nothing real.
“Though that’s not as bad as the dudes, like, hitting on us all day with the most corniest pickup lines I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“Like what?” I so rarely get hit on, I feel like I’m peeking in on a brand-new world.
“Oh, like… ‘Hey, thankfully I have my library card, because I am checking you out right now.’ ”
I snort. “That’s almost funny.” It’s certainly nowhere near as gross as some of the stuff I’ve seen in Star’s DMs folder.
“Not so much when the man is older than your dad.”
“Ew. Good Lord. I didn’t realize fans that old were coming to the events.”
“Well, he did bring his daughter to see Star.”
Now I pretend to gag. “God, that’s so much worse. Ew. Ew.”
“Don’t vomit on your sundae and waste your ice cream. At least let me save it.”
“No way,” I say, before inhaling the last two bites.
“What flavor are you going to get the hottie?”
“What?”
“Santiago.”
I make a face, and she adds, “Come on. Don’t pretend he’s not hot. I mean, he’s nowhere near my type, but even I know he’s hot.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine. He’s hot. But then his mouth and his brain ruin the whole effect.”
She laughs as I stand and stare at the ice cream behind the glass for a few seconds. No fruit, he said, which I hope means he likes dark chocolate with peanut butter cups. I have the attendant top the whole thing with hazelnut cream sprinkles, which sounds snobby enough for Santiago’s tastes.
“I better get to the others,” Belle says, touching my shoulder when we return to the merch tables. “By the way, I want a reading from you,” she calls. “With your own deck, okay?”
I wave and give her a thumbs-up, then turn to see Santiago’s, okay, yes, hot face. I don’t know what it is about him that is so freaking gorgeous. It’s probably because he’s got a sharp, thick jaw and cheekbones for days. Or maybe his amber eyes, which are framed by what looks like false eyelashes. And, right, he’s got this perpetual five-o’clock shadow that drives me absolutely bananas because I can never stop thinking about what it might feel like.
Crap. I’m staring like a creep. I start looking around like I’m intently studying everything for the hell of it, not just him.
Santiago’s got an expression on that looks equal parts amused and curious.
“What’s she talking about?” he asks.
“Nothing. Here, before it melts.”
I hand him the ice cream, which he takes a giant bite of. His eyes roll back ever so slightly. “Not bad.”
I snort. “Oh, you love it.”
“W
ould be better with some café con leche.”
I plop down in my chair, look into his face, and say, “Shut up.”
He stares at me really closely after that, not even blinking. He and I, we’re having a whole conversation with our eyes. Moon the Weed and Santiago the Nebula. When he shoves the last bite of ice cream in his mouth, my skin is prickling with goose bumps, but I don’t back down from his stare. Finally, finally he blinks and says, “What flavor did you get?”
“Vanilla with caramel sauce and whipped cream.” It’s the superior ice cream combination, so I say it with a tone I imagine a queen would use.
He makes a face. “Caramel, though?”
“What’s wrong with caramel?”
“The stuff in those big plastic containers with the pumps? That’s not caramel. That’s corn syrup with synthetic flavor.”
“It’s delicious,” I say. “I could eat a bowl of it all by itself.”
“That’s because you’re sick.”
“I’m never buying you ice cream again. You ungrateful oaf.” He gives me a half smile and then we both turn as crowds invade our little bubble, bursting it into tiny bits of warm rain.
After we get swept away into sales and bagging and sliding credit cards through our tablet contraptions for a while, a guy walks up with Andro’s surfing book. “Whoa,” he says when I give him a polite smile. Which makes me frown immediately.
Look, I’m a girl. It’s for that reason and that reason alone that I’m vaguely familiar with male attention. Usually all I have to do is direct them to Star, and then I’m completely forgotten, all three parties in their happy space. Star, with the whole earth revolving around her, the dude with probably the most beautiful girl he’s seen in real life, and me, back to a weedy, weedy weed.
But Star is nowhere to be found, so I try to keep my gaze down and neutral.
“You’re the Moonflower artist, aren’t you?”
I freeze. And then I raise my face to see the look of awe on his.
“How—what—”
“It’s your hands,” he says, holding his fingers to touch the edges of my palms. “Your rings, the scar.” He sees my face and gives an awkward laugh. “I’m sorry. I know that must sound creepy as hell. But seriously, you’re the best earth artist on Fotogram. Everything you do is so balanced. The color, the composition. You know? How old are you even?”
How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe Page 12