Star Crossed

by Alisha Watts

  STAR CROSSED

  By: Alisha Watts

  Copyright © 2013 Blue Ribbon Books

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  For questions and comments about this book, please contact us at CustomerService@BlueRibbonBooks.com

  Chapter One

  Skylar couldn't help thinking that she was glad the inevitable question hadn't come up yet as she took back her driver's license from the woman behind the counter. This was the fourth such visit she had made today and she already felt the need to hide the brochures for the other apartment complexes she had been to in her glove box. Logically, she knew everyone shopped around when they were searching for a new place to live. Emotionally, she didn't want a leasing agent to start extolling the virtues of their complex even more forcefully because of the added awareness of competition.

  Not that people made a habit of looking in anyone's cars in this type of neighborhood, but it was better to be careful just in case.

  “Did you enjoy your visit here, Ms. Barnes?”

  “Oh, very much, thank you,” she said as she slipped her license back in her wallet. It had taken a moment for her to find the wallet since it had disappeared into the bottom of her purse briefly. She was sure she had cleaned it out recently but stuff just seemed to gravitate there.

  “Good, good. Now, you do know that you can bring your boyfriend back with you any time tonight. We close at six and if he wants to see the apartment when he gets off of work then that is certainly fine by us. Remember, my name is Wendy and I will be available by phone all day. Here is your packet and my card and your pet information and I hope you have a great day!”

  Skylar took the offered items and made the expected pleasantries before making a hasty retreat out to her car. She fumbled briefly with her keys and then gave a sigh of relief when the air conditioning came on. Her little Beetle may have been an older model but something in its little wires worked right. Too much heat at one time usually made her feel like she was going to pass out.

  She looked up at the sign above the leasing office and sighed once more. The one bedroom apartment was perfect. The kitchen wasn't too small, the appliances were new, there was a studio feel to the living room that made it feel like home, and there was even an attached garage. She wished she could sign the papers and set the move in date.

  However, she already knew she was not going to be bringing her boyfriend to look at the apartment later that day. She couldn't afford the rent on a place like this without a roommate.

  When she had sat in the car long enough that she was starting to feel self-conscious she shifted gears and drove over to the nearest fast food place. It was the middle of the afternoon and she had had a large lunch so she did not go inside, but parking there felt less accusatory than staying parked in front of the leasing office had.

  She took her phone out of her pocket and tapped the picture of her best friend before putting the phone to her ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Tara, are you busy?”

  “Not really, I'm just packing with the boyfriend. Well, truthfully, I'm packing and he's putting the already organized DVDs in a box and calling it a day. We'll see how the rest of the afternoon goes. Anyway, what's up?”

  “I was looking at apartments this morning.”

  “Oh, are they giving you more hours at the massage place?”

  “No, I just... wanted to look.”

  Tara clucked in understanding and then asked brightly, “Well, did you see anything you liked?”

  “The last one I went to was perfect. I could definitely see myself living there one day. Did you know that they keep their pool entirely salt water so there's no chlorine?”

  “Wouldn't that be bad for your hair?”

  Skylar laughed. “I'm pretty sure chlorine's bad for your hair, too.”

  “Salt might be worse, though. My shampoo says it's better for my hair because it doesn't have any sulfates.”

  “I've never seen shampoo that has chlorine in it in the first place.”

  “Hm, science is weird.”

  “You say that about math every time you have to use a calculator.”

  “Well, if I say it so often then it must be true. After all, I keep telling you that you need to stop torturing yourself. It's not that bad staying with your parents until you get your feet on the ground.”

  “It is when you're nearly thirty.”

  “You're twenty-eight.”

  “Which is nearly thirty.”

  “You have plenty of time.”

  “Not if I don't want to be tired forever. I wanted to find someone by now and to get to know them well enough to be sure they're what I'm looking for. How else will I make sure that they are going to stick around long enough to be a part of my kids' lives?”

  “I still don't understand why you're so worried about getting married. The divorce rate is so high isn't it better to just stay in the committed relationship you have instead of screwing it up?”

  “That might work for you and Andrew but it won't for me. I want what my parents have and it seems like no one else wants a wholesome relationship.”

  “Hm. There are plenty of people that want that, just not a lot that are actively pursuing it. What about that guy you keep telling me about? The one that works next door?”

  Skylar was glad she was on the phone so that her friend would not see her flush. “I'm sure he has a girlfriend already.”

  “Have you bothered to ask? You're not getting anywhere with him if you don't put yourself out there.”

  “Anyway, I shouldn't keep you from your packing. I just wanted to talk for a minute.”

  “No problem, if you want you can call again later tonight. I'm not up to much besides getting my life together enough to take it someplace else.”

  Skylar laughed and bid her friend goodbye before hanging up. She knew that she shouldn't feel jealous that Tara and her boyfriend were getting to move out of Tara's dad's place. They had been staying there building funds for a couple of years now and she should be happy for them. She was, she just wished that she had someone to move out with her.

  Waiting around in a fast food parking lot for some answer to hit her in the face was not going to help much, though. She put the car in gear and drove home, somewhat comforted that she did have someone waiting for her. Nellie was her family's border collie and she was always happy to have her humans come home to her.

  After she had been barked at and chased around, she curled up on the couch to snuggle with the excited dog. Nellie stared disconcertingly at her for a long moment before licking her chin and settling against her for a nap. Skylar chuckled; Nellie was so funny when she forgot that she was not a puppy.

  “Hey, kiddo, you home?” her father called from the garage.

  “Yeah, I'm here,” Skyler called back, not wanting to disturb her canine friend.

  He came into the living room after a few moments, wiping his hands on a rag. His light brown hair was silvering at the temples and some gray was scattered in his mustache but his dark eyes were attentive to any detail. Her father was one of the sharpest people she knew and she was flattered whenever anyone pointed out that she looked like him. It wasn't true since her eyes were blue like her mother's, but she did have his hair and his smile.

  Sometimes she wished she was closer to his height but perhaps it was better that she wasn't. Boys were uninterested in her enough as it was without her towering over some of them. She kept her hair long and
straightened her curls so that they would not get in her face. Skylar liked to wear jeans and camisoles and just enough makeup to bring out her vibrantly blue eyes. She thought that she was pretty enough but every time she made an attempt to catch the eye of a boy she somehow never could manage it.

  Her father's voice broke through her reverie. “How was your day at work?”

  “Oh, I wasn't at work. I went looking at apartments.”

  His brow raised but he diplomatically went to the fridge to get a soda. “Yeah? How did that go?”

  “It was fine. I think I have definitely picked where I would want to live if I was making a little more, but I should find more reviews on the place before I make any kind of decision.”

  “You didn't sign anything, did you? You know how your mother gets about signing anything.”

  “No, it's not anything that serious. I was just looking.”

  “No harm in that. Dinner's at seven,” he said over his shoulder as he went back to the garage.

  Skylar watched him go fondly and then buried her face in Nellie's fur as she gave her a big hug. “What am I supposed to do, girl?” she asked softly.

  Unsurprisingly, the dog did not answer. Skylar wished that she could ask someone that could answer her, but it somehow felt irresponsible to ask for advice on how to be responsible, especially since it was a matter of nothing working out the way that she thought it ought to.

  ~~~

  She spent the next morning carefully applying her makeup and then stepping around Nellie with irritated rebukes so that she could heat up a breakfast biscuit in the microwave. Skylar fluffed her hair so that it would look naturally mussed and bid her parents goodbye on the way out the door. Her father replied with a distracted grunt and her mother called after her to get some more milk on the way home.

  “But I don't even drink milk,” she grumbled under her breath as she drove to work. “I just use it in my cereal.” She debated calling her mother and telling her to get her own milk but decided not to. After all, she was living at home rent free so doing a favor every so often shouldn't be a problem. Skylar just hated feeling trapped by having to do such favors instead of feeling as if she could choose to do them out of the goodness of her heart.

  Regardless, maybe today would be the day. She would walk into the coffee shop next door, stroll to get her Americano, turn casually to leave and be stopped by a gentle hold on her elbow. She would look up at a dreamy man that had reached out to keep her from running into him and he would smile at her and she would know. She would just know that he was the one. It was going to happen today, she just knew it.

  Skylar's hopes rose when she noticed how many people were milling around the coffee shop. They died quickly, though, when she received her coffee and was out the door without anyone even looking at her, let alone sharing a cosmic connection with her. Her favorite barista, the one she always told Tara about, wasn't working that morning. Granted, his tattoos and gauged ears would probably cause her mother to have an early heart attack if she were to bring him home, but he had the best smile.

  She sighed as she started walking to her car and her gaze dropped to the ground as she began milling through her purse for her keys. How she always managed to lose them when all she had done was put them on top of the pile of things was beyond her.

  “Hey, in front of you,” a voice said, startling her enough to stop. She hadn't been close enough to the road to have to be paying attention to where she went yet, had she?

  Her worries abated when she realized that she hadn't been spacing out too much. If Chris hadn't been coming up to her to chat she might not have nearly run into him. Christopher Nash had a rugged sort of look to him despite the fact that she knew he was almost entirely an academic. His hair was a sandy sort of brown that made his mustache difficult to see but made the dark brown of his eyes stand out dramatically. He was notoriously the nicest man that everyone knew while also being the most inaccessible.

  Tara didn't believe someone could be as uninterested in a relationship as he seemed to be, but to Skylar the truth of it was far too obvious. At first he was waiting until he was done with high school, then college was too important, and then graduate school, and now he was sometimes too involved with his thesis to acknowledge that anyone else existed.

  “Are you alright?” he asked her as he readjusted the messenger bag he wore slung over his shoulder. It looked heavy, like he was carrying all of his research around with him today.

  “Oh, fine, sorry. I just lost my keys.”

  “Again? Don't you ever clean out your purse?”

  Skylar huffed indignantly and then reached out to tug at the messenger bag. It was slightly gratifying to watch his crossly amused glare. “I could ask you the same question.”

  “Hm, well, these are books and a laptop, not makeup and sunglasses.” He smiled to take the sting out of the retort and asked, “How have you been? Are you on your way to work again?”

  “Yeah, back to the old grind.”

  “I hope there isn't any actual grinding there. I don't see a place that sells meat pies anywhere around for you to give the people meat to.”

  Skylar frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  Chris chuckled and shifted his weight awkwardly. “I guess you haven't seen many musicals. There's a character in one that doesn't have enough meat so lets a serial murderer bring her some. He's a barber, which is kind of similar to what you do.”

  “I'm not a masseuse, actually, and I don't think they're similar to barbers.”

  “They are the male equivalent to them, as far as that time period goes.”

  Skylar rolled her eyes. “I guess I'll have to take your word for it.”

  “Guess so. Anyway, did you see that guy you've been trying to talk to?”

  Skylar smiled and wondered how anyone could think Chris wasn't that interested in relationships at all. He may be busy but he always made time to keep up with what his friends were up to. “No luck there. I have been talking to this other guy, though, and he seems nice. Here,” she said as she pulled out her phone and pulled up a picture of a freckled ginger. “His name is Joey and he seems really nice.”

  “Didn't a guy named Joey stand you up recently? You said you weren't going to go for people like him any more.”

  “He just didn't meet me when he said he was going to, even though Tara was trying so hard to set us up. I think if he was interested then he wouldn't just come up with a bunch of reasons why he can't see me, right?”

  Chris's gaze faltered. “Yeah, that sounds about right. How did you meet the new Joey?”

  “A friend at work introduced him to me at a club. Isn't he cute?”

  Chris shrugged. “I don't dig guys that way so probably am not the one to ask about that. Good luck with that, I have to get started. If I don't make a breakthrough or two in my research today then I'm going to have to ask my professor for another extension.”

  “What are you working on?”

  “One of my long papers about boring theories,” he said dismissively. “My mentor says the only people that care to hear about it usually get pulled away by starting a family or making more money.”

  Skylar frowned. “How come you don't want to get a better job? Isn't there not a market for teachers anymore?”

  He sighed. “Depends on what they're teaching and where. I might have to move to get the job I want but I'll see where it takes me. I think economy is more interesting than business and I've stuck with it so far, so we'll see where it goes, I guess. Anyway, have a good shift. If you get bored and want to keep me company later then I can see if I can afford to take a break.”

  “You should take breaks anyway. It isn't healthy to do nothing but work.”

  “The opportunity cost of--”

  “Oh, going all fancy on me, are we? I guess that's my cue,” she said as she went to move her car so that she could go in to work.

  “Have a good day,” Chris bade her as she left.

  ~~~


  Chris watched his friend as she walked distractedly to her car and then shook his head at his own thoughts as he purchased his coffee and claimed his favorite table to sit and work at. Skylar's constant need to keep trying to 'talk' to people was starting to worry him. They had been friends for years but had grown apart when college hadn't been something she was interested in and he had gone away to school. They still talked, but not at all like they used to.

  Even if they did, though, he wasn't sure if she was the same person that he used to hang out with on the bus to and from school or during lunch period. He felt as though he had been in school so much that he was still very similar to his teenage self. Chris mostly exercised his mind, after all, aside from his occasional camping trips through the mountains. He hadn't had the kind of experiences that he considered life changing, such as growing from the kind of person that was a good friend to the kind of person that could be a good husband.

  Besides, after he'd seen the way his friends behaved he couldn't stomach the thought of dating someone. If all dating was for was to find different ways to get his partner drunk or laid then he was certainly not interested. He had enough to worry about with his studies without thinking about what was going to be his latest score, or without wondering if the person he was with had some kind of hidden agenda. Guys weren't the only ones looking to get into as many people's pants as they could, after all.

  Which was part of why he didn't go into business, he thought as he pulled out his books and started working. Fewer girls went after the guy that wasn't going on to make hundreds of thousands of dollars one day and he had no interest in painting a target on his chest. Besides, he enjoyed long hours of research and plugging numbers into mathematical theories. It all had a kind of order which allowed for prediction and study, which suited him just fine.

  He could still recall his first economics teacher, a tall and somewhat quirky man with a prideful twist to his personality that still made Chris smile. His tests were the kind that included questions such as 'which is greater, the current unemployment rate or Mr. Benson's biceps?' His joy in teaching and carefree attitude had inspired Chris to one day be as awesome as he was, and the way that the world was had inspired him to aspire to stay a student for as long as he could.