“WOW, YOU LOOK incredible!” Stella shouts from the front of the Expo Center. As excited as I was for my promo shoot this morning, I’ve been equally looking forward to my trip to the flea market with Stella this afternoon.
“Thanks!” I say.
We’ve been hanging out for almost a month, but usually it’s when I’m at her house to work with her mom. This is the first time it’s been just the two of us.
“Red, huh?” she asks, eyeing my hair as we enter the building. “I like it.”
“Me too,” I say. “I think…”
“Well, the leaves are going red, so why not you?”
“It’s going to take a little getting used to, but I’m glad they left it long at least.”
She nods in agreement and loops her arm through mine, moving us briskly toward the market.
We are walking around booths stocked with vendors selling anything from antiques to artwork, from junk to jewelry, and although I get overwhelmed on such shopping excursions, Stella steams ahead like a woman on a mission.
“You read a lot?” I ask as she drags her fingers over the spines of several old books at one table.
“Some.” She shrugs. “But I was thinking of making little shelves out of them. Putting them on brackets, like a bookshelf.”
“Oh, wow.”
“You think it’s dumb?”
“I think it’s genius.”
She grins. “Yeah, I think it’ll look good. I saw it online.”
I help her look for thick books with pretty spines and marvel at her creativity. I never would’ve thought of something like that. When I find one of my mom’s and my all-time favorites, a gorgeous sixtieth anniversary edition of Gone With the Wind in a white jacket covered with red vines, I tell her it’s a must for her project. “Although maybe you should at least read the books before you doom them to a life of utility.”
“Ha.” She snorts. “Maybe a life of utility at Crossley palace beats a life of collecting dust at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds.” She takes the heavy book from me and wanders around the table.
I smile. “Touché.”
We make a pile of books, and she expertly chooses nine from our stack. But when it comes time to haggle a price, something that always makes me extremely uncomfortable, I leave her to it and continue perusing the vendor’s wares. Picking up an old book of Nashville trivia, I start thumbing through it. No, I did not know that Oprah Winfrey lived in Nashville as a teenager. Yes, I know about “the King” and those hips—who doesn’t?
“You ready?” Stella asks, stuffing the last of her books into a canvas tote.
I hold the book of trivia out to her, pointing to the man staring at us from the open page. “You know that guy Adam I was telling you about?”
“The ‘Notice Me’ guy?” she asks.
“Yeah. He sort of looks like him.” I point to a picture of Josh Turner at his Grand Ole Opry induction. “But with a little shaggier hair. And Adam’s a little more… I don’t know… rugged.” I feel my face start to turn red.
Stella’s eyes bug out of her head. “More rugged? Than Josh Turner?” she asks. “So then he must be, like, totally hot.” I close the book and put it down, überaware that the vendor is listening to our entire conversation. “Oh my gosh, you’re blushing,” Stella teases, hip-checking me.
I hide my furious blushing by walking toward another booth. Her eyes are twinkling as she catches up.
“Yes, he’s hot,” I confirm, grinning back at her. I shoulder one of her two heavy bags, and we continue our stroll through the flea market. “But it’s more than that. My family has gotten to know him pretty well—he’s on the same bluegrass circuit—and he’s sweet and funny and basically just a really great guy. He’s also super talented. Like, the songs he writes, they’re just deep, you know? He’s poetic.”
Stella looks amused. “You’ve got it bad.”
I sigh. “Yeah.”
“Bad enough to write a song about him.”
I crinkle my nose. “Pretty bad.” We both laugh.
We set our bags down at a jewelry stand and start looking through the rings. “These are like the ones your mom wears,” I comment, looking at the chunky stones of opal, amethyst, and turquoise. “I love her jewelry.”
“We actually make it ourselves,” Stella says. “Like these earrings?” She pulls on one dangling from her ear. “I made them with my best friend, Liss.” She bites her lip. “She’s a year older and just went away to college, so we made matching pairs before she left.”
I look at her earrings more closely as she sweeps her dark hair off her shoulder. There are two stones of tigereye dangling from her lobe, secured in place with delicate gold wire. “They’re really pretty,” I remark.
“I bet you really miss her.”
“Yeah,” she says. “It sucks.”
We settle into a comfortable silence as we look through rings, bracelets, and necklaces. I like that Stella isn’t one of those people who have to fill every space with conversation. But when she does speak again, she takes me off guard.
“Let’s text him,” she says.
I look up at her, stunned. “Adam?”
“No, Josh Turner,” she says sarcastically. “Yes, Adam.”
“I—I can’t,” I stammer.
“You don’t have his number?”
“I mean, I actually do have his number because I stole it out of Jacob’s phone once,” I admit, embarrassed. “But I’ve never used it.”
“So what?” she says, leaning an elbow against the table. “You said you guys are like family friends, so it wouldn’t be weird. Just something simple and quick, like, ‘Hey, how’s life on the road?’ ”
Reluctantly, I pull my cell phone out of my pocket, along with my lucky rock. My thumbs type as if they have a mind of their own. Stella’s boldness must be rubbing off on me already. “You don’t think he’ll think it’s weird?” I ask again.
“It’s not weird. Send it.”
And without overthinking it, I do:
I press SEND, then stare at the words on the screen.
“I can’t believe I just did that,” I murmur, my hands shaking a little.
The next five minutes are excruciating. I tuck my phone away and try to keep shopping. I rub my lucky rock until it feels like the sharp edge could cut right through one of the calluses I have on my fingertips from playing so much guitar lately. Twice I make sure the ringer’s on, and I hear phantom beeps a few times as well. Finally, a reply comes through:
Bird who?
“Oh no, he totally doesn’t know who I am.” I groan, showing the text to Stella.
She rolls her eyes ever so slightly. “Yeah, ’cause the guy knows a ton of people named Bird.”
Oh.
“He’s flirting,” she says, smiling. “That’s a good thing. Now write—”
But then my phone beeps again:
Just kidding, Lady Bird. How’s the rising star? Been thinking about you.
My heart nearly leaps out of my chest. Stella, who read it over my shoulder, drapes her arm around me. “See? Flirting.”
We spend the next hour walking down the aisles, shopping and sending texts back and forth with Adam. I don’t buy a thing all day, but I help carry Stella’s stuff, and I feel like I’ve downed a hundred energy drinks. Every time my phone beeps, another surge of adrenaline races through my veins and Stella helps me craft the perfect reply. She’s funny, quick on her feet, and is the perfect wingwoman.
She encourages me to ask Adam when he’s coming back through Nashville. I’m bummed that he says not until after New Year’s because a gig he was working on fell through.
“That’s, like, forever from now,” I groan.
“Then it’s a good thing you texted him,” she says. “Y’all are talking at least. And every good relationship needs a solid foundation of texting.”
I smirk. “Says Dr. Phil?”
“No, says Dr. Stel.” I laugh out loud as my phone beeps again. She reads the screen along with me. “Oh! Now say…”
I don’t know what I’m going to do if Adam texts me when she’s not around.