Suddenly Starstruck (Shower & Shelter Artist Collective Book 4)

by Brooke St. James

  "That was fast," I said as Isabel took the plate. "Tell him 'thank you'."

  "Thank you," she said quietly.

  "You're very welcome," Ethan said with a slight bow as he picked up the slice of pizza from his own plate. "It's the least I could do after I utterly destroyed your last piece."

  Isabel giggled at his silliness and the memory of it as she chewed a bite of the new slice.

  "So, they gotcha with the Alfonzo's Pizza, ay?" Mia said. Her teasing comment was obviously directed at Ethan who had remarked he'd come to the wedding for it.

  "I do enjoy a fresh slice of Alfonzo's," Ethan said. "But I came for the entertainment."

  Mia shifted to stare at the small group of artists who had gathered in the corner with their various acoustic instruments. There was a fiddle, a guitar, a flute, and a few percussion instruments. They had formed an impromptu band and were playing a song that had a group of people dancing.

  "I wasn't talking about the band," Ethan said causing us to look at him. He smiled and pointed at me. "I thought you were gonna back yourself up on that talk of being a world champion food catcher. I was hoping to see some of that action."

  I let out a laugh. "I'm not catching food at a wedding," I said.

  "She can do it, I swear," Mia said. She looked at me with a pleading expression. "Just show him. Half the people over there dancing are barefoot."

  "I'm still not doing that at Zoe's wedding," I said. I stared at Ethan with a challenging expression. "You're gonna have to just believe me, mister."

  Isabel tugged at my shirt, and when I glanced at her, she looked up at me like she wanted to tell me a secret. I bent down and she whispered, "What's he saying?"

  I smiled as I stood up. "He doesn't believe me when I say I'm good at catching food in my mouth," I said.

  "She can," Isabel promised. "She's good at it."

  Ethan was a few feet from me, and he smiled straight at me, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief. He was so quick and discreet about it that I nearly didn't see it happen. I barely saw the flick of his wrist, and then there was a small piece of something flying through the air. I knew by the size and shape of it that it was a pinch of his pizza crust.

  Ethan was busy grinning at me, and therefore not really paying attention to what he was doing. It was for this reason that he made a fairly bad delivery. For a split second, I contemplated letting the badly aimed pizza crust hit the ground, but a split-second was all the time I had. If I were to keep it from tumbling the floor, I had to react.

  I stretched to the side to catch it, and I had to move quickly and efficiently to do so. I performed a quick knife-like lunge, caught the flying morsel, and casually stood back in place, looking at Ethan like nothing had happened.

  "That's all, though," I said after I chewed and swallowed the little bite. "I shouldn't have even done that one, but I didn't want it to hit the floor."

  "That was freaking amazing!" Ethan exclaimed quietly but with a huge smile.

  I heard Isabel and Mia laughing, but I didn't pay any attention to them. I stared at Ethan who shook his head dazedly at me before he turned to look at Isabel. "Did she just turn into a frog and send a long tongue out there to get that?" he asked, causing Isabel to giggle even more.

  "Noooo!" she said.

  "How'd she catch that?" he asked.

  "She just did!" Isabel said, thinking his question was serious.

  "I'm sorry, I won't do it again," Ethan said, regarding me with a breathtaking smile. "I was just messin' with you a little. I didn't think you'd be able to… I didn't think you'd actually catch it. "

  I shrugged casually. "I thought about letting it fall, but I couldn't stop myself once my cat-like reflexes kicked in."

  Ethan laughed and then stared at me as if he wasn't used to girls being able to cut up around him—like he appreciated the fact that I could let my guard down and be silly. The truth was I didn't know how I was managing to act like myself because on the inside, I was a nervous wreck.

  "What are you guys doing after this?" he asked without breaking eye contact with me.

  "I'm just gonna go back to my apartment and chill with Isabel," I said. I looked at Mia who was smiling eagerly at Ethan since his question had come across as all-inclusive.

  "Are you guys going out or something?" Mia asked. Lu and Joe had come to stand close by, and she glanced at them.

  Ethan looked over his shoulder for a second and shook his head vaguely at Mia before shifting to stare at me again. "Are you babysitting all night?" he asked me directly.

  I shook my head. "My sister will be home by nine or so, but I can tell you right now that I'm not gonna be up for going out after that. I'm too tired for all that nonsense."

  The room was packed and noisy, and Mia and Isabel were both standing right next to us listening to every word we said, but Ethan and I kept our eyes on each other.

  "I'm heading out soon," he said.

  "Me too."

  "I'm sorry for tossing food at you," he said.

  I grinned. "I didn't have to catch it."

  "Yes, but you did, and in a most remarkable manner."

  "Thank you for remarking on it," I said.

  His smile was absolutely stunning, and it was aimed directly at me with no mind to anything that was going on around us.

  "I really want to see what else you can do," he said. "Your other talents." His dark eyes seemed to penetrate some invisible outer wall.

  "That was my most amazing talent," I said.

  "She's lying," Mia said. "She's a brilliant painter. That's her most amazing talent. She makes jewelry, too, and she knits. Plus, she can sing and dance. Seriously, she can do anything. But painting's her best."

  "You're so sweet, and you're extremely talented, too," I said to Mia. I smirked at Ethan. "But she's building me up too much."

  Ethan gestured around us. "You must be pretty brilliant, or you wouldn't have ended up here," he said, managing to compliment Mia and me at the same time. His sweet words caused me to smile shyly and reach down to unnecessarily adjust Isabel's clothing.

  Lane chose that moment to get everyone's attention and make a speech. A lot of the guests had been asking him about the incident the night before, so Lane worked it into his speech. He told the whole story about Rhett barging in to the place and destroying Zoe's painting with spray paint. He showed the scrape on his jaw that he obtained in the scuffle, and Zoe swooned, making the whole crowd cheer for them.

  Lane was a private person, but he gave us a few details on the way his relationship developed with Zoe so that everyone at the collective could better understand why Zoe was suddenly married to him and moving into his apartment. He said a few sweet things about how much he loved her, and the whole crowd cheered again.

  Lane spoke for a few minutes, and then Theo did as well, and before I knew it, the makeshift wedding had a feeling of completion. I knew a lot of the artists would continue to socialize in the studio, but Lane and Zoe seemed to be in a hurry to get upstairs, and Theo, Lu, and Joe (who were standing around us) all began to gather their things.

  "I'm gonna take off," Ethan said, looking directly at me.

  I smiled. "Me too. Us too. Me and Isabel."

  "I guess if you keep hounding me about it, then I'll have no other choice but to go."

  "What's that mean?" I asked, since he was looking directly at me.

  He smiled. "You keep asking me to go with you, so I guess we need to figure out where we're going."

  Mia drove her toes into the back of my heel, not so subtly telling me to take in the gravity of the situation. My rise in blood pressure was already proof enough that I understood what was going on. Ethan Prescott was blatantly trying to hang out with me.

  "I'm going to my apartment to chill with Isabel."

  "Okay," he said with an almost imperceptible nod. "I can go there, I guess."

  (More foot poking from Mia.)

  I smiled at Ethan. "My apartment's dirty," I said. "I have a load of laund
ry laying on my bed that still needs to be folded and put away."

  "All right," he said with a resolved but regretful grin. "I know how to take a hint."

  (Mia's foot jammed into mine with great force.)

  "I want you to come," I said to Ethan. "I'm just warning you that my apartment's not prepared for guests—especially not…"

  I trailed off because I was thinking that my apartment was especially not prepared for a visit from a famous television star, but I stopped myself before I referred to him as anything but a normal person.

  "Fine," I said, feeling mad myself for being flustered. "We're going back to my apartment to eat a popsicle and watch some Bubble Guppies. You're welcome to come if you're into that."

  He gave me an amused grin. "I'm into it."

  Within the hour, we had already taken a cab to my apartment and gotten Isabel settled in for the night. She was as smitten with Ethan as I was. She had asked him a ton of questions, and some he would answer seriously, but some of them required goofy answers, and he delivered silliness with the skill of a true comedian.

  I loved how he interacted with Isabel. He told us he had a large family back in Cleveland, and that Isabel reminded him of his little cousins whom he missed. My sister and I had grown up in Connecticut, and Ethan and I swapped childhood stories in the midst of Isabel's questions.

  Ethan sat on the couch, surfing the television while I gave Isabel a bath. I sat beside the tub, staring blankly at the bubbles that floated on the surface. I was so wound up from the afternoon and evening's events that it felt amazing to just sit there and stare for a minute.

  "Why did he come ovew to ouw house?" Isabel asked. "Efan. Why did he?"

  "Because he wanted to, I guess."

  "Is he gonna stay over and watch Bubble Guppies?" she asked.

  "I don't know," I whispered as I washed her back. "I don't know what he's doing."

  Just then, I heard my sister come into the apartment, and I listened as she said a few words to Ethan and then he said a few words back to her. I couldn’t make them out because there were walls between us, but I heard them have a few exchanges.

  Within a minute, the bathroom door opened, and my sister slipped inside. In one fluid movement, she ducked around the door, letting it close, and coming to rest with her back against it. Her eyes were as big as saucers, and she wore the intense expression of a woman who was being chased.

  "What?" I asked, turning to take in her panicked expression."

  "He's here!" she whispered intensely with a thumb pointing over her shoulder. "He's in my living room!" Tabitha looked at me like the whole world had gone mad. "And your hair!" she added.

  "You like it?" I asked, wiping at my long bangs with the back of my hand.

  "Yes, I love it. It's beautiful. But can you please tell me why Morgan Craig is in my apartment?"

  "Ethan," I said.

  "Is that really him?"

  "Uh-huh, and he said he's gonna buy me a pony," Isabel said.

  "I hope you didn't ask him to—"

  I cut my sister off with a hand in the air. "She just told him she collected My Little Pony stuff, and he said he'd get her something. They're good friends, she didn't just ask him out of nowhere." Tabitha stared at both of us with a completely flabbergasted expression. "What exactly happened while I was at work?"

  Isabel stepped out of the bath and took the towel from me, drying her face with one end as I dried the rest of her with the other. She smiled at her mom.

  "Aunt Macy picked me up from school, and then we went to a wedding, and Efan ate a big, huge bite of my pizza so he got me a new one, and then he wanted to come to my house with Aunt Macy."

  My sister stared at me with an expression that was comically confused. "What is he doing here?"

  "I don't know," I said. "Isabel's story is accurate. We really haven't talked about what we're gonna do. He asked if I wanted to hang out after the wedding, and I told him I was babysitting, so here he is."

  Tabitha buried her face in her hands dramatically. "I cannot comprehend that Morgan Craig is sitting in my living room right now, Macy. I feel like I'm dreaming. Was that really him out there?"

  I slipped my niece's nightgown over her head and patted her bottom, prompting her to take off with open arms toward her mom.

  "Hey peanut," Tabitha whispered, smiling at her daughter as she picked her up and hugged her tightly. "I missed you. How was your day?"

  "Good."

  Tabitha smiled. "Good? Sounds like you got a bite taken out of your pizza."

  Isabel giggled. "He chomped it!"

  "He chomped it?"

  Isabel beamed as she nodded. "And Efan also said he wanted to kiss my Aunt Macy."

  Chapter 6

  "Shhhh!" I said with an intense expression aimed at Isabel. "He did not say he wanted to kiss me," I whispered, hoping to get across to her how important it was that she didn't repeat that in front of Ethan.

  "Yes he did," she whispered, nodding at her mom.

  Tabitha regarded her daughter with a motherly stare that said she hoped Isabel was telling the truth. "Did he really, Isabel?"

  The little girl nodded with big eyes.

  "He never said that," I said, looking at her.

  "Yes, he did. He told me it when you wew talking to the taxi dwivew."

  I felt blood rising to my cheeks when I remembered being preoccupied with the cab driver who had trouble with my address and then asked me a question about one of the other buildings in my neighborhood. I knew Ethan had a minute or two alone with Isabel when that happened.

  "What did he say?" I whispered intensely to my niece.

  She smiled. "I'm not supposed to tell you. He told me not to tell you."

  "Well, you already did, so it's too late," I whispered.

  "Nu-uh, I told my mom."

  "Yeah, but I was standing right here, and I heard you."

  Isabel smiled at me and shook her head like her lips were sealed.

  "Did he really say he wanted to kiss Aunt Macy?" Tabitha whispered. "Just tell us. We have to get back out there, or he'll think we're hiding from him."

  I gave Isabel a pleading expression. "Did he say it?"

  Isabel looked at her mom as if to ask if she would be breaking a promise to Ethan by elaborating.

  "You already told us," Tabitha whispered. "Just say the rest."

  Isabel nodded.

  "What'd he say? Tell me exactly and fast because we have to get out there."

  "He said he was gonna try to smooch my Aunt Macy."

  I slapped my forehead at the sound of her words, gazing with wide-eyed shock at my niece. "He did not say the word smooch!" I whispered.

  Isabel covered her mouth with both hands and let out that same belly laugh she'd been using all night. "Yes, he did!" she said. "He said he will smooch you, and he told me not to tell you." Isabel put her finger over her own mouth.

  Tabitha was still in a daze, like she had come home from work and was currently encountering a group of aliens in her apartment.

  "We can't stay in here all night," I whispered.

  Tabitha set Isabel to her feet, and when I opened the door, Isabel jogged into the living room, leaving my sister and me staring at each other.

  "Seriously?" she asked sardonically, making me let out a laugh. She nudged my shoulder with her own. "You look beautiful," she said sincerely. "It's crazy seeing you with your hair straight. Probably not as crazy as seeing him in my living room, though!" She stared down at her own appearance. "I'm gonna stay in here and freshen up for a second," she said. "I've had the longest day at work. I'm sure I stink."

  "I don't know how long he'll be here," I said.

  "Five minutes," she whispered. "Surely he's not leaving before then, right?"

  I shook my head. "I don't think so. He's so sweet. You should see him with Isabel. He loves her."

  "Are you talking about my daughter, Isabel?" she asked in amazement.

  I nodded.

  "Morgan Craig kno
ws my daughter?"

  "Ethan Prescott," I whispered over my shoulder as I walked into the living room.

  "Aunt Macy, where's my mawkew box?" Isabel asked as I rounded the corner. "Efan wants me to dwaw him a beautiful pictuwe." Izzy could mostly say her TH's, and could probably pronounce Ethan's name if she tried, but she had taken to calling him Efan, and I could tell he liked it.

  "I think it's in the kitchen," I said. "Or in your bedroom on the bookshelf."

  Isabel ran into the kitchen in search of her markers as I came back into the living room. Ethan smiled at me from his place on the couch.

  "Sorry," I said as I came to stand by him. I leaned onto the side of the couch, and Ethan shifted so he could stare at me. There were no words to describe how it felt. I'd seen Ethan so many times on one of my favorite television shows. I had imagined myself in place of the girls on the show who gained his affection, and now there he was, in my apartment, asking my niece to draw him a picture.

  "Sorry for what?" he asked.

  "You know, that you're just waiting here while I… While I had to give Isabel a bath and everything."

  He smiled. "It was only like five minutes, and I had some texts to take care of, anyway." He patted the seat next to him, and I smiled through the flood of nerves that went coursing through my body. I rounded the corner of the couch and plopped onto the cushion next to him. There was about a foot of space between us, and he shifted so that his knee was barely touching my thigh. This made me lift my gaze to meet his, and he gave me an amused smile because of the way I stared at him.

  "Hewe they awe!" Isabel sang, coming back into the room. She opened the box and stared straight at Ethan.

  "What do you want me to dwaw?"

  "How about a car?" he asked.

  Isabel shook her head.

  "A dog?"

  Another head shake.

  "How about a cat?"

  "I can't do animals," she said.

  "How about a heart or a rainbow?" he asked.

  She shook her head.

  "What are his choices?" I asked.

  "A flowewww… a pewsonnn…"

  "I'll take either of those," Ethan said.

  "How about a person holding a flower?" I suggested.