Untangling The Stars by Alyse Miller Read Free Book Online Page A

unique way, Dream Guy had been…well, warm and open, confident without being cocky, if that made sense. Not anxious or aloof or whatever the hell that mood swing had been yesterday from the real Guy in her classroom, but something that stirred both the lower parts of her body and the more unreachable places in her heart. Two for two. Whatever had happened in that classroom—and whether or not it was some bored actor peddling his captivating, flirtatious wares to some love-lost fan girl—Andie would be a fool to deny that some sparks had flown between her and Guy. She might be many things, but Andie Foxglove wasn’t a fool. It was just a shame that those sparks had turned into the wrong kind of heat. But, Andie supposed, that’s what you get with those cheekbones.
    Okay, time to get this guy out of your brain once and for all. Goodbye, Mr. Wilder, and thanks for the lovely evening . Andie laughed out loud in the empty bedroom. Lovely was an understatement. Maybe she’d get a kitten or something and channel her frustration into the next Internet cat meme star. Anything was better than waking up from another dream like that, and some sickly sweet feeling that felt a lot like regret.
    And with that, she slid out of bed, shoved the dream firmly out of her brain, and let her bare feet land firmly on the cool hardness of reality. Let’s get this day started.
     
    ***
     
    One hour and three changes of shoes later (she really had to stop binge shopping on Zappos), Andie wound a thin cotton scarf around her neck to quell the cool morning breeze, locked the door to her loft behind her, and made a beeline to her favorite little coffee shop on the edge of the university district. Tucked almost completely out of sight and sandwiched between a vintage record shop and a boutique furniture store, this little hole in the wall was known by many early birds for making the best red-eye espresso in Boulder. But, this late in the morning, most of the campus kids who weren’t already in class would be down at the trendier espresso bars near the Pearl Street mall, and most of the other professors and business-types would be avoiding the students and hitting up the Panera Bread on Twenty-Ninth Street instead. Hopefully she’d have the place to herself.
    When she arrived, Andie was pleased to find that both halves of the Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Cafe—one with a cracked countertop and barista station, the other a crammed makeshift library with a hodgepodge of worn, overstuffed chairs and torn poetry paperbacks—was mostly empty, save for Scott the owner/barista and his faithful yellow lab, Oz.
    “Well, lookit who’s finally here, Oz ol’ boy. You’re late, ya know, Fox.” Scott’s deep, rolling voice boomed across the empty café as Andie walked toward him. She grinned. Outside of the gala girls, Scott was Andie’s best friend in the universe. He’d won her over when she was a Boulder-newbie with his familiar charms and delicious lattes.
    Scott flung the towel he’d been using to wipe down the counter over one shoulder and crossed both tattoo-covered arms across his chest pointedly in that gruff way that was more fitting for divey barbacks than baristas. But, it worked for Scott. He managed to look petulant and daunting at the same time, a rare talent reserved for the Peter Pan types of the world. It was a fitting analogy for Scott. “We were thinking you stopped lovin’ us or somethin’.”
    “Oh, I don’t see how that could be possible.” Andie smiled apologetically. She knew she’d catch hell from somebody for sleeping in.
    Scott kept the café’s stereo set dependably on hipster. Something vaguely bluegrass-y stopped and The Weepies’ Crooked Smile started. Andie usually enjoyed the catchy tune about crooked smiles and how it would never work between the girl and guy, but today it seemed to be the soundtrack that went with the memory of Guy’s smile that kept trying to worm its way back into her thoughts. It