Read The Stars Will Shine for Free Online

looking straight at me with his dark heavy brows dipped inward and unasked questions sliding through his eyes. “I’m okay,” I say with strained certitude. Aiden appears unconvinced, but he doesn’t say so.
    “Your paint, ma’am,” Sammie K. squeaks as she hands me a can and places the other two at my feet. She seems like the type of girl who prefers to avoid awkward situations like this one, so I’m not surprised when she hastily shuffles off and takes the first left down the closest aisle.
    Aiden swings over a nearby abandoned cart.
    “Thanks.” I place the first can in with a clashing thud.
    “Let me help you,” he says as he stoops for the remaining two cans. I feel like his words hold more meaning than they probably do, and I know it’s irrational, but the irritation at it flashes through me like a bolt of lightning.
    “I don’t need help.”
    Aiden sets the cans back on the floor and takes a step back with raised palms. “Okay.” The line of his mouth is straight, but he seems more attentive than offended by my reaction. I load the cans in myself then wrap my palms around the handle of the cart and push. As I move past him, Aiden quickly joins me in stride, a smile pulling at one corner of his lips.
    “You look familiar,” he says. “Do you go to Sonoma High?”
    “No.”
    “You sure? You look like a girl who was in my English class last semester.”
    I push the cart faster, but he picks up his pace, too. “I just moved here from Arizona actually. So, no, sorry.” I pluck a set of paint rollers, brushes, and trays off a shelf and toss them into my cart.
    “I swear, you look exactly like her,” Aiden says. Then he pauses, and I know something more comes next because, in the stretch of silence between us, I can hear his smile widen. “She was really pretty.”
    I stop walking for a second, heat rushing to my cheeks, but then I push on. Aiden keeps up with me but says nothing more, only hums a tune I swear I know. I’m thinking hard about where it’s from, trying to push the flush in my cheeks back down, when I realize I’m already standing at the checkout counter and Aiden’s pulling the cart around so the associate can scan the paint cans easily.
    “Don’t you have some stuff to go buy?” I say to him, hoping he’ll get the hint to leave me alone now. Glancing at the total, I hand the cashier some cash, which only reminds me I need to find a job, and soon.
    “Didn’t have what I was looking for,” Aiden replies. The subtle curve of his mouth verifies he caught my underlying message and is only amused by it.
    “What were you looking for?” The cashier asks him, having not caught on. Aiden only briefly looks his way before setting his eyes on me again.
    He crosses his arms. “A drill you don’t have.”
    I lift a brow skeptically as the cashier hands me my change and I pocket it.
    While I slip the paint supplies back into the cart, the cashier starts asking Aiden more specifically about the drill he wants. In my periphery Aiden waves off the cashier’s questions and quickly reaches for my cart’s handle, clearly inviting himself to help me to my car.
    I clear my throat as we cross the parking lot. The sun beams down and glimmers off the lids of the cans. They shake where they sit in the cart as Aiden rolls it across the uneven asphalt.
    “There was no girl that looked like me in your English class, was there?” I ask, more as a statement. I look sideways at him, and I can’t help but compare the feeling in my stomach to the way the paint is probably sloshing around inside the tins. Aiden’s eyes slide slowly to mine, and in a very similar manner comes his grin.
    “No, there wasn’t,” he says. “Doesn’t mean you’re not pretty, though.”
    I don’t answer, but I do turn my head away and bite the inside of my cheek. That’s when the name of the song he was humming comes to me. “Hey There Delilah” by The Plain White T’s. I almost laugh out loud at the corniness.