Suddenly Starstruck (Shower & Shelter Artist Collective Book 4) Read online

  Suddenly

  Starstruck

  By:

  Brooke St. James

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author.

  Copyright © 2017

  Brooke St. James

  All rights reserved.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Other titles available from Brooke St. James:

  Another Shot:

  A Modern-Day Ruth and Boaz Story

  When Lightning Strikes

  Something of a Storm (All in Good Time #1)

  Someone Someday (All in Good Time #2)

  Finally My Forever (Meant for Me #1)

  Finally My Heart's Desire (Meant for Me #2)

  Finally My Happy Ending (Meant for Me #3)

  Shot by Cupid's Arrow

  Dreams of Us

  Meet Me in Myrtle Beach (Hunt Family #1)

  Kiss Me in Carolina (Hunt Family #2)

  California's Calling (Hunt Family #3)

  Back to the Beach (Hunt Family #4)

  It's About Time (Hunt Family #5)

  Loved Bayou (Martin Family #1)

  Dear California (Martin Family #2)

  My One Regret (Martin Family #3)

  Broken and Beautiful (Martin Family #4)

  Back to the Bayou (Martin Family #5)

  Almost Christmas

  JFK to Dublin (Shower & Shelter Artist Collective #1)

  Not Your Average Joe (Shower & Shelter Artist Collective #2)

  So Much for Boundaries (Shower & Shelter Artist Collective #3)

  Chapter 1

  "I'll be right back," I said, gently nudging my friend, Mia, as an indication that I wanted her to let me out of the booth. Justine was on the other side of Mia, and she obviously didn't hear me when I said I'd be right back because she didn’t move.

  "Do you mind letting me out?" I asked, leaning over Mia.

  "Are you okay, Macy?" I heard Lu ask. There were eight of us sitting at a huge, circular corner booth, and Lu was all the way on the opposite side, but she was observant and it didn't surprise me that she took note of my sudden departure.

  I offered her a smile as I scooted to the edge of the booth. "I'm just going to call my sister." I didn't want to cause a scene or make anyone nervous, but Tabitha's text had my heart racing. As I stood, I thanked Mia and Justine for letting me out, and I headed toward the back of the restaurant in search of a quiet place to call my sister.

  It was my first time in the restaurant, and I really had no idea where I was going, so I pressed the buttons to call Tabitha back, walking somewhat aimlessly. There was a little space by the wall near the hallway that led to the restrooms, and I headed in that direction as I held the phone to my ear.

  "What's the matter?" I asked when I heard her pick up.

  "What's the matter?" Tabitha asked incredulously. "The matter is that you're eating dinner with Morgan Craig!"

  "Tab, you texted me 911. I thought something was wrong with Isabel."

  "We're fine. I mean, she's still got the sniffles, but she's fine."

  "You can't text me 911," I said, letting out a sigh of relief.

  "You can't text me that you're eating dinner with Morgan Craig and not expect me to freak out!"

  "I sent you that text like thirty minutes ago," I said.

  "Well, I just saw it. I was giving Isabel a bath. Are you seriously eating dinner with him? Ethan Prescott?"

  I took another deep breath, wiping my forehead to see if there was sweat from the adrenaline rush I had just experienced.

  "We're almost done with dinner now," I said. "I don't know how long we'll stay after that. It's been a crazy night. I'll tell you about it when I get home."

  "Can't you tell me now," she pleaded.

  I really did think that she or my niece was in trouble when I got that text, so I was still shaken from it. I stared at the tile floor of the restaurant, trying to figure out how long I should stay there or where to begin.

  "I have to get back to the table or Ethan's not gonna be there anymore," I said.

  "Back to dinner with Doctor Morgan Craig," she said with a smile in her voice. "Tell him we need a prescription for loooove." She said the word love in a silly voice that had me smiling.

  "You better stop," I said. "You're gonna make me accidently call him that instead of his real name. I've already got Mia sitting at the table, fanning-out all over the place."

  "I can't believe you're sitting at a table with the guy from Bad Medicine!"

  "Right next to him," I said.

  "You're tripping about it, too, don't even try to deny it. I can hear you smiling."

  "I am," I admitted. "But I play it cool. I'm definitely not trying to call him Morgan Craig or ask for his autograph. Two people have already come to our table and asked him for pictures. I gotta go, or he won't be there when I get back. Bye, love you, hope you have fun."

  It was a phrase we'd been using since we were kids—and not just when we were saying goodbye, either. It was the thing Tabitha and I said to each other when we were ready to change our current situation, whatever it was. We had different versions of it depending on the circumstance. For instance, when Tabitha asked if I'd go to prom with Bryson Rutherford because she wanted to go with his brother, and I said, "Bye, love you, hope you have fun," in a most serious way while shaking my head to let her know I did not, in fact, want to go. We most often phrased it the way I said it to her just now—in a happy but quick, firm tone that said we had to go.

  "Mace?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Could you please give me a super-quick version of the highlights… like ten seconds?"

  My little sister's voice sounded so hopeful and innocent that I felt compelled to try to oblige her request. I knew it had been a long day for her, and she'd be tortured by curiosity if she had to wait until I got home. Sure, she scared me to death, and made me get up from my meal, but I didn't have the heart to refuse her a ten second summary.

  "I'm giving you the super-quick version," I said.

  "Fine," she said gratefully.

  "I went up to the collective to meet Zoe and the rest of the crew she invited to dinner."

  "Uh-huh."

  "This guy, a customer who had the hots for Zoe, came in and started yelling at her about not selling these certain paintings he wanted, and anyway, things escalated, and he ended up spray-painting a big stripe across one of her paintings right there in the gallery." (Tabitha gasped.) "Lane had a fist fight with him, and the cops came. Then, it came out that Lane and Zoe are seeing each other, and now they're sitting at the table, making wedding plans."

  "Where in the world did Ethan Prescott come into it?" she asked.

  "Somewhere after the cops and before the wedding plans. We were planning on eating dinner wherever Zoe wanted to take us, but Lu called Joe once all that went down at the collective, and he happened to be having dinner with Ethan. We all know this couple named Sarah and Collin who own a few restaurants, so we came to eat at one of the
m."

  "How do you know all these people?" she asked.

  "From college," I whispered, as I walked back to the table. I could see from a distance that everyone was still sitting around the booth, and I couldn’t help but feel relieved. "I'll be home later," I said as I approached the table.

  "Bye, love you, hope you have fun," she said, quickly.

  "Hope you have fun," I said, since it was normal for us to settle for that when we were in a hurry.

  I hung up the phone and put it into the front pocket of my shirt as I came to stand next to Justine. Everyone looked at me.

  "Do you want me to just scoot over and you can sit on the end?" Mia asked, leaning over Justine to look at me.

  "My plate's over there," I said in an obvious attempt to keep my place next to Ethan.

  "I could just pass it to you if you want," Mia said.

  She smiled at me in such a way that let me know she was having fun teasing me about sitting next to him. I knew she really wanted to sit by Ethan, but so did I, and I knew how to tease right back.

  "I'm good sitting where I was," I said with a smile.

  "You sure?" she asked, still joking around.

  I smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure. I'll just sit where I was."

  Justine stood up to let me in, and Mia reluctantly did the same. I glanced at Ethan while they did this, and he happened to be looking at me.

  "Do you need to get out while you've got an open path?" I asked him, gesturing to the empty bench seat between us.

  He smiled and shook his head as an answer to my question, but he turned to laugh and comment on something Joe had been saying to him. I was glad he was distracted and I had to focus on the task of sliding into the booth because I was breathless and couldn’t quite think straight around him.

  Ethan was even more handsome in person than he was on TV, and that was a bold statement considering how gorgeous he was on TV. The bridge of his nose had a tilt to it that made me assume it had been broken at some point. It was part of his look, and honestly one of the best parts. It gave him this rugged handsomeness that made him a striking but relatable leading man. He had dark eyes and a mischievous grin as icing on the cake. I got settled in my place at the table, smiling at myself for thinking of Ethan as cake.

  "Everything must have been okay," Lu said, taking in my absentminded smile.

  "She's fine," I said. "My little niece had some fever recently, so I was just making sure she…" I trailed off, feeling out of breath and embarrassed. I knew my sentence sounded incomplete, but I honestly didn't know how to finish it. I usually wasn't so clumsy with words, but Ethan Prescott was staring straight at me as I spoke. I could see him out of the corner of my eye and feel him looking at me.

  I turned to him with a smile. We'd been sitting next to each other this whole time, but it was a huge booth, so there was some space between us, and he had earlier been engrossed in conversation with Joe. I was normally a pretty confident person, but I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as I locked eyes with the television star. I was already wound up from the conversation with my sister, and now I didn't feel like I could breathe properly.

  I smiled past the rising panic. "What'd I miss?" I asked casually. (At least I hoped I sounded casual.) I felt like I was out of my own body, and everything was happening in slow motion.

  "We were talking about party tricks." Joe said.

  "Macy can do everything," Mia said.

  I shrugged and shook my head shyly.

  "She seriously can," Lu agreed. "She's always got some crazy tutorial going."

  "Like what?" Ethan asked, making me focus on him again.

  I shrugged. "Probably nothing to write home about, but I try to learn all the time," I said. "I learned this story when I was a kid about a guy who had five talents and multiplied them to ten." I grinned sheepishly and shook my head, knowing everyone at the table was listening to me and feeling mad at myself for even starting this story. "I think the story might have been referring to finances or something besides actual talents, but that's how I took it, and anyway, it's been stuck in my head that I want to multiply talents since then—you know, learn how to do new things. I'm always learning, but I'm pretty much not amazing at anything. I can do a ton of random stuff on a somewhat competent level—Jack of all trades, master of none."

  "Don't listen to her," Lu said. "She's a master of lots of stuff. She wasn't even majoring in art when she started at Columbia. She switched to that from rocket science." Lu made a silly face and pointed at her own head. "Brainiac," she added.

  "It wasn't rocket science." I said, mostly to Ethan who was still paying attention to me even though some of the others at the table had turned to their own conversations.

  "What was it?" he asked.

  "What was what?" I asked, since I had gotten lost in staring at his face.

  "What were you studying if it wasn't rocket science?"

  "Chemical engineering."

  "Rocket science, basically," Mia said, causing everyone to laugh.

  "She's super smart," Lu said. "She went to Columbia on an academic scholarship."

  I smiled and shook my head at Lu as if she was giving me too much credit, which she was. I glanced at Ethan who was staring at me like he wanted to know more—looking me over like he was intrigued to learn that someone who looked like me and associated with artists had gone to college on an academic scholarship. The truth of it was that I wasn't even that smart. I had to work really hard to get good grades and my parents were good at applying for scholarships and grants, so that's how I made it through.

  "Don't let her fool you," I said. "If I was that smart, I would have stuck with engineering. As it stands, I have a degree in Fine Arts, and job interview at a coffee shop."

  "Do you really?" Mia asked.

  The other side of the table again became preoccupied with their own conversation, but Mia continued listening to Ethan and me. I nodded.

  "I thought you got that other job," she said.

  "I did."

  I glanced at Ethan to gauge whether or not he was interested in hearing any more, and to my surprise he stared at me with sincerity and said, "Where's your new job?"

  "I started working at my little niece's daycare, but it's just on Mondays. And I'm only gonna be doing that until she starts kindergarten. I love kids, but it's not my dream job."

  "What's your dream job?"

  "You may have gathered this from hearing us talk, but I used to live in S&S."

  Ethan nodded. "I heard you say that earlier."

  "So, I'm an artist."

  "I figured as much."

  I shrugged. "I thought I'd be able to do art full-time by the time I graduated college, and then I thought it again by the time I left S&S. I just keep thinking and wishing I'll be able to do art full-time, but it doesn't seem to be working out like that. I sell stuff, but not really on the same level that I did when I was living at the collective and using their gallery. I figured I'd try to pick up a part-time gig at a coffee shop, that way I can catch shifts whenever I need them."

  "And why the daycare?" Ethan asked.

  "My little niece kept having these nightmare substitute teachers in her class because their teacher can't be there on Mondays. She was fine every other day of the week, but she'd always come home crying on Mondays. It works out, anyway, because I get a little paycheck for hanging out with Isabel and her friends one day a week."

  "I don't mean to keep barging in," Lu said. "It's just that I can hear you."

  Ethan and I both turned to look at her.

  "Did you just say you were trying to get something part-time at a coffee shop?" she asked me.

  I nodded. "I've actually got an interview at the place where you used to work."

  "Why don't you just work at the place where I work now?" she asked.

  "Where?"

  "S&S!" she said with a grin. Her face then shifted to an expression of bewilderment. "I can't believe we didn't think of it sooner," she added.r />
  I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. While I would love to work at S&S, Lou, as part-time staff, had no right to offer me a job there—especially with the manager sitting at the table with us. I was totally confused. I felt myself blushing as I stared across the table at her, speechless and on the spot.

  She leaned over to look at Lane who was sitting on her side of the booth but had been lost in conversation with Zoe. She said something to him quietly enough that I couldn't hear, and I saw him nod before shifting to stare at me.

  "We can get you on part-time at the collective if you're interested," he said. "You might get stuck helping Carol upstairs some of the time."

  "Yeah, but it'll mean she can put her art back in the gallery, right?" Lu asked, selling us both on the transaction.

  In those brief seconds, I thought about being part of S&S again and being able to sell my art in the gallery. It honestly didn't matter what job I'd be doing. A thankful grin that spread across my face. "That'd be sooo cooool," I said even though it sounded dorky to my own ears.

  Lane nodded. "Come by next week, and we'll work something out," he said.

  Chapter 2

  "Name one," Ethan said, looking at me with a challenging grin.

  I stared at him, knowing I wasn't capable of fully appreciating my current situation. I was enjoying a nice meal next to a gorgeous, famous actor who happened to be sweet and sincere, and seemed to want to pay attention to me. I had just been offered a job that I really wanted at a place I loved. I felt overwhelmed with giddiness and found it almost impossible not to smile. I had to bite the inside of my cheek.

  "Name one what?" I asked, scooting over to get closer to Ethan.

  He smiled. "I wanted you to name one of your many talents."

  I knew by how he smirked at me that he was competitive by nature and was anxious to see if I could back up all the talk from earlier. It was for this reason that I chose something at which I was especially good.

  "I'm amazing at catching food in my mouth," I said in a serious, quiet tone. "Food that's been thrown. I catch it like there's no tomorrow."