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Lord have mercy, it was so flipping hard to change quickly in the back of a car. I’d first started becoming Stella only once or twice a week, but recently, these quick-changes were much more frequent. My body wassonot flexible enough for this.
I’d have to come up with excuses for a pulled muscle.
“Stella!”
Harry called my name as soon as I stepped out of the car in the parking lot of Freezing Fred’s Ice Cream Parlor, and he stood in the parlor’s doorway. His hair blew crazily in the wind, one hand quickly trying to tamp it down.
I couldn’t help but grin. “Hey. Where are Addy and Vincent?”
“Inside, probably already ordering their goo grossness.”
As soon as I got close enough, Harry swiped up my hand, taking it and twirling me around much like he had that night at Downtown. The wig lifted off the back of my neck, but the clips held.
“What are you going to get?” I asked him, leaning into his chest. His very firm chest. “I’m assuming not blue goo?”
“Not sure. Guess it’ll be a—”
“Are you guys coming inside or what?”
Uh, I hadn’t been expecting that voice. When I looked over Harry’s shoulder, my mood completely shifted from excitement to apprehension.
Natasha stood in the doorway with one hand on her hip, looking at the two of us with an expectant expression. Her maroon lips were twisted, but I couldn’t figure out if it was a smile or a grimace. Her eyes were squinting against the sun, so it almost looked like she was glaring at us.
Harry dropped my hand, the distance and lack of warmth immediate. “Yeah, we’re coming, Tash.”
Yeah, see, I still didn’t love hearing him say that. Mostly because when I looked at her, I could still remember how she’d stepped into his personal bubble a few gigs ago, her hand on his arm, fingers in his belt loops.
Harry hadn’t mentioned her tagging along.
Harry let me go first, walking to Natasha while unbuttoning my coat. “We haven’t met. I’m Stella.”
“Natasha,” she returned as I stepped into the parlor, expression not changing. “I recognize you from the gigs. Addy’s friend, yeah?”
Harry stepped behind me, and I waited for him to say something—maybe mention thathe’dbeen the one to invite me—but he didn’t. “Yeah.”
Freezing Fred’s was a simple, retro ice cream parlor that gave off a warm and homey feeling. Addy and Vincent, as predicted, sat at a booth already with their ice creams. Vincent had a cup full of something suspiciously blue, and Addy had a small ice cream cone in her hand.
Once Addy saw me, she grinned. “Stella! Nice to see you someplace other than the café.”
“Feels weird, huh?” I glanced toward Vincent, peering at his cup. “That the goo gunk?”
“It’snotgunk,” he said, mock-offended. He swiped up a spoonful of ice cream and showed it to me. “It’s blue raspberry goodness.”
It looked kind of good, with ripples of blue through the soft-serve vanilla. “Maybe I’ll try it.”
“Don’t convert her to the dark side,” Harry told him, and laid his hand on the small of my back, gently steering me toward the counter.
Natasha already stood in line, peering at the display of hard-dipped ice cream. “I’ll have two scoops of birthday cake ice cream, please,” she told the girl behind the counter, and added, “He’ll have one scoop of chocolate and one scoop of cookie dough in the same cup.”
“I can’t believe you still remember that,” Harry said with a chuckle.
“You order the same thing every time,” Natasha returned with a smile. “It’s not that hard to remember.”
I kept a polite expression on my face, much like the one I wore at the country club events. Harry invited me because he didn’t want to be the third wheel, but man,Istarted feeling like one.
His hand still lingered at the small of my back, gentle against the fabric of my sweater. “What can I get you, Stella?”
“I think I need to try the blue goo,” I said, but I curled my hands into fists underneath the fabric of my coat, feeling out of place. “In a cup.”
