Star Catcher (2 page)

She wasn’t ugly. Stella had been told she had a beautiful smile and pretty green eyes by people other than her mother—moms were obligated to say such things. Her ex-boyfriend had been a huge fan of her curvy body, although she’d love to lose some of her ass. Of course, it was the first place she gained weight and the last place she lost it. All the jogging in the world didn’t make a difference when it came to her butt.

Her hair had been white-blonde since she was a child and had never gotten any darker, but Stella always wished it were more of a honey-blonde. Or maybe strawberry. The ultra-light color was like a freaky sideshow albino shade. She was afraid if she colored it and hated the results, there would be no way to reverse the damage. Stella wore it long, nearly to her waist, and straight as an arrow.

It was boring.

She often admired pictures in magazines of “real” hairstyles, but she was too chicken to go to the salon and request something drastic. So, the same old Plain-Jane hair remained. Most of the time, she ended up pulling it back into a lackluster ponytail or bun, so she really looked like the quintessential schoolteacher. Or maybe a librarian.

Ugh. That’s it! I’m calling Rayna’s fabulous gay hairdresser and making an appointment tomorrow morning.

Yeah, guys liked her, but never the good ones. Where were the smart, sensitive, and sophisticated guys? Heck, while she was busting out the
S
words, she might as well tack on sexy. The only
S
guys she met were of the slimy variety. Her last boyfriend was a case in point. Jared made slimy look good. To him, the word girlfriend meant “drunken middle-of-the-night booty call.” Another definition for Stella in the jerk’s dictionary was “chick who picks up the bill” whenever they’d managed to go on a date.

She was so glad to be rid of that loser.

The instructor’s voice cut through her self-pitying reverie.

“Class, we have a new student joining us. Mr. Noth, is it?”

Professor Elsworth studied a sheet of paper as she spoke. A tall man stood at her side. Stella looked from the instructor to the new guy, and her brow shot up in surprise.

The man was big, over six feet for sure, with linebacker shoulders. At five-eight, Stella was sometimes hard-pressed to find guys taller than she was, but this one almost made her look petite. He had marble-like pale skin, but not freckled as she might expect from someone so fair. His eyes were black. At least, they looked black from Stella’s vantage point, which was impossible, of course. Dark brown. Must be. They matched his black-brown hair, which stuck out in every direction and was of varying lengths, almost as if a three-year-old had butchered it for him.

“Noth. English,” the man said.
Accent?
She wasn’t sure, but she doubted he spoke fluent Spanish. His name didn’t sound at all Latino. He didn’t look it either.
Damn.
This one she’d consider special teaching for. Right after she gave him a proper haircut. His face was hard planes and angles—strong chin, sculpted cheek bones, and a stern, super-serious countenance. It was the sort of severe expression that made Stella itch to break it. Make him smile, or cry, or scream in orgasmic release.

Okay, Stell. It’s been way too long since you’ve been laid, obviously.

But darn if the Greek god of a man didn’t make her want to speak the universal language of love after just one look. She gazed around the class and saw that Mrs. Hernandez, mother of four, was drooling on her workbook.

“Noth…” Professor Elsworth waited for him to offer up a first or last name. Apparently, the admin office had experienced the same difficulty. The man wasn’t about to fill in any blanks.

“Noth. English,” he repeated.

“Well then, Mr. … er … ah … Noth … you are in need of a textbook.”

The man stood, gazing out at the crowd of seated people. His black stare landed on Stella and seemed to pierce right through her. For a crazy moment, it felt like an electric current knifed through the air. Some invisible and unbreakable connection linked their eyes, their souls together in that millisecond. And then Professor Elsworth slapped a beat-up book against Noth’s rock-hard abdomen. Apparently, the instructor had already wasted enough time on this one-word wonder. She had a class to teach, after all.

“You may borrow this one for now.” The professor flipped open the cover to reveal a CD, pointing and calling it by name, and then gesturing toward her ears. “To listen.”

Noth pointed to his own ears and echoed, “To listen.”

“Good. Welcome to English Conversation.”

Noth looked down at the book again and back at Professor Elsworth. She directed him toward an empty desk before returning to the front of the room to engage the entire class.

“English.” Noth said again, as he walked slowly toward the designated seat.
Oh boy, this is going to be a tough one.
The guy was starting from zero, and they had no clue what his primary language was.

“Sit down, Mr. Noth. And good luck.” Professor Elsworth wore a skeptical smile.

Stella grimly pursed her lips. This guy was going to need all the rabbits’ feet and lucky pennies he could get. She watched his back muscles ripple under his shirt as he opened his book. He ran a hand through that ridiculous hair and showcased a mountainous bicep in the process.

Maybe I’ll reconsider my turtleneck plan, after all.

Chapter 3

Stella stepped out of the bathroom with her hair twisted up in a towel and a fluffy pink robe snuggled around her. She wasn’t too surprised to see Rayna Hamid belly-down on her bed.

“So, what plans for tonight?” Rayna asked without looking up. She occupied the other room of the suite, and the two girls shared the living area and kitchen that separated their rooms. A
Cosmo
magazine filled the space between Rayna’s manicured fingertips. Stella was fairly confident she had left that magazine in a drawer.

Stella’s cat, Marmalade, was sprawled out on Rayna’s back, snoring softly. The long-haired orange stray was more like the dorm cat, smuggled in one night by an intoxicated girl who lived on the second floor. But the feline seemed to prefer Stella. She had been honored with the title “Most High Food-Giver and Litter-Changer.” It was fine with her. Mar-Mar’s company was welcome on lonely nights.

“Just make yourself comfortable there, Ray.”

“I figured you’d be out eventually. Derek and Eric are planning something in their room tonight, although I have a feeling I might be the only one invited. If I head over there I’ll need backup. Those two have been trying to pin me down for a three-way forever. Of course, they always have good beer, so I’m tempted.” Rayna looked up with pleading penny-brown eyes.

“But they’re brothers!”

“And twins. They’ve been sharing their whole lives, Stell. Why should my ass be any different?”

“I don’t really know how to respond to that.” Stella shook her head with a look of disbelief before she decided to change the subject. “There’s a keg party at McSorley’s, but last time I went to one of those I was a waste of space for the rest of the weekend. I might just grab a movie at the Red Box and chill out tonight.”

Stella had a paper due next week. “The Benefits of Second Language Instruction in Children with Autism Spectrum Diagnosis” would be even tougher to write with a hangover. Plus Jared would probably be there, and she could totally do without a post-breakup face-to-face.

“Jessica said she was partying tonight. Maybe I’ll call her and see where she’s headed.” Rayna rolled to her side, upsetting the sleeping cat. Both cat and girl stood up and stretched seductively. Rayna looked sort of feline with her dark Indian coloring and exotic yellow-brown eyes. The girl should have moved to Bollywood and made it big instead of bothering with a liberal arts degree.

Rayna’s extremely traditional parents insisted she get a good education, though. If they only knew Rayna never found the time for schoolwork, they might drag her back home. Studying didn’t fit into her party schedule. How she managed to maintain a passing GPA was beyond Stella.

Rayna snatched both her phone and the magazine off Stella’s bed and walked out to the common area to plan her evening. Her voice faded with each step.

When Stella was dressed, her damp hair left long and loose to dry, she grabbed her keys and stepped out into the pitch-black living space. The crack under Rayna’s closed door was equally dark.

“Guess Ray left,” she muttered, somewhat let down. She had unrealistically hoped her dorm mate would decide to stay in as well. A good chick flick was always better with a friend, and now she’d end up eating all the popcorn herself. There’d be no stopping her.

Her gray Toyota winked its headlights as she unlocked it. The parking spaces in front of her building were largely empty, as the majority of students were out enjoying their Friday night. She backed out and headed toward Albertson’s.

Stella grabbed a basket at the door. Lacing her arm through the metal handles she strolled around waiting for a snack food to grab her. Eventually, she had a box of microwave kettle corn, a six-pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey. Bananas never tasted so delicious. Her mood was picking up despite the loneliness factor, and she made a final pass by the sushi chest. She should quit while she was ahead. She couldn’t eat that much, and anything left in the common fridge would be gone come the morning, guaranteed.

A familiar head of hair caught her attention as she walked past the small dine-in area near the pizza counter. Dark tufts splayed out in irregularly chopped hanks and spilled across a fierce brow. A tingle of excitement and recognition shot through her as Noth seemed to sense her stare. He pinned his near-black eyes on her, and a hesitant smile of greeting touched his lips. He had a sensuous, generous mouth that had her immediately conjuring obscene thoughts.

“Hi. I’m Stella.” She gave a little wave with the fingers sticking out of the basket handles and pointed to her chest with the other. She wasn’t sure how much she should bother saying at all. The guy couldn’t speak a lick of English. Good for him, though—he had the borrowed English Conversation textbook spread out in front of him. It was right next to a paper plate with a spindly pizza crust resting on it.

His gaze swept over her breast with open curiosity, and she felt her face suffuse with red heat. He’d be calling tits “Stellas” from now on.

“I’m Noth.” He emulated her little wave.

Wow.
Had he just copied her use of the personal pronoun? He must have.
He knew two, count ’em, two English words this morning.
She’d bet her life on it.

He stared at her. The silence stretched out uncomfortably.

Damn, this is awkward.

They had already exceeded the limits of their shared means of communication. She should probably try for a graceful getaway, if such a thing were even possible at this point.

“Sit?” He gestured to the chair across from his at the bistro table, and Stella nearly dropped her basket. She sat with an astonished thump, unable to walk away now. She had to figure out how the hell this guy had learned so much English in such a short period.

“Wow. You’ve been studying that book all day, huh?”

“Huh?” he repeated. When Stella said the word
book
, he had glanced down at it with obvious understanding.

“You read this book, yes?”

“Yes. Furthermore, I listened to this … CD. It is short for
compact disc
, correct?”

Dumbfounded, Stella nodded her head. A two-headed alien sitting in the middle of the grocery store would have been less shocking than his amazing absorption of language in a single day. His English was stilted, slow, and planned out, but impeccably clear and formal.

“You must have known more than you let on.”

“I learn … fast.” He toyed with the CD as he spoke. “This is a large receptacle for very small information.”

She ignored that.

“So, where are you from?”

“Artanos,” he said quickly, and then looked as if he’d like to eat his words.

Don’t worry. Even if it’s a total dump I won’t hold it against you. I don’t have the slightest clue where that is.

“Artanos? Is that the name of a city or a country? I’ve never heard of it.”

His face registered relief as she spoke.
Boy, his homeland must really suck! No wonder he moved here.

“Yes,” he answered, and Stella decided he didn’t quite have the English language mastered after all.

“Yes to which? Where is that?”

He gave her a blank stare.

“Closer to the Americas or Europe?” It had to be Europe. If it were this side of the ocean, he would speak English or Spanish. Okay, maybe Portuguese or French, but the majority of Canadians spoke English as well. And he just came off as a major fish out of water.
A very tasty fish, that is.

“Europe. Far Europe. North.” He nodded affirmatively before grabbing his pizza crust and shoving it in his mouth as if to end the conversation.

“Oh.”

That figures. How many different countries has Russia broken up into? Too many to count.

“Noth is an interesting name. It reminds me of
Sex in the City
. Do you guys get that show over there? You know, Chris Noth?”

Blank stare.

“Mister Big?” She smiled, searching for a slight resemblance between the two. Both were tall, dark, and handsome, although this Noth was hands-down better looking. Her very own Mister Big. The idea was enticing.

“No, huh? So what does it mean, Noth?”

“Noth was a great treasure hunter. A legend says he claimed a brilliant golden star for his own. To be nearer to it, he agreed to live forever in the night sky. There is a star picture of the two in the sky where I come from.”

“A constellation?”

“Yes. That is your word. Noth the Star Catcher is a constellation.”

Was that what Russians called Orion? And Stella’s name meant star.
There’s some irony for ya.
She stared at his dark, penetrating gaze. Did she want him to catch her? So far, all signs pointed to yes.