Unwanted Stars (5 page)

Anabelle is a total bitch.

And I'm too pissed to elaborate.

If I didn't hate Anabelle so much, the girl would actually impress me. Well, kinda. She's a bad-ass who didn’t put up with anyone's shit, including mine. She's blonde, like me, but she wore her hair up, in a tight ponytail, red Coach glasses on the bridge of her nose, her tour polo shirt always tucked in perfectly, sunscreen always applied to her porcelain skin. Never a wrinkle in her polo, never a crease in her khakis. She's always on time, never inappropriate, never drinks with the tour members...she probably uses military corners when she made the bed each morning. Exhaustingly perfect.

We'd been on this tour for four days and I felt like I'd been "on" the entire time. Why the hell did I have to sleep with Tom? He was a cake-walk compared to Anabelle. We drank, we laughed, we goofed around. He was a regular guy who just loved to travel. Anabelle was an entirely different story. She's a climber. When I look at her, I know that she could be my boss one day. The thought of that made me shudder.

Let me give you an example of Sergeant Anabelle. Currently we're in Amsterdam, one of the most laidback places on the planet: legal marijuana, prostitutes ready to go in a moment's notice, and Anabelle is the one who's introducing forty-two unsuspecting tour members to a city she has no business even entering. I swear, the day the bus pulled up, she got a hive on her neck. She couldn't stop scratching the skin just beneath her chin. But, of course, this is Anabelle Marlow, so she knew exactly how to scratch her skin without making it turn red and splotchy. How she does that, I'll never know...and I'm way too afraid to ask.

One of the requirements for introducing tour members to Amsterdam is to bring them through the red light district. It's a narrow alley with large windows that allow the average person to peer into a room of possible awaiting pleasure. If the curtain is drawn, the lady of the night (or broad daylight in Amsterdam) is busy with a customer or taking a break. But, if the view of her isn't obstructed, that means she's open for business. Pretty sad, in my opinion. But they're just trying to make ends meet, and it's legal here.

Before the tour began, I asked Anabelle for a word. She looked irritated before I even opened my mouth to speak.

"What do you need?" she asked, eyebrows raised above her garnet-colored glasses, impatience spread across her pale face.

"Do you want me to lead the red light tour? I watched Tom do it, and I'm...you know, comfortable with it."

"What are you trying to say? That I'm
not
?" Her delicate fingers moved to her hip bones, digging into her skin in defiance.

"No, I-I'm not saying that. I guess I was just hoping for more experience...leading the group. This is one of the things that I remember well."

"Oh," she said, her posture relaxing slightly. "Nah. It's better if I lead this one. You can lead in Germany. I hear you're
quite
the guide there."

She smirked and walked away, not looking back. And thank God, because I swear all the blood drained from my face. I was mortified...and a little bit pissed. Fucking Tom! I couldn’t believe he told her. No wonder she hated me.

The group approached the narrow alley adorned with lanterns glowing with a scarlet hue. Anabelle cleared her throat and began. "Now, I know that many of you will be shocked by what you're about to see. But here, prostitution is perfectly legal. It's a business."

A few snickers could be heard from the tour members, a couple of high fives among the college boys.

"Just be respectful. Don't make cat calls or draw attention to yourselves. It pisses them off."

Geez, she sounded like she was talking about animals in the zoo. "Don't make the monkeys angry or they'll fling their poo!" I had to hold back a massive roll of the eyes, had to stay professional. I glanced around, looking for a clock to distract me.

Not many people know this about me, but clocks are my safe place. They're anchors for me in any given situation. I was named after a poet named W.H. Auden. My parents were all about poetry, naming all three kids after famous poets: Maya Angelou, Walt Whitman (Jason's real first name is Whitman), and me, Auden.

My mother felt an attachment to one poem in particular by W. H. called "Funeral Blues." The very first line is "Stop all the clocks," and somehow that line got into my subconscious in a big way. Hadley teases me that I'm obsessed. But I can't help it. They calm me down, give me focus, keep me centered when I'm feeling lost. Part of me wonders if that's how I ended up in Europe. Some of the oldest and most beautiful clocks in the world are perched upon buildings in these countries. I hadn’t taken many photos since I'd arrived, but the ones I had taken were mostly of clocks. Some I expected to see, others were a pleasant surprise.

Anabelle teased me about Germany, but honestly, I love it there. Cuckoo clock shops are all around, clock towers are common. Those Germans appreciate the beauty of a simple clock. And I respected them for it.

Anyway, the poem. So yeah, it's kind of weird to (essentially) be named after a poem about death and grief. I've asked my parents time and time again why they gave me such a morose name. My mom shrugged me off every time.

"You can't explain connection to art," she'd always say. "It impacted me tremendously before you were born."

When I press for more, I don't get any answers, so I've learned to let it go. I get compliments on my name all the time. The originality of it, the uniqueness. When I was young, I wanted to be Audrey or Aubrey—at least then I had the chance of seeing my name on a personalized ornament or water bottle at the supermarket. Luckily my best friend's name was never there either. We cursed the makers of keychains everywhere, wishing we could proudly display our names like the rest of the Jessicas and Ashleys at our school.

I was distracted from my daydreaming by the most intense eyes I'd ever seen. They were blue, the brightest blue, although one of them had a patch of brown next to the pupil. Tan skin, blue eyes, dark brown hair. And a stare that made me uncomfortable.

I'd noticed him before. The first day of the tour, in fact. He reminded me of Henry Cavill: broad shoulders, tight ass, bulging muscular arms, and a gorgeous face. When he smiled, he had a boyish look about him, but when his lips were pressed tight, like when he was listening to Anabelle describe the sights, he looked like an alpha male. A hot, dangerous alpha male. I'd purposely avoided him because I didn't want to give Anabelle any ammunition towards getting me fired. And now that I knew Tom had blabbed, I felt even more determined to keep my attraction intact. I'd purposely stayed away. I hadn't even heard his voice yet. Was he American? Canadian? British?

But now he was staring and I couldn't avoid him any longer.

"Auden, right?" He offered fresh blueberries from a ziploc bag. I narrowed my eyes at him and his choice of snack. Here we were, in Amsterdam. He could buy a brownie laced with pot or a million different kinds of sweets, but he's munching on blueberries.

"Thanks," I said, grabbing a couple berries from the bag and popping them into my mouth. They were juicy and sweet. Almost intoxicating.
Stop it, Auden.

"Have you worked here long? I've never seen you before." It was then that I really heard his accent. British.
Delicious
.

"I'm new. But why would you have seen me before?" I tilted my head in confusion.

"My mates and I like to take trips every few months. Blow off steam." He popped another berry into his mouth. His lips were a gorgeous shade of peach. "And Jordan's the best."

"I see," I said, pressing my lips together, not knowing what else to say. It wasn't often that a man could make me tongue tied, but it was happening. All I could focus on was the dimple on his right cheek when he smiled, and that small patch of brown within the blue of his eye.

"Unique name."

"Huh?" He snapped me out of my daze. "Uh, yeah. I guess."

"Don't hear it very often," he said.

It was then that I realized I didn't know his. And it was my job to know it. How was I going to get out of this one?

"Campbell," he said. "Campbell Hutchins."

"Like the soup?" I asked.

"Wow, never heard that before." He laughed, running his fingers through his silky brown hair. "My friends call me Hutch."

"Seriously?"

"What do you mean?" He looked confused.

"As in
Starsky & Hutch
?" I pressed.

"You are
way
too young to know that reference," he said, shaking his head.

"They made a movie reboot when I was in high school. Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, remember?"

"Right," he said with a lopsided grin. He had such a boyish charm to his smile; it was unnerving.

"Besides, you don't seem old enough to know the original show either. That was the seventies." I narrowed my eyes at him. He could be in his early thirties, but there was no way he was old enough to have watched that show when it was on the air.

"Saw it in reruns.” He shrugged.

"Nice to meet you, Starsky," I said with a smirk. He shook his head at me and extended his hand like the English gentleman that he was. I tried my best not to feel the electrical current coursing through every nerve in my body. This was a brand new sensation, which was saying a lot considering my boy-crazy history. This was unique and terrifying and wonderfully exciting. "Sorry. I mean
Hutch,
of course. So, Campbell...where'd your parents think of that one?"

"Do you always interrogate tour members about their names?"

My cheeks turned pink when I realized I usually didn't give a crap about people's names or the origin of said names. But he was different. It was like I needed to know anything I could learn about this handsome stranger.

"Just answer the question," I said, flirting with a tilt of my head and arms crossed over my chest.

For a second, everything stopped as Campbell looked down at my feet. He smirked as his eyes climbed up my calves and to my thighs. They lingered there for just a second before continuing up to my torso, my chest, and finally my face. When our eyes met, he grinned and I suddenly felt as naked as the day I was born.

"Tradition," he answered. When I looked confused (because obviously I'd forgotten the question since he'd studied every inch of my body as if he wanted to devour me), he said, "I'm named after my great grandfather. He was kind of a hero in my town."

"Where are you from?"

"Jersey."

What?

"Um, no. Try again." I rolled my eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm from the states, pal. I know when someone's from Joi-zee and when they're not. And you clearly are not. Where are you really from?"

He threw his beautiful head back in laughter, that dimple once again making a grand entrance on his cheek. Something twitched in my belly—desire, I think. Until I realized he was laughing
at
me.

"And you call yourself a tour guide? The island of Jersey. One of the Channel Islands..." His voice trailed off as he leaned his forehead in my direction. If he could read my mind, this is what it would say: