Chapter 12
INDIA
I haven’t been through the front door for even three seconds before I open my mouth.
“Everybody—living room, now,” I shout. “Emergency meeting.”
Silence greets my words. I wait a sec and then try again.
“Juliet? Aurora? Where are you?”
“Why are you shouting?” Aurora calls, appearing at the top of the stairs dressed in an oversized t-shirt and leggings. A few seconds later Juliet pops into view, a toothbrush hanging out of her mouth and a curious look on her face.
“Are we not eating chips and cheese?” I say, and Juliet shrugs.
“You can!” she says, or at least I think that’s what she says. It’s garbled, so it’s hard to tell.
I wave her suggestion away. I did want chips and queso, but…“Maybe in a bit. Come on,” I say, beckoning them down the stairs. “Emergency. Come on.”
“You come up here,” Aurora says, slouching down the hall and out of sight. “I’m tired.”
I sigh, but I’m in too much of a hurry to argue. So I kick off my shoes and then start up the stairs. “Fine,” I say as I climb. “This can’t wait.” I pause on the top stop, my pulse racing. “I think...I might have had a moment with Felix earlier.”
The sound of the running faucet from the bathroom disappears beneath a choking noise, followed by spluttering coughs.
“Careful,” I say to Juliet as I move down the hallway, passing the bathroom and then our room and going straight to Aurora’s. She’s already back in her bed, under the covers, but she’s sitting up, her face alert.
“Spill,” Juliet says from behind me; I move out of the way just in time for her to bustle past, dressed in silk pajamas and smelling like spearmint. She climbs onto the bed and then under the covers, nudging Aurora to scoot over. In the space of five seconds, both of them are tucked in, staring wide-eyed at me like kids waiting for their nighttime story.
It makes me want to get cozy, too.
I bite my lip, looking at them, and then I decide. “Okay, just wait two minutes,” I say, rushing out of the room again.
“You said this was urgent?—”
“Just two minutes! ” I call.
And part of me is tempted to take my time. I don’t do this; I don’t rush home and gather my sisters together to dissect whatever some guy said. I don’t initiate slumber party chats full of giggles and secrets. Juliet is the one who makes those happen. And I participate, but that kind of thing isn’t really in my personality. I’m someone who plays things close to the chest and ruminates and figures her problems out on her own.
But tonight, right now—I can’t believe I’m saying this—I really need all the help I can get. Because this is Felix Caine we’re talking about. Felix Caine and me.
I am so far out of my depth. I could call Stella, I guess, but she’s too in love to be objective.
No—I need my sisters.
I return to Aurora’s room a few moments later, my teeth brushed, my pajamas on. They’re not fancy silk like Juliet’s; I don’t feel the need to be fashionable while sleeping. Mine are much more in line with Aurora’s—a comfy t-shirt and basketball shorts.
“Okay, sorry,” I say as I climb on the bed. “I’m sorry!” I repeat when I see their faces; Aurora looks unimpressed, while Juliet looks like she’s about to jump out of her skin with impatience.
“Come on! ” she says, pulling her hair on top of her head and securing it with a pink scrunchie. “Talk. Now.”
Aurora nods. “You came in claiming you had a moment with Cyrus’s best friend; you can’t expect us to sit patiently.”
“That’s the thing—I don’t know if it was a moment. Thus this emergency meeting,” I say. “Because it’s Felix. You know him—he flirts with anything that moves.”
“True,” Aurora says matter-of-factly, and Juliet nods, her bun wobbling on top of her head. “Jules, I think you’re going to need to take this one.”
Aurora’s dating record looks a lot like mine. I’m sure men are interested in her—she’s gorgeous—but she’s so intimidating that nothing ever happens. Even her room is sort of intimidating—it’s bright with neutrals and whites, mostly, but it’s spartan in appearance, too clean, no clutter, and very minimalist.
“Okay,” Juliet says, pulling my attention with the serious look on her face. “Start from the beginning. Context, please.”
“Yeah. Okay. So”—I grab a pillow that’s squashed between Juliet and Aurora and yank it out, hugging it on my lap—“so we went to the Pretty Page earlier. He’s doing this article for the Gazette, right? About all the fun, romantic spots in Lucky.”
“Mm-hmm,” Aurora says slowly, but Juliet just waves me on.
“And so I said that the bookstore can be a very romantic spot, especially the Pretty Page.”
“Agreed,” Juliet says, but Aurora looks skeptical.
“Okay…” she says. “And then?”
“ And then my friend who works there started talking about how I like brother’s best friend romances, and it got kind of awkward. Because he’s standing right there and I definitely used to like him, right? Anyway, one thing led to another, and I was totally joking”—I hold my hands up now to emphasize my point—“I was totally joking. But I asked him if he ever checked out his best friend’s sister.”
Juliet’s jaw drops. “You said that?”
“I— yes ,” I all but wail, bringing my pillow up to my face. “I think—I can’t believe I’m saying this. But I think…we were kind of flirting?”
“What did he say?” Aurora says.
Slowly, I lower the pillow—just enough that I can see my sisters, my other souls. “He said… only sometimes. ”
Juliet’s squeal reaches a previously undiscovered frequency, but she claps her hand over her mouth to muffle it, beckoning me to keep going, and Aurora nods.
“And he had this kind of weird look on his face. I can’t really describe it. Sort of like he had been hit over the head? And his voice was kind of…I don’t know. Rough or something, like he had a sore throat. And after that we just stared at each other. For…several seconds,” I say.
“Like how many seconds?” Juliet says, and she’s totally serious, too; her attention is rapt on me, her eyes wide.
“I don’t know,” I say, fidgeting with the hem of the pillow in my lap. “Maybe three?”
“Three,” she echoes softly. She shoots a significant glance at Aurora and then looks back at me. “That’s totally a moment, Indy. Did it feel like a moment?”
“I—kind of,” I admit. “But it was completely strange! I don’t like him anymore.” I grab my pillow more tightly and squeeze. “It was weird. Like you remember that guy we saw at the hot springs that one time?”
“Ew,” Jules and Aurora say in unison, their faces twisting into twin expressions of disgust.
“Yeah, exactly,” I say with a nod. “He was super attractive from behind, we all thought so, which is already weird because we don’t like the same kinds of guy—and then when we saw him from the front, he turned out to be super old. And then it felt really gross that we had thought he was hot, because he was like sixty,” I finish. “That’s how it felt with Felix.”
“Gross?” Jules says, her eyebrows lifting.
“No,” I say, and it costs me something to admit this. “Not gross at all. Just…strange, because I definitely felt something, but it’s Felix. I’m supposed to be immune. He’s supposed to be a middle-aged man from the front.”
“Would you consider sixty years old to be middle-aged?” Juliet says, briefly distracted.
“Yeah,” I say after a second of thinking. “Forties to sixties is middle-aged in my mind.”
“Me too,” Aurora says with a decisive nod.
“Felix will look so good in his forties,” Juliet adds with a dreamy sigh.
She is not wrong. Forget about his forties, for that matter—Felix looks good now .
Not that I need to be thinking about how he looks or doesn’t look, because I don’t. At all.
“But you’re right,” Aurora goes on, “that would feel super weird, Indy.” She looks at me intently. “Do you think he felt anything?”
“Maybe,” I say slowly. “The way he was talking, his voice—I kind of think he did. But then later he seemed totally normal?”
“Does that mean he felt it?” she says with a little frown.
“It could,” Jules says. “Like maybe he felt awkward so he tried to act normal so things wouldn’t change between you.”
“I don’t know,” I say with a sigh. “I don’t have feelings for him. I just don’t want things to be weird.” I pause. “He probably has moments with women all the time, right?”
“Maybe?” Juliet says, biting her lip. She looks at me for a second and then says, “Do you want to ask Poppy?”
“No way,” Aurora says. She tugs her white comforter further up her lap. “She’d spill to Cyrus.”
“Not if we make her swear not to tell,” Juliet says. “She keeps secrets.”
They look at me as I deliberate; they can probably see the wheels turning in my brain.
This could be nothing. But it could be something. And I can figure out what to do either way, but I need to know first if it’s nothing or something . If anyone will be able to tell me, it’s Poppy. She knows Felix better than I do.
“Yeah, let’s do it,” I say with a sigh.
Juliet nods with a businesslike expression and reaches underneath the covers; then she pulls out her phone. She punches a few buttons and puts it on speaker; we listen as it rings.
A few seconds later, Poppy answers. “Hey, babe,” she says brightly. “What are you up to?”
“It’s all of us,” Juliet says. “India needs your advice, but we have to swear you to silence first. You cannot tell Cy.”
“I am a vault of secrecy,” Poppy says immediately. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” I say, but it’s more of a groan. “I feel like I maybe had a moment with Felix earlier? And I can’t tell if I imagined it or not, and I know I shouldn’t be worried, but I kind of am.” The words spill out of me at top speed, my hands still fiddling with the pillow on my lap. “We were both talking normally afterward, but I guess I’m just…nervous.”
Poppy responds more quickly than I expect; she’s silent for only a few seconds before she speaks. “Honestly, India, I wouldn’t stress about it,” she says, her voice warm and sure. “Even if it was random or awkward. Felix won’t get hung up on something like that.”
“He won’t, right?” I say. “Because I just want things to be normal.”
“I really think they will be,” she says. She hesitates and then goes on, “You seem pretty upset, though.”
“I’m not upset,” I say, and it’s not a lie, exactly. “I’m more just…happy with the way things are going. And I don’t want to mess with any— feelings stuff. That’s all.”
“So you guys are getting along well, I guess?” she says, and I nod.
“Surprisingly well,” I admit. “We bicker, but that’s sort of just how we communicate. I like him a lot. He’s funny. He’s cool.” I hesitate, my mind flitting through the other things I could say—that even though Felix “blackmailed” me into doing this with him, I didn’t exactly put up much of a fight. And when he gave me an out earlier, I breezed right past it like it wasn’t even there.
“But we really are just friends,” I finally say, “and I don’t want to stress about anything else. That’s all.”
The words are comfortable on my tongue, convincing enough that I believe them, but they don’t ease the feeling in my chest—the little haze of warmth that lingers even now when I remember that moment in the shop, or the conversation in our driveway.
Unless…maybe that’s just heartburn from the leftover Chinese I had earlier?
“Well,” Poppy says over the phone as I rub my chest, “I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“Okay,” I say, exhaling and trying to feel relieved. “I won’t. Thanks, Poppy.”
“Thank you!” Juliet says too. “We’ll talk to you later!”
“Bye, girlies,” Poppy says, and then we hang up. As one, Juliet and Aurora look at me.
“Well?” Aurora says. “Do you feel better?”
“I…think so?” I say. “Maybe?” Then I shake my head. “I don’t know. I need to sleep on it.”
“Go to bed,” Aurora says, already scooching down the bed, her eyes drifting closed. She elbows Juliet.
“I’m going, I’m going,” Jules grumbles as she climbs out of Aurora’s bed.
“Turn the light off on your way out.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Juliet says, and I grin.
Juliet and I are in our beds ten minutes later. And even though I’m still feeling a little confused, my most prevalent emotion as we switch our lamps off is one of relief—because of what Poppy said, yes, but also because at least I know Aurora and Jules have my back, no matter what.
Still, I lie awake for a long time after Juliet falls asleep. I stare at the ceiling as my mind races through everything that’s happened today. Part of me is tempted to get up and go for a run, although I would never do something like that in the middle of the night. So I settle for planning ahead instead. I go through my bucket list and decide what I want to do next—learn how to bake a carrot cake—and then, upon further emotional inspection, decide that joining a dating site might also be a good idea.
That way I can get my mind off Felix Caine once and for all.