Chapter 6
INDIA
Felix Caine makes my heart flutter, which is super unfortunate.
It’s not an I-have-feelings-for-him kind of flutter; it’s more of an awareness, a sense of overall attractiveness. He’s handsome, he smells good, he’s flirtatious—and maybe more than any of those things, he’s devastatingly charismatic . He has presence; if he walked into a room full of people, they’d all notice. That’s the kind of guy he is.
So not my type anymore. Give me a dark and handsome brooder any day, someone a little grumpy with a secretly soft heart. That’s the kind of man I’ll fall for, mark my words—not this giant ball of sunshine and boundless energy.
It’s like I told him: I want a Darcy, not a Bingley.
Although…is Felix even a Bingley? Is he too flirtatious for that? And I don’t remember Bingley having such an ego.
Would it be too mean to call him a Wickham?
“All right,” Felix says once we’re both in the car. He points at the floor on my side of the car. “Grab that notebook.”
I look down and see a plain black notebook, the kind you get from the dollar bin at the store; I lean down and pick it up.
“Go to the bookmark. It’s—oh, hang on,” he says as his phone starts to ring, a warbling sound that connects to the speaker in the car. “That’s Cyrus,” he goes on as my brother’s name flashes on the screen. A little grin tugs at his lips. “He’s probably going to chew me out.” He presses the little Accept Call icon. “Cyrus?”
“Cy,” I say with a little frown, jumping in before Cyrus can say anything. “You never call me. Do you like Felix better?”
“You’re already together,” Cy says, sounding extra annoyed. “Great. I don’t call you because I’m not irritated with you, Indy.”
“Can I call you that?” Felix says, his head whipping toward me so fast he’ll have a crick in his neck. “Indy?”
“No,” Cyrus and I say at the same time.
“Fine,” he says, sounding sulky now. “I’ll stick with Sunshine. ”
“Here’s the deal,” Cyrus says. “You guys hang out, do whatever you want. I’m not your mother. But if you end up in some tangled love affair?—”
“Whoa,” Felix and I say together, our eyes widening at the same time.
“—I want no part of it. Got it?”
“There will be no ‘tangled love affair,’” I say loudly, a little alarmed. “None.”
“Are you or are you not taking him to all the most romantic places in Lucky?” Cy demands.
I glare at Felix. “Yes,” I say.
“But I’m helping her out too,” Felix says. “So?—”
“Why is he helping you, Indy?” Cyrus says, cutting his best friend off. I smirk at Felix’s indignant look as Cy goes on, “What do you need help with?”
I wasn’t prepared for that question. “Some—random stuff,” I say. My words aren’t convincing.
And Cyrus doesn’t miss a thing. “What stuff?” he says, laser sharp.
“Just— stuff .” Then I sigh. “I’ve got some things I want to do before I die, you know?”
“Are you planning on dying soon?” he says, incredulous now.
“No,” I say quickly, waving my hands. I look at Felix, who also looks concerned. “No, sorry, not like that. I’m fine. But if I did die, there would be things I regretted.” I guess I’m spitting it all out. “There are things I want to do with my life that I just…haven’t.”
Amazingly, Cy is quiet for a few seconds. I hear him sigh, and then he says, “What things?”
I shrug, not letting myself look over at Felix. “Random stuff. And—I don’t know. I want to start dating. Maybe join a dating site or something. Because I want to find a soulmate and have a family and do all that stuff.”
Another pause from Cyrus. “Do you?”
“Yeah,” I say, and I’m surprised at the level of emotion in my voice, even though I try to stay neutral—but then again, Cy is probably the single person in this world who knows me best, understands me most, because we’re so similar. We’re even-keeled, protective—we love hard but keep it hidden. We’re steady and grounded, but that doesn’t mean we don’t feel deeply.
“I really want those things,” I say. “And I want to learn how to bake a carrot cake. I want to get a pet. There are things I want to do, and there’s no reason not to do them.”
Through the car speaker crackles a long, staticky sound—another sigh, this time of defeat. “Just—be careful,” Cy says. “Both of you. Okay?”
“Have some faith,” Felix says, but the comment isn’t flippant or joking; it’s gentle, chiding, like he’s really asking Cyrus to trust us. “We’ll be fine.”
Cyrus gives a faint, grumbling reply, and then he hangs up.
“Rude,” I say, frowning at the screen that shows the end of the call. “He didn’t even say goodbye.”
Felix’s burst of laughter startles me; I look over at him, confused.
“You do the exact same thing,” he says, shaking his head and continuing to smile. “You say what you want to say and then you hang up. You don’t even wait to see if the other person has anything to talk about.”
“Do I?” I say, even more surprised as I try to remember my phone conversations with Felix.
“Yes,” he says. “You have very poor phone etiquette.”
Crap. He might be right. “Sorry,” I say sheepishly. “Remind me next time and I’ll try to do better.” Then I open the notebook still resting in my lap. “So tell me exactly what you need for this article you’re writing.”
Because there’s a thread of awkwardness weaving through the car, and I can’t tell if Felix feels it too, or if it’s just me—either way, I don’t want it to linger.
He’s not the first person I would choose to share those things with, the things I told Cyrus. They were personal.
“I just need to nail down some popular date spots, maybe some scenic outlooks—that kind of thing,” Felix says, accepting the change in topic. “Lucky is a great place. Does anything come to mind?”
“Yes,” I admit. Then I flip through the pages of the notebook until I find the bookmark, revealing a few random notes scribbled here and there. “Oh,” I say, my eyebrows lifting a little. “Your handwriting isn’t bad. I expected an illegible scrawl.”
“I’d expect the same of you, Sunshine,” he says with a snort. “Now tell me what Lucky has to offer.”
“Well, there’s Crow Point,” I say. “It’s up in the canyon, an outlook point. It’s a popular date spot, especially at night when you can see the city below.”
“Perfect,” Felix says with a nod at the notebook. “Want to write it down? There’s probably a pen in here.” He pats the center console, which I open and dig around for a second before emerging with a ballpoint pen.
I jot down Crow Point and then bite my lip, thinking. “There’s the historic theater in downtown Lucky. Tickets are cheap, and on Fridays they do one-dollar matinee showings.”
“That’s good too,” he says. He glances over at me and then back to the road. “Seen anything good recently?”
“Eh,” I say with a shrug. “Not really. Me and Aurora and Jules went there after we said goodbye to our parents. It was a good place to cry in the back row, I guess.”
“All right,” he says, looking bemused.
“There are some hot springs just outside of town that are popular in the summer. There are some awesome indie bookstores around here too,” I go on, and I have to admit, it’s sort of fun to look at my little town as a place full of romance and whimsy. “A bookstore is a perfect place for a date.”
“Is it?” Felix says.
I turn to him, my jaw gaping. “ Yes. Completely. How do you not know this? Haven’t you been on a million dates in your life?” Then I snigger. “Or is your normal type of woman not big on reading?”
“Uncalled for,” Felix says, but his lips are twitching. “You read a lot, though—Bingley and Darcy. That’s Jane Austen, right? You like her?”
I sniff and then say, “I dabble. But you don’t need to look so skeptical.”
“I have a hard time picturing you curled up with a romance novel, that’s all,” he says, his shoulders twitching into a little shrug. “So you dabble? What does that mean?”
It means I collect editions of Pride and Prejudice. It means Elizabeth Bennet is my patronus. It means that when I start dating, I’m going to have Darcy-level high standards.
“It means what it means. I dabble,” I say—unhelpfully, I’m sure.
“So you’ve been a secret romantic all along,” he says, grinning. He drums his fingers lightly on the steering wheel. “You’ve been holding out on me, Sunshine.”
“Turn right at the next light,” I say. I twist around to look briefly at Betsy; so far she’s doing fine. “It’s just a little ways up there. Sal’s Shop and Repairs.”
“Huh,” he says as we drive, craning his neck and peering out the windshield. “I’ve never heard of it. Didn’t know we had a place for motorcycles in Lucky.”
“You haven’t lived here for very long,” I remind him. “And I think the best things are sometimes hidden, don’t you? They won’t force themselves on you. You have to look to find them. It’s here,” I go on, pointing to the shining neon sign.
I met Sal a couple years ago when I brought Betsy in for the first time. “September” by Earth, Wind Sal is the only man in the world who can call me sweetie without it feeling gross, but I’m pretty sure right now he’s talking to Betsy.
“She just got roughed up a little bit,” I say as Sal bends down and inspects the motorcycle.
“I see that,” he says. “Nothin’ we can’t fix, though. Leave her here and give me a few days, Indy.” He straightens up again, grunting, and then his eyes fall on Felix. His gaze lights up with a disconcerting mixture of mischief and delight. “And who is this?” he says, holding one dirty hand out to Felix. “New man in your life?”
“I’m the hired labor,” Felix says, and Sal lets out a boom of laughter that rings throughout the garage.
“She’s got you workin’ hard, huh?” he says as they shake. “Haulin’ and lifting’ and whatnot?”
Felix grins; his earlier hesitation seems to have vanished. “That about sums it up. She just likes me for my car.” He nods over his shoulder to his SUV, and Sal laughs again.
“I’m standing right here, gentlemen,” I say flatly. “Felix is my brother’s friend, and he’s benefiting from this arrangement too, so don’t let him lie to you, Sal. And you ,” I say, turning to Felix—whose grin widens, the audacity —“don’t make it sound like I’m working you to the bone. You literally lifted Betsy into the back of your car and that’s it.”
“My bad, Sunshine,” he says with a cheeky wink as Sal roars with laughter again.
These men are ridiculous.
“You know, in the time I’ve known India, she’s never brought a man around here,” Sal says, his smile still wide. He jerks his head toward Ronaldo in the back of the garage. “A couple of the guys have tried to get on her good side?—”
“All my sides are good sides,” I cut him off tartly.
“But she’s never taken to any of them,” Sal finishes. His gaze jumps back and forth between Felix and me, thoughtful now. “I always figured she’d be the type of gal to fall fast and hard for the right man.”
“I would pay actual money for the subject to change,” I say. “My love life is not up for discussion.”
Sal raises one wiry gray brow at me. “You don’t have a love life to speak of, Indy,” he says—brutal, but not wrong. “Go out with this guy.” He claps Felix on the shoulder. “Have some good, clean fun.”
My cheeks are almost as red as my hair at this precise moment. I can feel it, and I am not a fan.
“Felix isn’t my type,” I say. Not anymore, I add silently.
“I’m everyone’s type,” he says, smiling his most charming smile.
I frown at him. He really can’t stop flirting for even a second, can he?
“My wife wasn’t my type either,” Sal says with a wink. “But look how that turned out. We’re celebrating our thirty-fifth anniversary next month.”
Aaaaand it’s time for us to go. Right now, before this topic can get even more uncomfortable.
“Thanks, Sal,” I call over my shoulder as I turn and start back toward the car. “I’ll check back in a few days?”
“Sounds good, sweetie,” he says, still smiling slightly. He waves at me and then nudges Felix. “Be good to my girl.”
I roll my eyes, but the rest of my features don’t get the memo; by the time we get back to the car, I have to force the smile off my face so Felix won’t see.