Page 20 of All's Fair in Love and Blackmail
“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 Ididdie, 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.
