Page 96 of All's Fair in Love and Blackmail

I hurry to the window, followed closely by Jules and Aurora. Throwing the curtain aside, I squint out into the night, trying to let my eyes adjust.

“There!” Juliet says, finally pointing at the shadowed figure of a man on the sidewalk in front of our house.

With every step he takes closer to the street lamp, he becomes more undeniably Felix. The blond hair; the tall, easy stride; the lean, muscular frame.

The only thing I don’t recognize is the big silver box in his arms.

“Is that…?” I say slowly.

“No,” Aurora says, confident and sure. “No way.”

But Juliet gasps. “Itis!”

“He—he wouldn’t.” My voice is weak and unconvinced, because ofcoursehe would. This is Felix Caine we’re talking about. He absolutely would.

The three of us stare at him, our faces pressed unflatteringly against the cool window panes, as Felix slowly raises the silver box in his hands and rests it on one shoulder. Then he reaches up and presses a button.

“Open the window,” Jules says quickly, and we all lean back, cracking the window to let in the warm evening air—and the unmistakeable sound of ABBA’s “Take a Chance on Me.”

It’sloud.So loud, in fact, that I wince.

“He’s going to annoy the neighbors!” Juliet says, but her eyes are wide and full of delight.

I look to Aurora, who’s wearing a grudging smile.

“Guys!” I say, my voice incredulous. “We are not happy about this! This is—” I feel my cheeks heating. “This is totally embarrassing!”

“It’s socute,though!” Juliet says, opening the window a little further and smiling. “And this is one of your favorites, Indy! How did he know? ”

I fold my arms across my chest. Part of that is because I’m miffed, but the other part is because my heart is trying to leap out of my chest, and I’m not sure I can contain it.

This can only mean one thing. Right?

I bend down so I can yell out the window properly. “What are you doing?” I call.

Felix grins up at me and shakes his head, pointing to his ear with his free hand. Then he beckons for me to come down.

I narrow my eyes at him—something he shouldn’t be able to see, but he laughs as though he knows exactly what I’m doing. Then he reaches up and presses another button on the boombox. The song stops, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

Until, that is, he produces a microphone from out of nowhere. He conjures it into being, messes with it for a second, and then speaks into it.

“Testing,” he says, a word that flies straight to us through the speakers. “Testing.”

My jaw drops, and I am very sure my face is the color of a cherry tomato. Aurora snorts from next to me; Juliet squeals. But the loudest thing I can hear right now is my pulse, thudding in my ears.

“All right,” Felix goes on, his voice taking on the quality of a radio host or an announcer. The sound echoes faintly down our quiet little street, and I glance up and down the road nervously; it’s nine at night. Surely there are kids sleeping around here, right?

But Felix goes on, and somehow I know that he’s not going to stop. He’s not going to stop unless I go down to him.

“I visited your brother several painful days ago. Then I texted Poppy and asked for your favorite ABBA song. I would like to blame her if she told me the wrong one,” he says. “And now—it is with great pleasure that I introduce to you my newest article in the Four-Leaf Gazette, which I will proceed to read in its entirety. I hope you’re okay with attention, Sunshine, because I wax very poetic in here?—”

I stumble backward and then dart out of the room, my legs carrying me as fast as possible, my hands trembling, my stupid heart hoping and hoping andhoping.

It seems he realizes that I’m on my way to him, because by the time I fling myself out the front door and into the warm night, he’s just starting with a title and a byline.

“‘How to Win Over Your Dream Girl,’” Felix says, reading from a paper in his hands. The words boom even louder from down here, and I can’t believe none of the neighbors have complained yet. “‘After You’ve Already Wasted Too Much Time.’ By Felix Caine. That’s me,” he adds unnecessarily, looking up at me, his eyes sparkling.

“I know that’s you,” I say, storming down the lawn to where he’s planted himself on the sidewalk. There’s a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, because I recognize that title—or its similarity to the original, anyway. He’s clearly read my article. When did he do that? Why didn’t he tell me?

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