Page 4 of King of Hollywood
“You’re amazing, you know that?” Felix said, his stupid sunglasses pocketed once again. Without thinking, I reached out and yanked his damn hat off his head. His floppy blond waves fell free as he stared at me, confused.
“I hate this hat.” I shook it at him, trying to emphasize my ire. “We should have burned it.”
Felix laughed, then sobered. “But I wasn’t wearing that when I—”
“I. Don’t. Care.” I wagged the hat at him again. “You asked me for help. I’m helping you. The hat has got to go.”
“Is it…contaminated?”
“Sure.”
Felix nodded, staring at the hat with an adorable frown like it had personally betrayed him. “I suppose I could buy a new one?”
If he bought a new one I’d burn that one too. I didn’t tell him that. As that was on a need to know basis. He certainly looked better without his face half obscured in shadow. Even drowning in my clothes, I much preferred him this way.
The moonlight that streamed through the window cast his pale skin in an ethereal glow. All his silly, pretty features clearly on display. The curve of his square jaw. The flicker of muscle when he clenched it. The swoop of his nose—regal almost—and the way his dark lashes were long enough that when they blinked they nearly kissed the beauty mark below his eye.
Felix Finley had always looked oddly…familiar.
Especially now, with his hat and sunglasses gone. From the moment I’d met him, I’d had this odd feeling that I’d seen him before. Perhaps in passing on a street, or in a dream I could no longer remember. That feeling was only amplified now that he sat beside me and I could see him clearly.
I locked those thoughts away as I cleared my throat, waiting pointedly for him to get the hint and get the fuck out of my car.
“Oh, sorry.” Felix shoved the door open, sliding out with surprising grace that he immediately ruined the effect of, because his dopey smile appeared again as he ducked down to say goodbye. He looked like an overeager puppy dog, far too excited at the prospect of spending more time together. “You’ll come over—”
“Later, yes. Try not to touch anything or…god—spread anything. Please.”
“No spreading the crime sce—”
“Uh—” I cut him off, glancing around to make sure the street was still dead. Realistically it was four in the morning. No one was awake, aside from us. Not in our sleepy mountain town. “Watch your mouth, Finley.”
“Felix.” Felix’s cheeks were splotchy red as he bit his lip.
“Whatever.”
Finley-Felix-Whatever grinned at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
He was an odd man. He spoke in a dated sort of way, and despite being an idiot—came across as far older than he looked.
Sometimes, it even seemed as though he was from a different time period entirely, all “gosh’s” and “neat”s, and vintage clothing. Often his accent was almost transatlantic, which I could only attribute to perhaps an upbringing reared entirely in front of black and white television.
I could relate, as my mother had been a movie buff before she died.
“I can have your shirt dry cleaned,” Felix offered in that same lilting tone he always used, while simultaneously waving one of the aforementioned shirt’s drooping sleeves at me.
I hated how cute he looked, swathed in Armani.
“Mmm.” It was neither agreement or disagreement. The only dry cleaner I trusted was my own—as he was a member of The Club—but I wasn’t about to shoot Felix while he was already down. “Goodnight, Finley.”
Felix made an annoyed sound in response to the use of his last name, but his smile didn’t waver. “Goodnight, Marshall.”
Despite telling him to be quiet, I couldn’t help but add in my severest tone possible, “Try not to kill anyone else, please?”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
And with that, he was off, practically skipping up the steps to his front door.
I pulled away, parking inside my own garage across the street, though I didn’t head inside.