“Just in the neighborhood for a little magic show.” Finn lifted the rim of his hat and pulled a deck of cards out from under the rim before wincing. “But turns out I had the wrong house. My party’s down the street a bit.” He sighed and glanced around. “I was just on my way out. Rabbits don’t pull themselves out of hats, you know.”
“Just like cupcakes don’t make themselves disappear,” I said with a touch of bitterness.
One side of Finn’s mouth quirked up, and he stuck his hands in his pockets. “Maybe I should stick around. We could make a few more disappear.”
My heart thudded loudly in agreement with him, and I cleared my throat to tamp it back down.
“Nah, you better get a move on. I called 911 to report a burglary while you were busy chowing down,” I lied, using a hand to shoo him off. Finn smiled.
“I’ve never had a girl call the cops on me before,” he said, sounding thoughtful. With a tilt of his head—pushing the hat back up when it started to fall—he slowly walked backward across the driveway. “I think I like it.”
“Maybe I’ll write to you in prison, then.”
“Maybe I’ll find you when I get out. Does my pen pal have a name?”
“She did before you stole her—”
“Cupcake.”
“Yeah.”
His bright eyes danced before he pivoted on the spot and strolled away. I told myself not to look at his butt.
I didn’t listen.
“Oh, and Cupcake?”
My eyes shot up at his call. Finn stopped on the grass, half turning with a smile that showed the tiniest hint of dimples. Of course he had dimples. “You weren’t wrong about that ‘thief’ part earlier.”
“I wasn’t?” I frowned and scooted to the side so I was blocking the back doors to the van. If he thought he could steal more cupcakes and stick me with the blame after Mr. Everton said I could only haveone, he was sorely mistaken. I used to watch inspirational sports movies as a kid, and if there was one thing I’d learned, it was the underdog always won.
“In the magic industry, I have what some might call sticky fingers,” Finn said. He wiggled all ten fingers at me. “It goes with the whole sleight of hand thing. But I just want to warn you, because once I set my eye on something, I tend to take it.”
His words made my hackles rise, but I put on my best innocent face. “I guess it’s a good thing I’m fresh out of cupcakes, then.”
His grin turned downright devilish, and my lips parted as he gave me a once-over. “That’s never a good thing. Something else caught my eye tonight, though.”
Oh dear.
And with a parting wink, he jogged around the neighbor’s fence—disappearing before I could do anything but gape at his forwardness.
And to think I’d been worried about this job being boring.
CHAPTER7
A Mother
It wassafe to say the rest of my weekend was much less eventful than the week before. No Noah sightings. No cupcake thieves. No unintentional panty flashing—orintentional, just to make that clear. Just me, Teresa, and a couple dozen hours spent down a crime show rabbit hole while screening calls from my mother.
I think there was food involved. Possibly.
There was definitely coffee.
On the plus side, I was sixteen dollars closer to replacing Noah’s pen. After setting aside money for meals and coffee, plus failing to walk away from a few dozen delicacies in the dorm lobby’s vending machine, I hid the rest of the money in my sock drawer where one of my green polka-dot socks was now officially known as The Noah Fund.
Teresa’s groan woke me on Monday morning. “Emma, if you don’t shut that stupid alarm off, I’m going to shove it down your throat.”
“Oh.” I blinked through the fog of sleep, barely registering the sound blaring from my phone. I heaved a breath for strength before leaning over to the nightstand. “That would be unnecessarily violent.”
