QUOTE : Felix.” She let go, suddenly shy to speak. But that tense, tickly sensation running from her throat to her belly was giving her some kind of superhuman nerve. And besides, he wasn’t really Felix Callahan anymore, not in that ethereal, big-screen sense. So. She cleared her throat. “Felix, will you be my friend?”<br /><br />He did laugh at her, though he didn’t seem to mean it. “Yes, we’ll get matching lockets holding strands of each other’s hair.”<br /><br />“I wish the English language gave us a better option. ‘Pals,’ ‘chums,’ ‘buddies’ . . . but a word that implies the sudden and unusual nature—like ‘metabuddies.’ ”<br /><br />“ ‘Metabuddies.’ Wow. This is getting serious.”<br /><br />“So?”<br /><br />“So. Yes. Let’s be friends. That would solve some of this confused muss. Do we spit in our palms and shake?”<br /><br />“I think this calls for a pinky pledge.” She hooked her pinky around his. “I, Becky Jack, agree to be Felix Callahan’s pal, even though he’s way overrated as an actor and screen hunk and can be such a brat.”<br /><br />Felix cleared his throat. “I, world-famous and fabulously wealthy Felix Paul Callahan, agree to be mates with Becky, even though she wears grandmother shoes and insists on popping out children with reckless abandon and shows no remorse for her vicious right hook.”<br /><br />“That was very nice. I almost shed a tear.”<br /><br />“Apparently all it takes to make you weep is a singing puppet.”<br /><br />“Hey, don’t sell me short. I also cry at talking socks and animated washcloths.”<br /><br />“You cry in terror.”<br /><br />“Well, yeah, that’s true.