Arrow to the Heart: A Cupid Romance

Chapter 25

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"Hold on. You're going to have to explain this again. You just randomly decided to tell her the truth?" Eli's brows are raised high and his lips pinched to the side.

"I wasn't random," I say, "it was tactical. I decided to loop her in. It was the best play."

It was. The exact circumstances surrounding that moment are irrelevant.

"Riiight..." He rubs his chin as his eyes narrow at me. "Naturally. So she believed you?"

"She did."

"And how did she feel about you being her, well..." He lifts his hands to mime air quotes. "...matchmaker?"

I clench my jaw.

"She took it well." Too well, to be honest.

"Ahh, yes, clearly it went wonderfully. Which is presumably why you're scowling like a dog about to get its balls cut off."

"She's perfectly fucking happy to meet the 'love of her life', okay?"

Sure, Dec. Fine by me. You and I can fuck until you hook me up with someone better.

Right. Why the fuck not?

I don't even know why it pissed me off to hear it. That's what I want. It's exactly what I signed up to do.

It's not like this ends with the both of us walking off into the sunset. I'm the furthest fucking thing from a match for Bree. I'm nobody's top choice. I'm the reject—the one everybody leaves behind. I've made my peace with that.

Bree Logan has been kind enough to throw me some charity in her spare time, but we all know I am not the person a girl like that ends up with. If I did let myself feel something for her, she'd absolutely destroy me and I'd fucking deserve it for putting myself in that kind of position in the first place.

"If only there were another option," he says in a slow, sarcastic drawl.

"It doesn't really matter, does it? We still don't even know the stakes. Until we know what The Fates have predicted for her, we're blind here."

"Well I have some good news on that, actually. The Cupid on her case, Alvarez, I can get you that meetup you asked for. A friend of a friend knows where he'll be on Friday. Hopefully you can get some info out of him."

"Just me? You're not babysitting this time?" I ask with a smirk. He always insists on accompanying me when meeting new people because of my 'unfriendly attitude', so it's a surprise he doesn't see the need to tag along.

"Would if I could. But I'm burnt. He'd recognize me after he spotted me on that date with Bree."

My jaw ticks at the memory.

"And you think he won't recognize me?"

"I doubt it. If he saw you, we would've heard about it through the grapevine. With the hair and the all-black hands, you're not exactly hard to ID." He shrugs. "Do you think he picked your voice up on the listening devices?"

"No; pretty sure they were newly installed when I found them. Speaking of which, I'm gonna need you to hook them up to some kind of playback of ambient apartment noises, so he doesn't realize we've removed them."

"Where were they?"

"Two in the living room—remote and a plug. One more in the bedroom phone charger."

"Okay. Will do. You think you're gonna be able to handle this one without me?"

"Contrary to what you may think, I am an adult who can take care of myself, Eli."