Cupid’s Match

I sit in the back of the Aston Martin, my hands clasped tightly in my lap. Cal is tense in the front seat, his eyes fixed on the rolling landscape outside of the car.

I feel cold all over. James and Charlie. My James. And my Charlie.

My mind can’t process it. I think of all the times we hung out together. I think of the looks they shared, and how Charlie always teased me about my boring relationship. I recall the way James smelled like peanut butter—Charlie’s favorite milk shake—when I dropped in on him at Romeo’s.

Was there always something there? How could they do this to me?

“What’s up with you two?” asks Cupid, breaking the silence. “Did I miss something? This road trip is turning out to be as fun as a tour of the British quilt museum.”

I stay silent—defiant—not wanting to say it out loud. Not in front of Cal, who brought Crystal and the Matchmakers into my life; and not in front of Cupid, the guy who made me doubt my relationship with James in the first place.

“And in case you’re wondering, it’s not fun. Believe me. I’ve been. Twice.”

“It was the Capax, Lila,” Cal mutters, still staring out of the window.

Cupid looks at his brother, then me. “Ah—the boyfriend got hit by an arrow, I take it. Although, you know, they only work when the person has feelings for—”

Cal shoots him a withering look, and thankfully, Cupid shuts up. He’s right, though. That’s what Cal said, back in the school gym. There has to be feeling there in the first place for it to work.

I feel numb. For a moment the only noise is the soothing sound of the purring engine. I lean back, feeling the cool leather against my skin. I try to lose myself in the rolling landscape, but the image of James kissing Charlie is burned into my mind. I think of what Crystal said in the bedroom about an assignment, and I remember what Cal said to me in the Matchmaking Service’s office.

Your boyfriend is not your match. His match is . . .

I can finish the sentence now. Charlie.

Cupid looks at me in the rearview mirror. “If it makes you feel any better, you and your boyfriend were never meant to be. You’re my Match, not his.” In the passing light of the streetlamps, his eyes waver between different shades of blue.

“No, it doesn’t make me feel any better,” I say, holding his gaze. “James was my boyfriend. I cared about him. You are someone I met five days ago, and you’ve been nothing but trouble. I don’t care what some statistical algorithm said. You are not my match.”

His gaze flicks back to the road. “He was nothing but a placeholder, Lila. I saw it in your eyes when we first met. You don’t love the boy—why else would you have come to meet me on the balcony?”

Rage ignites in the pit of my stomach. “Don’t presume you know anything about me.”

There is a heavy silence and I notice his jaw tense. I tear my gaze away to look out of the window, leaning my head against the cool glass and trying to force my anger to steady.

“Where are we going anyway?” I ask after a while, noticing we’re taking the exit out of Forever Falls. “What was on that piece of paper?”

Cupid reaches into his pocket and pulls out the folded message. He gives it to Cal, one hand still on the steering wheel.

“We should go to the Matchmaking Service,” Cal says as he skims the letter. “They would protect Lila.”

Cupid shakes his head. “No. I don’t trust them. There are too many people who don’t want the match to be made—it would be easy for them to get rid of little miss cheerful back there.” He gestures to me in the backseat. “We’re going to see an old friend of mine,” he says. “She should be able to provide us with some protection and some answers.”

Cal passes the letter over his shoulder to me. “You don’t mean . . . ?”

Cupid nods solemnly.

As I read the letter, a sense of dread grows inside of me. For a moment, I can only sit there staring at the paper before me. Terminate said Match? Repercussions? Locate the Finis? The Arrows?

“What does it mean they’re going to terminate me?” I ask finally. “Like . . . kill me?!”

“Probably,” says Cupid. “Or if you’re lucky, you might get shot with a black arrow—it’ll turn you into one of us.”

“And this is all because you’re here?”

Cupid shrugs. “Kinda.”

“Well, can’t you just . . . leave?”

The corner of his lip tugs upward. “Afraid it’s not that simple.”

“You’re not going to take me to the fountain, are you?”

“Well, it would be simpler if we did . . .”

“No,” says Cal.

Cupid laughs. “I was just kidding, Brother. You really think I’d turn in my Match?”

He looks over his shoulder, catching my eye. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Lila. You’re safe for now . . .”

Unsurprisingly, I don’t feel reassured.

“I would have thought you would be keen to turn her in, Brother,” Cupid says, casting his brother a sideways glance. “You’re the one flying the banner for Team No Match for Cupid. Didn’t you come to Forever Falls specifically to stop us from getting together?”

“We wouldn’t have got together anyway,” I say, although I don’t know if that is true. I think of my stomach fluttering when his fingers brushed against mine, and the way his eyes seem to reel me in. And if James was always going to get together with Charlie . . .

I force both Cupid and James out of my head, taking note of our surroundings. After a while, buildings and bright lights start to pop up around us as we drive through L.A. I look back at the letter.

“Who are the Arrows?”

Cal gives a disgusted huff. “They’re a group of cupids, very hard core, very devoted to the old ways. They mostly come from the European branches. Some of their methods are a bit more . . .

extreme.”

“But why do they want to kill me?”

“Because a cupid cannot be matched.”

All this time Cal’s been insisting that we shouldn’t be matched because Cupid’s dangerous, but I remember the writing below the statue in the Matchmaking Service. No cupid should ever be matched. I wonder if that is a rule from the old days. Does he agree with the Arrows? Does he think I should be terminated?

Cupid smiles, revealing a gentleness I haven’t seen before. “You’ll be fine. If they can’t get you, then they’ll just go for me instead,” he says, catching my eyes in the mirror. “And we won’t let them get you.”

I look back at the letter. “What’s the Finis? I think I’ve heard that word before.”

“No, you haven’t,” says Cal abruptly.

Cupid’s face darkens—or maybe that’s just the shadows. “The Finis is the last arrow.”

“What does that mean?”

Cal turns around. “It was an arrow forged thousands of years ago. Other cupids can be killed by the black arrows, but we—my brother and I—are the original cupids. Finis means final—that arrow is the only one that can kill us. It looks like the Arrows intend to put an end to Cupid once and for all if he doesn’t turn you over.”

He shoots a sideways glance at his brother, and I wonder whether he would be pleased if Cupid was gone for good.

“It’s been lost for centuries, though,” says Cupid. “Supposedly.”

Suddenly he pulls to a halt on the side of a busy boulevard. Palm trees loom over the road, and a number of noisy clubs line the sidewalks. In the distance I can see the lights from Santa Monica Pier. Cupid clasps his hands together and stretches, catlike, his forearms skimming the roof of the car. Then he turns to me and grins.

“We’re here.”