Falling For The Protagonist

Chapter One

One

The back corner of the bar known as Bonne Nuit echoed with the jovial, slightly manic titters and squeals that could only belong to a group of women who were two hours into a bachelorette party.

Emmy Miura kept smiling as the feminine chaos surrounded her and she tried to tamp down the deep, heartfelt longing she felt for her comfy pants.

They were at home all alone, probably missing her.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d left them for so long on a Saturday night.

Trying not to sulk, she shifted until the strapless cocktail dress she’d bought for the occasion—at her sister’s subtle insistence—settled a little more comfortably around her.

“Deep breaths,” her best friend of a million years, Sarah, murmured to her.

“I am a bad person for wanting to leave.”

“You are a good sister for staying.”

That was one way to look at it, and Emmy did enjoy seeing May’s happiness, which was flowing more freely than the happy hour specials.

Her sister, adorned with a sparkling headband coated in curlicues of metallic ribbon, was leaning over to listen to one of her friends.

Whatever the friend said lit up May’s face.

“Yes!” she cried. “Yes, absolutely. I have to tell the story. I don’t even care if some of you already heard it a million times. Emmy, cover your ears.”

Emmy immediately went on alert. “Why?”

“Because I’m going to tell—shh, seriously, guys, this is good—I’m going to tell the story of how me and Victor met. Emmy hates this because she is a cynic and a nonbeliever, but I’m telling it anyway because it is my party!”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“How did they meet?” Sarah asked.

“She went to a sex psychic,” Emmy muttered under her breath.

“Sorry. Run that by me one more time?”

Emmy gestured to her sister, indicating Sarah should listen to May, and repeated, “She went to a sex psychic.”

As May launched into the story, Emmy clearly recalled her own version of events as if they had unfolded only yesterday.

In reality, it had been months ago. Not enough months, Emmy thought, to justify the rock on her sister’s finger.

But Emmy’s opinion didn’t matter. May was head-over-heels, or so she said, and had expressed zero doubts about her future with Victor.

“It all started with the worst date of my life,” May recited, hamming it up for her intoxicated audience.

“Seriously, I matched with this guy, and he was cute, but I should’ve turned him down when his profile said one of his hobbies was ‘Observing.’ What even is that?

Anyway, he was so proud of himself for choosing a casual setting for our first date so there would be no pressure.

I know this because he told me that was why he had chosen Bunkers for our date on what happened to be half-price wing night.

He claimed he wasn’t aware of this, but he ordered two baskets of wings, so the jury’s out. ”

Emmy knew the details of this date as if she’d been there.

She’d received an infuriated and defeated text that very night detailing the colossal failure.

It had hurt Emmy’s heart because her sister had been convinced true love was right around the corner, but it kept evading her.

Still, May’s relentless optimism kept her going out on first date after first date.

Then, a few days later, a different text pinged its way onto Emmy’s phone. It was one of her sister’s signature superlatives, and it promised to be an interesting one.

Just had the most amazing experience of my life!!! Meet me at Coffee Fix on ur lunch break! I’ve got pictures!!!!!

A little uncertain of what pictures May could have to show her—and curious why said pictures couldn’t be texted or emailed—Emmy had joined May at their favorite coffee shop as requested.

May waved her over to a table for two by the window.

She was sipping from a steaming mug and tapping away on her phone.

A second mug waited for Emmy, and she gratefully took a sip of the triple shot latte after she sat down.

“One second… There! My dating profiles are gone,” May announced proudly, putting her phone down on the table.

“Profiles plural? How many did you have?”

“Three. But they’re gone now because I just had a session with a sex psychic.”

Emmy had always disparaged moments in books and movies when, after receiving a shocking bit of news, a character did a spit take. It felt unrealistic to her. But she nearly had to eat her words as coffee poured back out of her mouth and into the mug mid-sip.

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t go all Emmy on me. Just hear me out.

I found this little boutique in the Cities that sells romance novels and sex toys and stuff.

I was feeling down after that last date, so I went inside to see if I could find something to cheer myself up.

Turns out, the place was brand new which is why I’d never seen it before.

Just opened a couple weeks ago. The owner—Lucy—is a sex psychic.

She had her own deck of sex Tarot cards that she illustrated herself. ”

May picked up her phone again, this time to open her photos, and showed Emmy a picture of a Tarot spread. Emmy felt her eyebrows climb all the way up into her hairline.

“That is… a lot of penises.”

“Vaginas, too,” May added cheerily. “And boobs.”

“Okay…”

“So anyway, she said she’d do a reading based on what I was looking for. You know, one-night stand, casual relationship, that sort of thing. I told her I wanted the real thing. I was looking for Love with a capital L.”

“Oh God, May. How much did she charge you?” Emmy demanded.

“Not a penny, Ms. Cynic. She said the reading was free since it was for true love, except I got the idea it would have been free anyway, but I was welcome to purchase something from the retail side of the shop. I did. Got myself two adorable vibrators.”

“What do you need two for?”

“They’re different colors.”

“Ah, of course.”

“So anyway,” May continued, “she does this reading for me, and get this… she tells me how I’m gonna meet the guy, what he’s gonna be like. Hold on, I took notes.”

“You took notes about your sex Tarot reading from the sex psychic.”

“I told you not to go Emmy on me!” May shot back without taking her eyes off her phone.

Emmy rolled her eyes and waited. From the sound of things, her sister had been taken in by a smooth-talking saleswoman, but at least the cost hadn’t been too high.

As long as May was being truthful about not having to pay for the reading—and as long as she hadn’t given the sex psychic her social security number in order to solidify the psychic vibrations or whatever—the consequences weren’t too dire.

The financial consequences, anyway. More worrying to Emmy at that moment were the emotional consequences when said mystery man failed to make his portended appearance.

But they’d burn that bridge when they got to it.

“Okay, here it is. So first she did a three-card reading for me. Past, present, and future. Basically she said I was pushing too hard instead of sitting back a little and letting fate take its course.” She swiped through the pictures on her phone.

The more excited she got, the more she mixed Japanese in with her English.

May had always been more inclined to slip into Japanese than Emmy.

“Look! Look right here. I drew—she had me draw the cards, not her—I drew the Five of Testicles. She said that meant in the past I was too easily taken in by flattery and false promises, which is like every date I’ve ever had, ne?

So then I got Edging, reversed, which I think means upside down?

Anyway, she said that means it’s time to change my approach, and then, and then, I drew The Lovers!

Mite! Kawaī desune?” Another picture, this one of two people as entwined as it was possible for two people to be.

They covered each other in such a way that it was impossible to determine gender, which Emmy admitted to herself was a nice touch.

She wasn’t sure she’d go so far as to call it cute, as May had.

“It’s the one card she didn’t reinvent, Emmy.

She said nothing needed to be changed or updated about lovers meeting, you know?

And she said it meant that I was going to find true love! ”

“May… this is all very… interesting.” At her sister’s snort, Emmy decided to shoot straight. “I think this is bullshit.”

“I know you do, sweets. But I swear, it was unreal. We did way more than this. She told me things that she should not have known, not even if she’d somehow anticipated I was coming and stalked me on social media.

Even better, she got it. She told me I wasn’t wrong to look for love, and the stigma against online dating and dating apps was outdated…

no pun intended. But she also said I should stop trying to force my happily ever after.

And look at this picture.” She tilted her phone screen, swiped again.

“The guy I’m going to meet. She told me to draw three cards, and this is what I got.

I forget what they were all called, except this one I think was the Ten of Dildos, but I took notes on what she said.

He’s going to be confident, a problem-solver, but not arrogant.

Good at making deals, sharp, and intelligent.

She said that meant he’d likely have a job where he had to wear a suit to work and use his intellect, something to do with the law or media.

That was her guess, anyway. And then he’s going to be intensely devoted, sometimes um…

chotto mate…” She paused to scroll down and read through her notes.

“Sometimes to the point of stubbornness, but he will also have a playful side.”

“Sounds like your ideal man.”

“Yes! I’m so excited to meet him.”

“I don’t suppose the sex psychic told you where to find him,” Emmy said, dryly.

“She told me I’d meet him when our jobs brought us together.”