Chapter 5 Felicity
Felicity
I’m staring, slack-jawed, at a man dressed like an Elvis Presley impersonator who claims he’s Cupid—the real Cupid—entirely speechless. I don’t think I’ve said a word for at least five minutes, and he looks concerned.
“Felicity,” Cupid snaps his fingers an inch from my face. “Anyone home in there?”
I shake my head, coming back to the present.
What strikes me most in this moment is how damn sincere Cupid looks.
Not that I have much experience with crazy stalkers or supernatural entities, but I don’t think he’s lying.
I’m not a woo-woo, spiritual, mystical type of woman.
I’m an engineer at heart. I believe in frameworks and systems, analytic reasoning—not vibes and auras, or whatever.
That means it goes against my programming to accept that the flesh-and-blood person in front of me could be a literal deity from mythology.
But…well. I kind of believe him. So maybe we’re both off our rockers here. Still, as a woman of science, I need evidence.
“If you are really Cupid,” I say, uncrossing my arms, “show me your wings.”
“Okay, show me your boobs,” he counters.
I splutter. “What?!”
“Oh, was that rude?” Cupid narrows his eyes at me. “I thought we were just asking to see each other’s private parts.”
Fair enough. “Sorry,” I reply, properly chastened. “I’ve never met a—” my brain hitches on the next word, but Cupid cuts in graciously.
“God.”
“Sure.” I shudder. “I’ve never met a god before.” Deep breath in, long breath out. Sitting back in my chair, I hug myself as I take in this new information.
Cupid is very attractive, sure. He’s got the quirky, off-beat charisma of that one straight guy in theater club who likes West Side Story a little too much.
Average height, good hair, great smile, nice hands.
Definitely not how I would have pictured a mythical god.
Aren’t they supposed to be buff and intimidating, with long flowing beards?
This god is the opposite of intimidating. He’s just…Cupid.
But more than that, he’s exactly the man I remember meeting last night. The one who caught me off guard, who made me laugh; who I almost kissed before I came to my senses, because I don’t kiss strangers from bars two hours after meeting them. Because I’m practical. Sensible.
That face is the same handsome face. The smile is the same crooked slash. Same jacket, same tight jeans—same guy I thought about as I…
I clear my throat. Not the time to follow that train of thought.
“Okay, go over the message with me one more time—Cupid?” I meant it as a command, but it came out as a question.
So he repeats what he just told me minutes before, and, yep. It’s just as crazy the second time around.
“So you’re telling me,” I say slowly. “That the Fates—all-knowing beings and, to quote you verbatim, ‘total weirdo triplets’—sent you to find me and convince me to stop developing my app.” He nods along as I repeat the information back to him, as if any of this makes sense.
I continue: “Because if I don’t stop, and actually do release my app, it will become so hugely popular and successful—”
Another nod, accompanied by a thumbs up. “That it will make dating for love completely obsolete. Which is a bad thing, because—again, I’m quoting you—it will cause society as we know it to crumble?”
Cupid tilts his head back and forth, face pulled into a thoughtful frown. “More or less,” he concludes. “Though it’s not so much a direct causation…but that’s just getting into semantics.”
I stare at him.
“But that’s…” I start, reaching for what I’m trying to say.
“Terrible?”
“Impossible!” I hop up from my chair and start pacing the length of the room.
“You’re saying that my tiny software program—a smartphone app, mind you—is going to usher in the downfall of civilization.”
“Whoa, there,” Cupid stands up and blocks my path. “You’re looking a little peaky.” He places a hand on my shoulder and a warm palm against my forehead before pulling it away with a scrunch of his nose. “Oh. Sweaty.”
He withers under my glare.
“Excuse me for having a human reaction to this. It’s a lot to process, okay?” I swipe away his hand and wipe at my brow. I expend more mental energy than I’d prefer trying to ignore the comfort of his touch. I push past him. My wobbly legs find stability as I rest against the edge of my desk.
Cupid’s hand hovers in the air for a second or two, still cupping the air where I was standing. He drops it and shoves his hands into his jacket pockets.
“Look,” he says. “I’m not trying to ruin your life here.
And I’m not stalking you—meeting you last night was just a…
happy accident. But your work is messing up my whole thing, you know?
” He spreads his arms with hands still in his pockets in an exaggerated shrug.
“Love, passion, desire, romance…those are my domain. And pretty much the opposite of what your dating app stands for.”
I scoff, but Cupid continues as if he didn’t hear me, running a finger over the sickly plant I keep on my desk, desperately trying to stay alive despite the office’s lack of sunlight.
“Love is the foundation of humanity, the crackling undercurrent of existence, the reason for being,” he says, one hand now held aloft—holding an invisible skull, I presume.
I can’t help but snort at this. Not just at his monologue, but the entire premise behind it. Sounds like total nonsense to me.
His eyes snap to mine. “Is something funny?”
I shrug a shoulder. “Just seems a bit…dramatic.” My hand circles glibly in front of me. “All of this prediction of doom and gloom over something as small as…love. Maybe you should tell your Fates to check their crystal ball, or whatever, again.”
Cupid stills at this. Turns to face me, eyes searching for I don’t know what.
“Oh,” he says. His eyes are suddenly cold—impenetrable, unreadable pools as he studies me. “I see.”
I’m the one who breaks the tense silence. “See what?”
Cupid takes a small step toward me. “You’ve never felt it,” he says.
I open my mouth to respond, but he cuts me off, stepping closer.
“You’ve never had the bone-deep need to be with someone. To breathe the same air as them.” His voice grows husky as he inches toward where I’m leaning against my desk. “The insatiable craving to know someone’s thoughts, their body, as intimately as you know your own.”
I’m frozen, a deer in headlights. Stunned by Cupid’s sudden change in demeanor, from charming and dorky to this intense person before me. My eyes track his every movement, like prey in the presence of a mountain lion.
Cupid’s eyes flick up and down my figure, and I feel a shiver at the base of my spine. He’s only a few inches away now, the space between us charged with a heady heat.
“I’m guessing that you, Felicity,” he says as he places a hand on either side of me, his closeness forcing me to hold my body rigid, “don’t know what it feels like to be on fire from the inside.” The edge of the desk is digging into my thighs, and I welcome the sting. “To burn for someone.”
My dry throat clicks when I gulp. Because…is he right?
I’ve dated before. I’ve said I love you. I’ve given up parts of myself I never thought I would compromise for another person. But did I ever feel—like that?
Then the analytical side of me kicks in.
Those were pretty words, sure, but what does it really prove?
That Cupid and I have different opinions about love—that’s all.
Not that I don’t understand love. Oh, I understand love, because I understand the consequences.
The sacrifices. The inconveniences. Besides, you don’t have to experience something to opt out of it.
I’ve never done heroin, for instance, and no one judges me for that.
And so my willpower comes rushing back, filling me with the sense of self-righteousness that has fueled my late nights and early mornings, my weekends of work, spent developing my app.
My chin juts out in defiance. “So what?” I ask, looking everywhere but directly at him.
He grasps my chin and holds my face, forcing me to make eye contact. Then he leans in like he’s going to kiss me…but turns my head to the side at the last second and puts his lips to my ear.
“What about a good fuck? Not even that?”
I suck in a breath as Cupid’s hand slips from my chin to my neck, resting there for a split second before letting go.
“No,” he murmurs. “No, I can’t imagine you have.” Then he backs away. Sits in the chair he previously occupied and regards me curiously. Gone is the lighthearted, charming stranger from last night. I’m getting my first peek behind the curtain at Cupid, the god.
My face flames with humiliation and something deeper, more reckless. A flicker of anger burns at the edge of my consciousness—mad at this interloper for disrupting my plans. For calling me out. He has no right.
Quiet stretches between us as Cupid continues to study me.
“How about this,” he leans forward, elbows resting on his knees, clasped hands tucked under his chin. “I can change your mind.”
“About what?”
“About love,” Cupid replies. “About dating. About your app. I can show you what it’s like to feel—to really feel—those things you see in the movies and read about in romance novels.
” He studies his nail beds. “Love. True love. Not whatever—” he waves his hand limply, “you’ve been dealing with all these years. ”
I squint. “Oh yeah? How?”
“One of these.” Cupid holds a fist out, then turns it over, fingers unfurling. A single arrow materializes in the flat of his palm.
“My arrows can make you feel passion,” he says, lifting the arrow with delicate fingers, twisting it slowly in the space between us. “Desire. Attraction. Show you what it means to want someone, without your usual inhibitions—for seventy-two hours.”
I side-eye him. “Seventy-two hours? That’s all you think it’ll take to change my entire philosophy on love?”
Please, like that could work.
Cupid lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “Not a guarantee. I’m a god, not a wizard.
” He raises the arrow parallel to his face, examining the golden tip.
“And this isn’t a love potion. But it will give you seventy-two hours to see what love could be when it checks all the boxes…
not just the ones you look for in your little—” he gestures toward me, “thing.”
“It’s an app,” I clarify. But my mind is reeling; this is an interesting proposition.
Something in my gut tells me that would be a terrible idea, but it doesn’t stop me from asking the question anyway.
“So you shoot me with an arrow, it makes me feel—all those things for three days. But who would I feel those things for?” I laugh uncomfortably as the next words leave my mouth. “Surely not you?”
“In this case, yes. Me.”
My eyebrows shoot to the middle of my forehead.
“Unless you have someone in particular you’d like me to—”
“No,” I cut in. “No.” My bangs flutter as I exhale, considering. “I just don’t understand how something could suddenly make me love you when I kind of hate you right now.”
Cupid chuckles warmly. “Hate works well, actually,” he says. “Love and hate are two sides of the same coin. If you can hate me, you can love me. I’d bet my life on it.”
“Would you bet the future of humanity on it?” I ask, jokingly.
“Absolutely,” he says, not missing a beat. “What do you say, Love—you in?”
I have to admit I’m intrigued. Not because I believe it will actually change my mind. I mean, come on—Cupid’s just being cocky and self-absorbed. He thinks my world should revolve around love because his world revolves around love.
But…he is offering me a fresh perspective. New data points. Another way to understand what I’m up against and get ideas to improve my app.
All that stuff about a dating app ushering in the fall of civilization?
He could be lying about that, and I’ll never know because I’ll surely be dead.
Not my problem! But if he’s right that there’s something I’ve been missing about love all these years…
yeah, I think I’d like to know so I can avoid it.
Let’s call it an experiment. With a caveat.
“I’ll do it,” I say. “But on one condition.”
He motions for me to continue.
“If I do this…wager, I guess…for the seventy-two hours, and I don’t change my mind about love, you’ll leave me alone. Let me do my work in peace.”
“But—”
“No buts. That’s my offer.”
Cupid sits back, considering. “I’m a god, you know,” he says.
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, you may have mentioned it.”
“So in theory, I can do whatever I want.” His fingers steeple under his chin in thought. “But I’m also a gambling man.” A grin spreads slowly across his face as he looks me up and down. “And I like the stakes.”
“Okay, well…good.” I close my eyes and lift my arms out to my side, head lifted so my face points to the ceiling, and wait.
“Um,” Cupid clears his throat. “What are you doing?”
Eyes still squeezed shut, I reply, “Waiting for you to shoot me.”
“Oh, uh…now?” Cupid hesitates.
I open one eye. “What are you waiting for, lover boy?” He looks shifty, and I don’t like it. Didn’t I just agree to his ridiculous idea?
“Give me a minute.” And just like that, he’s vanished into thin air.
My head whips around to every corner of the room as I search for him. “Cupid?” I hiss. “Where the hell did you go?” I would almost believe I’d made him up, except for one single white feather sitting in the spot where Cupid stood not a minute earlier.
Oh, isn’t this just classic. Men—they promise you one thing and then just fuck off into thin air.