Chapter 21
Felicity
What’s that saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
That’s the second time I’ve let love make a fool of me. Never again.
Hot tears roll down my face as I book it back to the suite. Forget the conference. Forget the fun day Cupid was supposedly planning for us. I’m packing my stuff up and getting out of here—on a plane, thank you very much—and washing my hands of this whole situation.
I accomplished what I set out to do anyway.
I say a tiny, silent prayer of thanks that Cupid’s plan didn’t derail this entire trip.
I still nailed my presentation, and I made valuable contacts for the future of my app.
Without Cupid on the sidelines, I probably would have gotten even more networking done, met more potential investors.
But I’ll just consider that a lesson learned.
Don’t let men distract you from your true purpose. No matter how handsome or funny they are, or how sweet and caring they seem, or how comfortable they make you feel.
They will always disappoint you in the end.
Besides, now that I’ve won our bet, I can keep working on my anti-dating app in peace—and with renewed vigor. This was just the perfect reminder of what’s at stake, of what I’m fighting for.
And all it cost me was one broken heart.
I let my anger guide me to the hotel room and direct my body to shove clothing and toiletries into my luggage.
The same anger helps me purchase a last-minute plane ticket—the first possible flight out of here—and order a taxi to the airport.
It pushes me through the check-in line, security, and to the gate, where I sit down and expect to stew in my anger until it’s time to board.
But at the gate, when I’m all alone with no immediate task to handle, nothing to distract me, my brain is quick to move past the anger and straight to sadness.
It’s ridiculous, I tell myself, to be sad about a guy I barely knew.
Who was, when you really think about it, just another person I had a business arrangement with, however strange that arrangement was.
Who lied to me and made me believe I’d been struck with one of love’s arrows, encouraging these…
these delusions running through my head.
I think about the placebo effect, which we learned about in school years ago. Maybe that’s what happened to me. I thought I was falling in love because of the arrow, so I fell in love.
Wait—love?
I close my eyes and try to think. Yes, I thought I was under the influence of Cupid’s arrow, so I let my guard down. I opened up with him, I laughed with him. I trusted him. But did I really fall in love? In two days?
My brain is too scrambled to figure it out, but it seems important somehow—like a footnote that brings clarity to something you don’t quite understand.
I don’t know. I just don’t know.
I need my best friend.
It’s part of our personal girl code that Janae and I share everything about our lives.
She probably knows more about me than I know about myself.
But before I left for Vegas, I only sent Janae a very vague text: Driving to Vegas.
Last-minute invitation to big conference, can’t miss.
If you haven’t heard from me in three days, give this license plate number to the police.
I included a picture of the car and the license plate.
I didn’t mention the man who would be going with me because Cupid would have been too difficult to explain via text.
But my flight doesn’t board for another hour, and I’ve got time on my hands and the vestiges of feminine rage.
So I hunker down and dictate the entire story—beginning to end—in voice notes.
Janae won’t be able to respond to them until after she gets off work, I know that. By then, I’ll be up in the air without service. But at least I got some things off my chest. I feel lighter for having shared this with her. Who needs a man when you have a best friend and voice notes?
The next few hours go by in a blur. From the gate to the plane, from the plane to a different gate in a new airport. From the airport to a cab to my apartment. I spend the time in a daze, replaying pieces of the last two days in my head like a sizzle reel.
Cupid telling some corny joke, and the fuzzy feeling in my chest as I laughed along with him. The slightly lopsided smile and the way his hair flopped to the side when he ran his hands through it. Those stupid fake cigarettes that I found so charming, and still do.
And then there are the memories that came unbidden as I dozed off on the plane. The twin blazes in his eyes as he watched me unravel beneath him. The soft gasp when I kissed him the first time. The press of his body against mine as he thrust inside me, so slow, like he wanted to savor the moment.
When I finally make it to my apartment, Janae is already sitting on the couch with a bottle of wine and pizza at the ready. I will never regret giving my best friend a key to my apartment.
She pops up from the couch and crushes me into a hug. “Poor thing,” she says, pushing me down onto a mountain of cushions. “I got your messages. Didn’t understand half of what you were telling me, but I knew it was bad enough to require carbs and alcohol.”
I look at her through watery eyes and give a shaky smile. “I love you.” My hand reaches out and gives one of hers a squeeze.
“I love you, too, Fee.” She pops the cork and pours me a glass, right to the rim. Then she hands me a slice of pizza and sits down next to me.
“Now spill,” she demands. “Starting with who the hell this Cupid guy is, and if I need to hire a hit on him.”
I laugh around the bite I’m chewing and take a big guzzle of my wine. “Okay,” I say. “Buckle up, buttercup, because this is about to get weird.”
When I’ve finished recounting the details of my last forty-eight-plus hours, Janae is staring at me with wide eyes and an empty wine glass.
“So he was telling the slot machine that he lied to you, and then he called you unlovable? To your face?”
“That about sums it up,” I say, upturning my glass to get the last drops of wine.
“And you didn’t deck him out?”
“Sadly, no. I ran away crying.”
Janae blinks, taking in this final detail. After a moment processing, she reaches for another slice. “I have two questions for you, Fee. And I want you to answer them honestly.”
“Shoot.”
“Did Cupid…” She hesitates. “Did he have wings?”
This makes me laugh so hard I nearly fall off the couch. Janae joins in, but looks slightly bewildered—either by the lingering shock that Cupid is real, or by my reaction, or both.
When I can breathe again, I tell her, “I don’t know, actually. He was kind of touchy about the wing question.”
“Hmm. Interesting.”
“Second question?”
Janae looks me in the eye and asks, “Well, do you?” My head cocks to the side. “Love him, I mean.”
I suck in air, looking down at my lap.
“How could someone fall in love in, like, two days?” I ask. “It’s crazy.” It’s meant to be a rhetorical question, but Janae calls my bluff.
“I don’t know, babe,” Janae says. “You tell me.”
My chest tightens.
“I do,” I say. “Or, I did. Or…I don’t know.” Janae threads her fingers through mine and squeezes. “But it was a lie, don’t you see? He tricked me.”
She nods. “That was not his finest hour, I’ll give you that.”
“But…?” I prompt, hearing the implication of a but in the way she said it.
“Remember you love me, Fee. And I love you.” Janae repositions herself on the couch, tucking her long legs beneath her, and faces me head-on. “He’s not…entirely wrong.”
“WHAT?!”
“Hear me out! Look, you’re not unlovable at all. In fact, you’re extremely lovable. I love you to bits.”
I wave my hand in a circle, motioning for her to get on with it.
“But you have made yourself seem unlovable since Bryan.”
I huff, preparing my rebuttal, but she continues.
“When Bryan left, you decided that was it for you—that you were done with looking for love. You were in your twenties, Fee. And he was an ass.”
“But—”
“No buts! He was a certified grade-A prime turd of a man. He didn’t deserve a tenth of what you offered him, and he threw it away, anyway. That wasn’t love. That was manipulation and control.”
I let my body sink into the couch cushions and throw my arms over my face.
“And you’re still letting him control you. Years later. Every time you close yourself off to someone new, he wins.”
Tears prickle behind my eyelids. I keep them shut, adding more pressure with my arms. It hurts to hear Janae say these things, even though a part of me knows that she’s right.
“Maybe I’m not meant for romantic love,” I say. “Some people are aromantic, you know.”
“Yes, of course,” she replies. “But you’re not, Fee. I knew you before Bryan, and in the early stages of your relationship. You were gaga over him. You loved the idea of being in love.”
I grab a decorative pillow and scream into it. Janae rubs comforting circles on my back.
“What about my app, J? I’m building my future on not believing in this romantic love…stuff.”
She shoves my shoulder. “You’re kidding, right? Fee, you’re brilliant. You’ll come up with another idea—a better one—and you’ll build that. Between you and me, I don’t think the anti-dating app’s got legs.”
“Yeah,” I say. “You made that obvious from day one.”
“Oh, so you did notice,” she says with a laugh.
“Do you think he was lying about the fall of humanity thing? That if my app succeeded, it would destroy civilization as we know it?”
Janae considers this seriously, which is impressive since it’s such a ludicrous question. “Hard to say,” she answers slowly. “But if anyone were capable of creating an app that could destroy civilization, it would be you.”
“Not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult.”
“Good.”
I pull her into a big hug and hold us there for an almost uncomfortably long time, her face squished against my boobs. Eventually, she smacks my arm like a wrestler trying to tap out of a fight. “Can’t…breathe…” she says in a raspy voice, and I laugh before letting go.
“Would you mind—?”
“Duh, of course I’ll stay the night.” She pulls out a stack of DVD cases from her bag. “I even brought all the classics.”
We watch old teen movies until our eyes cannot stay open anymore, and we fall asleep curled up on opposite ends of the couch.
When I hear music, at first I don’t think anything of it, assuming it’s part of a movie menu screen playing a song on repeat.
But then Janae blinks her eyes open in the mostly dark room and asks where the hell that music is coming from.
We look around the apartment for the source for a minute or two before I realize it’s coming from outside.
We peek out of the blinds and, there on the curb, leaning against a giant boat of a car, is Cupid.
“Ooh!” Janae exclaims. “He’s cute.”
“He’s committing a noise violation,” I say, but I can’t stop a small smile from forming at the sight of him.
“Then you better go down there and stop him,” says Janae, shoving me toward the door.