He wipes his massive nostril with the sleeve of his shirt and looks at me with a hint of sass as he flicks back his long pink hair over his shoulder. “You’re number thirty?”
“Yes, sir,” I tell him.
“Mm-hmm.” He glances down at the paper on his desk and tsks. “Ooh, girl. You are in some trouble,” he says, his tone sounding like he sucked on some helium.
My invisible little heart plummets. “Trouble?”
He looks back up at me like he’s dying to let me in on the secret, but it’s just too juicy to actually tell me. He wags his brows with an emphatic nod. “Mm-hmm. Room number two. I’d skedaddle if I were you.”
Well, fuck. This doesn’t sound good.
“Okay, thanks.”
“Mm-hmm. Chin up, girl. Keep a power pose while you’re in there. Confidence can do wonders for your posture.”
Gnome dude might be the craziest or the wisest person I’ve ever met. I’m not sure which.
With a nod, I fly past his window and head to the doors that lead to the cupid offices. Number two is right there, so I don’t have to go far. I kind of wish I had to go farther just so I could try to gain some composure, because I’m panicking a bit.
“Power pose, power pose, power pose,” I repeat to myself outside the door as I force myself to stand up straight with my head high. There are little sparkly hearts all over the plaque surrounding the number on the door, and I count them out loud just to calm my nerves.
Before I can finish grounding my worries, the door swings open, and I come face-to-face with the supervisor.
He’s gorgeous and very notably solid. Tanned skin, thick pink hair, lush lips, and black eyebrows that set off his ridiculously long and curly lashes. The dude is just so damned beautiful, it’s ridiculous.
When he turns, I see that his red wings are tucked against his back, hiding his ass from view, which is unfortunate, because I’m sure it’s a fabulous ass.
He swoops his arm to the side like he’s in a hurry. “Well, come the fook in, yeah?” he says in a heavy accent.
He holds the door open for me, and I rush inside, flying through the massive office space. Unlike the other cupid offices I’ve been in, this one is...well, confusing.
It looks like a mash-up of about a hundred different styles and earthly decades shoved into one space. There’s an art deco painting hanging crooked on the wall, a bench made out of a slab of rock that looks like it was from the Stone Age, a Victorian era lounge, puke green shag carpet rug, a pelican fountain right smack in the middle of the floor, bookcases filled with old porn magazines, and a bench press that has a row of underwear hanging off the rods rather than weights. And that’s just what I can pick out at first glance.
I head to what I assume is his desk—a circular plastic surface that has a beanbag chair on one side and a throne on the other. To be honest, I’m not sure which one I’m expected to hover over.
“Right, let’s do this then.” He walks around the white table and sits in… Yep, the bean bag chair.
I hover over the ostentatious throne as best I can, trying not to let my limbs pass through the gold trim.
“You know why you’re here?”
I fidget slightly in my awkward hovering position. “Umm…”
Of course I know why I’m here. I can’t do shit.
He grabs a pink folder from a hidden drawer and opens it, flipping through the pages with a hint of boredom before tossing it over to me. “Here’s the thing, Triple X. You’re a real shite at being a cupid, get it?”
“W-Wow. You really didn’t sugarcoat it,” I stutter on a surprised laugh.
“Sugar is for tits and sweets—not words. I just say it like it is, luv.”
My power pose deflates. “I know. I try. I really do. But my powers...they don’t work right.”
He sighs and crosses his arms. “Aye. I read the reports. Boring bunch that was. I prefer my reading material to have pictures.”
I glance over at the porn stash. “I noticed.”
A beautiful grin takes over his face before he claps his hands in front of us. “Right. Blow some Lust at me.”
“Sir?”
“Name’s Sev,” he tells me. “And I need to see this shite power stuff for myself. Why do you think you’re seein’ the second-in-command?”
I swear, if I had blood, it would be rushing to my cheeks right now and I’d die from blushing too hard. The last thing I want to do is demonstrate how much I suck, especially to someone as high up as him.
“I don’t think—”
“Oy, I ain’t got all day, get it? I got an orgy scheduled at three,” he says, tapping his watch-free wrist. “Let’s see it.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t wanna hold up your orgy,” I tell him dryly.
“Thank you,” he says emphatically.
I clear my throat. “Right. I guess I’ll just blow, then?” I ask nervously.
He smirks but doesn’t comment on my poor choice of words. “It would be a good start, yeah.”
I lean forward, concentrating as hard as I can despite my nerves, and blow out what should be a lovely exhale of Lust. I get a mustard-colored plume of disgustingness before my throat gets so itchy I’m forced to stop with a humiliating cough that sounds like a cat hacking up a furball.
Sev wrinkles his nose and waves a hand in front of his face at the yellow gaseous rank I just blew all over him. “What the fooking shite was that?”
“Uh, my Lust Breath?”
He shakes his pretty head. “Right. Well, hate to do this to you, but I gotta tell it to you straight.”
“What?” I ask nervously.
“You’re a dud.”
I stare at him for a second as his words try to sink in. “I’m a...dud?”
“Yep. A flop. A bummer. A lemon. You’re a total bust, luv.”
My heart falls. Just falls right down to my see-through feet.
“I know, but...I’m a cupid straight to my core. At least, I try to be one, it just… Can’t you do something?” I ask.
He tilts his head. “Like what?”
“I don’t know...fix me? Maybe when you guys made me into a cupid, something didn’t stick right.”
He shrugs apologetically. “Listen, this happens sometimes. Not a right lot, but it happens. You’re defective.”
I’d cry if I were physically able to produce tears. “But I want to be a cupid. I try so hard,” I say in a small voice, feeling like my world is crashing down around me. “What can I do?”
He grimaces a little. “You’re way behind on your quotas. Your partner has done all the Love and Lust Matches since you two started.”
Shame fills me, and I look down at my lap.
“It’s nothin’ to be embarrassed about,” he adds. “I’ve seen this kind of thing before, but you can’t get your Love Arrows up. You’ve got what we call a case of cupidile dysfunction.”
“It’s not my fault. It happens out of my control.”
“I know, luv. But the danger is, the Veil could pop ya in its mouth and swallow. And not in a good way.”
I gape at him. “What? What do you mean?”
He leans forward and taps his finger against my file. “The Veil’s got laws of existence, see? It doesn’t know what to do with ya. You’re a cupid not doin’ your cupid job. Even though the big boss of cupidity won’t terminate you, eventually, the Veil will take matters into its own hands.”
Well, fuck.
“I once heard about a demon who couldn’t get a hard-on for his powers, and the Veil eventually sucked him right up.” He sticks a finger in his mouth and drags it out against the inside of his cheek and pursed lips with a loud pop! “Pop. Gone,” he says with dramatic flair.
I shake my head. “I don’t wanna pop.”
“No, I don’t fooking blame you. Which means you gotta pick a new afterlife job if you wanna keep on existing. That’s all there is to it. You’re officially fired as a cupid.”
My stomach drops like I just jumped out o
f a plane without a parachute.
He reaches down to his hidden drawer again and yanks out several afterlife job brochures, tossing them over to me. “Take your pick.”
Chapter 4
I barely glance at the brochures before standing and shaking my head. “Please. I don’t want to be any of those. I want to be a cupid. I want to spread love. It’s what I was meant to do, I just know it,” I say emphatically. “Making people fall in love, filling them with desire for one another...it’s all I want to do. I know I suck at it, but I’m not a quitter, and despite the evidence in that file, I’m a cupid through and through.”
He looks at me like he pities me. Hell, I pity me too.
He opens his mouth, no doubt to let me down easy, but I cut him off and rush forward so that I can kneel down in front of him. It’s a bit pathetic, but I’m desperate here. “Please. I’m begging you. I don’t want to take a different afterlife job. I want to stay in the human realm. I have unfinished business there.”
Warren Knight flashes through my mind, and my heart squeezes. I’ve failed at every cupid task I’ve ever had. But I refuse to fail him. For whatever reason, he’s my thing. The thing I have to succeed at—for both our sakes.
I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet. I don’t know why, but getting Warren Knight to fall in love has become my personal mission, and I have to see it through. It’s like...if I can just cure him from being a bachelor dud, then maybe I can cure myself from being a cupid dud. It sounds ridiculous, but I feel that in every incorporeal fiber of my being.
Besides, I made a love vow to him. Maybe it’s stupid, but for some reason, I can feel it in my gut that I’m supposed to help him fall in love. He needs me.
“Please,” I beg again. “Just let me go back. I’ll keep trying.”
He watches me for a long time, tapping his finger against the material of the bean bag as he thinks. My hope thuds with every bob of his finger, spiking my anxiety higher and higher.
Finally, he stands, and I straighten up with him. “Alright, Triple X. I think I have an idea. I don’t know if it’ll do fook-all, but I can tell you’re a good cupid at heart, even if your powers are a pile of steaming shite, so I guess it’s worth a shot.”
My heart leaps. “What’s worth a shot?”
Instead of answering, he starts walking out of his office, motioning for me to follow him. I fly behind him as we leave his office and head down the hallway.
We go all the way to the very end of the corridor and then get in an elevator. Of course, the entire thing is shaped like one giant heart. There are even arrows in place of the railing, and the entire floor is glittery.
He pushes the button, and the elevator zooms up, up, up.
When it finally comes to a stop, I follow him out. “Here’s the deal,” he begins to explain. “You wanna stay a cupid and not get popped right out of existence? Then the only solution I can come up with is to put you through processing again.”
My eyes widen. I went through processing when I first woke up dead. There were no memories of my former life. I was just suddenly stuck in an endless line with countless other dead schmucks as we waited to get placed into our afterlife positions.
“Are we allowed to do that?” I ask him nervously as he throws open a pair of double doors and goes striding into the processing center like he owns the place.
“Not really, no. But who the fook is gonna stop me?”
My head swivels around nervously at the enormous room. We look down over the balcony and see hundreds—maybe even thousands—of afterlife entities in different lines, all of them being tested to see which position they’ll be placed in. At the very far end of the gigantic space is a huge archway filled with magical mist.
Once you walk into that mist, you come back out changed into your new self with your new powers. Or at least, you do if you’re not me. I watch as the procession files through. One person comes out as a demon, another a sandman, then a couple of angels, a lady luck, karma, and on and on and on. The archway churns them all out like an assembly line of afterlife supernaturals.
Sev wastes no time heading down the stairs, striding right past all the interview lines and compatibility checks. It’s a long walk. And everywhere we go, we draw attention since it’s obvious that I’ve already been processed, with my pink hair and red wings, and Sev is solid.
Everyone’s eyes lock onto us as we go by, which is not a good feeling. I’m so preoccupied with averting my gaze from everyone else that when Sev stops suddenly, I accidentally fly right through him. I quickly back up, because that was just a major incorporeal faux pas.
“Sorry,” I mumble nervously.
“Next time you wanna get in my body, I’ll want some prep first, Triple X,” he says with a wink. “Don’t wanna catch a guy off-guard and go in dry.”
Oh my gods. Good thing I’m already dead, because I seriously would’ve just died from embarrassment.
He turns back around just as the angel supervisor in charge of the afterlife archway comes striding over. A literal arch angel. Go figure.
The woman is gorgeous. Hair spun like threads of gold, skin as smooth as glass, and huge glowing white wings. She’s so perfect that she doesn’t even look real.
“What are you doing?” she asks, her golden eyes trained on Sev.
The mist churns inside the archway like a pissed off cloud right before it turns bright green and then spits out a lady luck. As soon as she walks out of it, it goes back to being a swirling gray mass inside the forty-foot archway, ready for the next person.
Sev pushes his hand through my back, trying to get me to go closer to the arch. I do, stumbling forward slightly. I don’t even know how I manage to stumble since I don’t have a solid body, but there it is.
“Need to borrow the arch, dove,” Sev tells the angel cheekily. “Won’t take a minute. Pull the cupid lever for me, will ya?”
The angel blinks at him. “Pardon?”
Sev puts his hands into his tight jean pockets. “The archway. She needs to go through it again on cupid settings,” he says, tilting his head at me.
The angel frowns. Somehow, she does this without forming any frown lines. It’s actually pretty freaky. “This is not permissible. She’s already been made into a cupid.”
“Well, she seems to be havin’ a bit of trouble with her love juice. It didn’t take the first time, get it? I’m hoping this will set her right.”
The angel wrinkles her nose at the term love juice before glancing over at me and shaking her head. “If she’s not working properly, then she needs to be re-processed and placed into a different afterlife position. Which means she needs to go back to the end of the line,” she adds, chastising us for being rude line-cutters.
I glance over my shoulder to look, but the line is so ridiculously long, that I can’t even see the end of it.
Sev shakes his head and takes a step forward, getting all up in the angel’s glowy space. He lifts a hand and gently trails it down her arm. I gape at the audacity of him and cringe, waiting to see if she’s gonna smite him or something, but to my surprise, she doesn’t.
“It’s just one little walk-through,” he says quietly, and I can see a little bit of pink Lust escaping his lips as he talks. The angel’s golden eyes go from wary to dazed as he continues petting her. “She wants to spread around desire, dove. She wants her powers to work proper-like so she can make Love Matches. As an angel, wouldn’t you agree that love is one of the most redeeming things about life? The more love there is, the more goodness. So really, this would be helping your cause, too, don’t you agree?”
He’s good, I’ll give him that. He let out such small puffs of Lust that I don’t even think she noticed, but she’s definitely feeling the effects. I can see her heavenly nipples popping right through her toga.
“Help me out here, dove,” Sev whispers huskily as he reaches over and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “We cupids and angels work so well together, don’t you think?”
&n
bsp; I can feel hundreds of eyes at my back watching this entire exchange, and hundreds more probably wondering what the holdup is. But I’m too caught up in watching my boss seduce a damn angel to really pay attention to the crowd anymore.
She bites her lip nervously. “I don’t know. It’s against the rules…”
“But you and me, we know that rules should never go against love, ain’t that right, dove?”
When he palms the back of her neck, she shivers, her golden eyes going hooded. “Alright. But just this once,” she tells him with a shy smile, her eyes locked on his luscious lips. It’s clear by the look on her face that she’s not thinking angelic thoughts at all.
Sev grins so devastatingly that she whimpers. Yep. He made an angel whimper. I’m both appalled and impressed.
“Thanks, dove,” he says with a wink before brushing his lips against the edge of her jaw. “I’ll owe you a favor. Feel free to call it in anytime.”
From the way she blushes, it’s clear what favor they both have in mind.
With another small smile, she turns to look at me, clearing her throat before she speaks. “Alright, well, this hasn’t ever been done before, so I’m not sure what the results will be,” she warns me.
“If this might fix my cupid powers, then I’m all for it,” I assure her.
She nods and glides back over to her tall white podium where she controls the archway. I see her flip down a lever, and the mist turns bubbly pink.
With her out of earshot, I turn to Sev. “Do you really think it was a good idea to seduce an angelic being?” I whisper on a nervous hiss.
He shoots me a look. “Relax. She was suckin’ up that Lust faster than a sex pixie sucks on my co—”
“La la la,” I interrupt, wishing I could stick my fingers into my ears. “Don’t need the visual.”
He shrugs, not at all deterred. “Alright, Triple X, this is your last shot,” he tells me soberly, leading me forward until we’re standing right in front of the arch. “I don’t have a fooking clue if this is actually gonna work, but if I were you, I’d be wishin’ that this here mist would stick right up my arse and fook me good, cuz if this doesn’t work, and you don’t make any Matches soon, the Veil is gonna pop your existence like a fooking bubble o’ gum.”
Can't Fix Cupid Page 3