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Page 2 of Incurably Cupid (Moonhaven Cove #5)

Chapter 2

Indie

“Love gives, but it also receives.”

Cupid Inc. New Recruit Training Manual

I woke to my tablet, Leo, whooing like a siren. I groaned and pulled a pillow over my head.

“Shut it off,” I complained.

“You’re going to be late for class,” my perky tablet said.

I uncovered one eye and glared at him. “I don’t have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I get to sleep in.”

“You have a class now, remember? You agreed to fill in for Professor Ziesta’s Love 101 class while she’s out on maternity leave.”

I groaned. “That class is sickeningly sweet. They don’t delve into the nitty-gritty of real love until Love 102, in their sophomore year.”

Leo chuckled. “Well, lucky you; you get to teach both of them."

I sighed and yanked the pillow off my head again. “How did I get talked into this?” At least Professor Ziesta had allowed me to teach Love 102 coursework as well so my students didn’t walk away from this class expecting love to be easy and viewed through rose-colored glasses.

“Because you have a heart as big as the Sahara Desert and twice as dusty. All Adriana had to do was bat her big eyes at you while resting a hand on her very pregnant belly, and you caved.”

I sat up and scowled at the sunshine streaming into my bedroom through the windows. “Note to self: Pregnant cupids are the enemy. Treat them like live grenades.”

Leo flashed the time in big, blue numerals in front of my face, and I yelped and scrambled out of bed. “Why didn’t you tell me it was that late!” I yelled as I hurriedly picked out some clothes for the day and jumped in the shower.

“I did, you ungrateful cupid! I risked circuits and sensors to wake you on time, and this is the thanks I get?” Leo growled.

I laughed as I quickly washed my chin-length cotton candy pink hair and my body, skipping shaving since I’d long since stripped any unwanted hair from my body with my bonding magic. Bonding magic. It had a ton of uses. I toweled off, dressed, and was ready within five minutes.

I reflected on my feelings after yesterday and my conversation with Lyrica, and I could honestly say I felt a bit better. I had a little more hope that I would find Mesmer’s mate, at least. If King Micah had ensured I was assigned to him, there had to be a reason.

I checked my reflection in the mirror and saw a cupid of average beauty. She looked twenty-five but was actually just over three hundred. Pink hair, fair skin, blue eyes—not much different from any other cupid. And yet, Leo called me beautiful all the time. That glorified toaster had called me beautiful yesterday, too. I wrinkled my nose at my reflection. Maybe I was just beautiful to sentient tech? Wouldn’t that just be my luck?

“Indie?”

“Yes?”

“What are you going to do about Mesmer?” Leo’s voice was quiet. We had often discussed Mesmer and my difficulty finding someone for him. Leo assisted with my job at Cupid U, but he also helped me narrow down the search parameters to find matches for my assignments—a job for which he was invaluable.

I sighed and turned off the bathroom light as I gathered Leo, my teaching bag, and my house keys, allowing him to electronically lock the front door behind me. “I’m not sure. I’m contemplating. I’ll need to spend more time silently observing him to get a sense of what his soulmate will be like.” Even though I'd already had a year.

I joined the throngs of people walking to Cupid Inc. and its sister campus, Cupid University, right next door. Dozens of cupids were ahead of me and behind me, with more on the opposite side of the street. We didn’t have cars in Devotion. We didn’t need them. Most residents were either students, teachers, or employees of Cupid Inc. In my case, I was both a teacher and an employee.

“He is a challenging assignment. He’s so quiet,” Leo said.

I nodded. “Until he isn’t.”

Leo laughed. “He does have that commander’s yell thing he does.”

Yes, but even I had to admit Mesmer was fairly perfect, aside from his tendency to speak in grunts, growls, and monosyllables—well, to everyone but those he was closest to. Was it possible he was just shy? I grimaced. Shyness didn’t have a typical appearance. Anyone could be shy. Hmm, I’d have to think about that some more. Whenever I’d seen him interact the most with people over the last year, it was always with his friends. He was vocal with them. But to his subordinates and others he didn’t know very well, he was usually more reserved.

We crossed a greenspace, my shoes getting drenched in dew, crossed the main courtyard, and entered the University. “Which classroom is Adriana’s again?”

“301 B.”

I nodded and headed for the elevators. My stomach growled. “I need to eat; I didn’t have time for breakfast.”

“You put a bag of carrots in your teaching bag for emergencies.”

I sighed. Yay, carrots. “Thanks, Leo.” I pulled out the carrots and munched on them as I joined an elevator crowded with students and faculty. The sound of my crunching was extra loud in the quiet elevator, and Leo had to mute himself to laugh without blasting everyone’s eardrums. The elevator dinged and opened on level three, and I got off, still happily crunching as I escaped the crowded space into the also-crowded halls.

Leo turned his volume back up and laughed. His laughter was a pleasant combination of a deep male voice mixed with the slightly tinny, crackly sound of tech speakers. “That was hilarious. Did you see that male professor in the back give you the evil eye?”

“Nope. I missed that. Though, if he can’t handle a bit of loud crunching in his space, his class is sure to be a barrel of laughs.”

“It was Professor Mordecai. His class is definitely not a barrel of laughs. He’s the Statistics of Love teacher.”

I winced as I remembered the Statistics of Love class from my student days. I never realized I was actually cheerful and optimistic until I took that class. It covered, as the name implied, the statistics of both good and bad relationships in every conceivable variation. By the end of the semester, I had become so depressed from that class alone that I seriously considered paying some mage an exorbitant fee to make me forget everything I learned in there.

I found my temporary classroom for the next several months and entered the room on the ground floor. The space was enormous, with stadium seating that extended back so far that I doubted the students in the back row would be able to see any of my projections. There must have been five hundred seats in the room, and every single one was full. I dumped my bag on the professor’s desk and turned around, leaning against it as I stared out at my new students for the next several months.

“Can anyone tell me what class this is?” I asked.

A cupid with long red hair in the front row raised her hand. “Love 101, Professor.”

I crunched another carrot and nodded at her. “You pass the class. You can ditch the rest of the semester if you want. Just write your name down for me and leave it on the desk before you go.”

She held her tablet to her chest and stared at me in open-mouthed horror.

“No?” I sighed. “Well, don’t say I didn’t try. Leo, notes.”

My notes for the first few classes flickered to life beside me, displayed on a black surface visible only to me. It wasn't my department, but a fae specialist once explained that it had something to do with our brainwaves syncing with and responding to the corresponding waves in personal tech. Everything was attuned to our individual brainwaves and couldn’t be seen or hacked by anyone else. I personally didn’t care how it worked; I was just glad that it did.

I nodded at what I’d written, opened my teaching bag to grab a thick stack of papers, and handed them to the girl I was now mentally calling Horror. “Please pass these out. If you reach the last one, use the adjoining office to make more copies for everyone else. I think I have around five hundred there, but I’m not sure.”

She leaned slightly away from me but took the papers and did as I asked.

I leaned against my desk, facing my students. “Horror is passing out a get-to-know-you quiz.” Horror gasped at her new name and paused to gape at me. I kept my smirk to myself and continued to explain the papers she was distributing. “The quiz has over a hundred questions, and it will not be graded.” I leaned back on my hands. “But,” I shot them all a look, “you will be graded. I want you to answer each question with complete honesty, no matter how embarrassing. And I will know if you don’t. If you don’t answer honestly, you’ll be asked to leave my class.” Most of them were gaping at me now, but I continued. “From this quiz, I’ll know where you stand, and by the end of this class, you will know where I stand.”

I glanced around and saw that everyone had received a quiz packet. “It should take you the rest of the class period to finish. And before some of you complain, I prefer paper over tablets. It’s easier to grade. Begin!”

“Horror, please come here.” She shuffled up to my desk, clutching her own packet tightly to her body. “You don’t like your name?”

She shook her head, her glossy red hair falling perfectly into place to frame her heart-shaped face. I leaned back in my chair. “You have five seconds for a rebuttal.”

She blinked for a moment or two and then squeaked, “I’m a really nice person. All of my friends have told me so.”

“So you don’t think Horror is an apt descriptor?”

She shook her head again, frowning. I smiled at her. “All of my students earn nicknames in my class. I try not to make them too psychologically damaging. Work hard, do your best in my class, and you might earn a new one.”

She shuffled her feet slightly, glancing down at the packet, then peeked at me from beneath her lashes. “I heard you were a tough teacher,” she whispered. “But I’ve been looking forward to having you as our substitute for the semester.”

“I’m tough, but I’m also fair. I prove myself, you prove yourself, and by the end, we should find common ground. You’ll learn a lot from me, Horror. Don’t give up on me yet.”

“Yes, Professor Valentine.”

“You’d better hurry. You have a lot of questions to complete.”

Horror nodded and scampered away. I leaned back in my chair again and waited, folding my arms across my chest. There was always one... I didn’t have to wait long before a cupid with deep pink hair and a footballer’s physique approached to drop his packet off on my desk.

I regarded him calmly. “Don’t bother coming back.”

“What! But that’s not fair! I’m just a fast test taker! I answered everything honestly, just like you asked.” His face flushed with anger, and he loomed over me menacingly. I didn’t think he intended to be threatening. He was simply angry and large.

"Back up, please."

He looked confused for a moment until he realized how close he was to me and how much he was hovering. He took a step back sheepishly.

“Let’s see what some of your answers were, shall we? First question: What do you want in a partner? Your answer: A hot body. Second question: What genuine qualities do you bring to any future relationships? Your answer: Money.” I looked at him over the top of the packet. “So that’s it? That’s what you want in a partner you’ll spend the rest of your life with? A hot body? And that’s all you have to offer in return? Wealth?”

He scowled. “Those are my real answers.”

“That isn’t in question. I can see they are. What concerns me, however, is the complete lack of any depth to your answers. Do you have no greater aspirations in life beyond being wealthy? And I can see that a hot body in your partner is important, as I imagine you think that would be ideal in the bedroom, am I right?”

He turned red for a different reason now but mumbled that yes, I was right.

“No need to be embarrassed. Sex is important, but it’s not everything. An ideal partner for a successful and happy relationship requires more than attractiveness, though. What happens if you lose your job? If you lose a parent? When you’re sick? If you become impotent? It happens with cupids, no matter what others might choose to believe or say.”

I waited, but he only shuffled his feet and didn’t respond.

“What then, Shallow?”

He scowled at his new nickname but had no answer for me. I waited for him to make eye contact again before I continued. “I’ll allow you to stay. For now, your name is Shallow. Prove me wrong. You have a lot of growing up to do, and I can help you with some of that. If you choose to stay, know that this class will not be easy for you. It will be brutal. But by the end of it, you might like who you are a little better. If you skate through this class without any real improvement in your character, you will not like your grade at the end.”

“Love 101 and 102 are about teaching you what you’ll need to look for when you’re out in the field. We’re not cupids who match people for a one-night hookup. That’s easy. We match them with their life partners. That requires that we as cupids have a depth and understanding that you currently lack. You will need to prove that you have it by the end of next year’s class before you’re allowed to partner with a senior cupid out in the field as an apprentice.”

He thought over my words for a moment, and I considered this a good sign. I’d initially pegged him as a hothead, but if he was willing to be humble and accept correction and counsel, that meant he was teachable, and that made my teacher's heart happy.

“Can I try again, Professor?”

I smiled and handed him back his packet. “Go for it.”

As the hour wound down, I collected the quizzes into a neat pile, waiting for the few stragglers to finish. Horror was among the last to complete her quiz, but to be fair, she had handed out the packets and spoken to me before she could start answering questions, so I didn’t begrudge her the time.

When the last quiz-taker had finally finished, I shoved all the papers into my bag to look at later and made my way to the fifth-floor campus restaurant, Ooo La La. I found a booth in a secluded corner near the floor-to-ceiling windows and perused the menu. Most replicator food was decent; some was barely edible. It seemed to depend entirely on the personality of the food replicator. Chef-made meals, however, were a treat. We had only three restaurants in Devotion: the University had one, Cupid Inc. had one, and there was another on the far side of the East dorms. The Cupid Inc. restaurant was the best, but I was too hungry to be picky. It was nearing one o’clock, and my stomach was snarling from lack of food. The carrots had only made me cranky.

“What can I get you?”

I glanced at the waiter and held up a finger as I made sure of my choices, then I put the menu down. “Swedish meatball pasta for my main, and an Oreo cheesecake for dessert, please. I’ll also take a hot chocolate with pumpkin spice flavoring.” It was my new addiction; I couldn’t help myself.

The waiter nodded, taking notes on his tablet. “Thumbprint here, please.” He held the tablet out for me, and I pressed my thumb to the signature square. He checked the name that appeared after I pressed my thumb to the tablet and said, “Thank you for dining with us, Indie Valentine.”

When he left, I dug out Leo as well as some quiz packets and a blue Sharpie. I had my head down, reviewing the answers on the first quiz packet when someone swung into the booth opposite me. “How many students did you make cry today?”

I glanced up from the papers and scowled at the handsome man across from me. “Do I know you?”

He smiled and extended a hand. “Mordecai, Professor of?—”

“Statistics of Love, yes, yes, I know,” I interrupted. “Why are you sitting here? You glowered at my carrot crunching in the elevator. I don’t get any better than that, I promise, so go away.”

Mordecai leaned back against the plush booth cushion. He studied me for a moment before saying, without any non sequitur, “My soulmate cheated on me and left me a few years ago. I figure there’s not much you can say to me that will be any worse than that, and I’ve heard so much about you from the whispers of other faculty that I knew I had to meet you.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger, closing my eyes with a sigh. “Why would you tell me that?”

He shrugged. “I’m not much liked either. I figured—maybe we can be friends.”

I looked him over: dark skin, dark amethyst eyes that almost appeared black in the shadows of our booth, deep garnet-colored hair cut short, a medium frame, garnet wings, and a hopeful expression on his face.

“I’m not amiable,” I warned him.

“Yes, I know you’re a holy terror. I’m still interested in being friends. Your answer?”

I sighed. “Yeah, sure.” I shook a finger of warning at him. “But no Statistics of Love stuff. I had enough of that when I was a student. You can vent about your students, but not your course material. I have no sympathy for you.” I squinted at him. “Why on earth would you want to teach Statistics of Love in the first place? It’s the most depressing subject at the university.”

He pursed his lips. “Why would you choose to teach Love 101?”

I scowled. “A ginormous pregnant belly and huge doe eyes.”

He laughed and flagged down a waiter to order while I returned to my quizzes. Well, I hadn’t scared him off yet. There was always tomorrow.