Page 7 of Incurably Cupid (Moonhaven Cove #5)

Chapter 7

Indie

“Love encourages.”

Cupid Inc. New Recruit Training Manual

M ordecai came over, bright and early the next morning. I dragged the door open and glared at him in silence while he smiled evilly and invaded my home.

“Got any bacon?” he asked as he made his way to my kitchen and fridge, his garnet wings folded neatly against his back, disgustingly peppy for so early in the morning. My poor wings drooped. I had no strength to do anything at this hour.

I groaned, closing the door and leaning against it. “Why are you here on my only day off?”

He pulled bacon, eggs, bell peppers, cilantro, and cheese from my fridge, then rummaged around until he found a skillet. “Friends feed each other, right?”

“Statistically, yes,” Leo chimed in from the smart wall in my kitchen.

I growled and stomped over, muting the wall. “You know I can just shout from the bedroom, right?” Leo called out.

I looked to the heavens in a why-me gesture and slumped into a chair at my kitchen table.

“Late night?” Mordecai asked as he cracked a few eggs into a bowl. “Want an omelette?”

“Yes, two. Thanks.”

“Hungry today, huh?”

I raked my hands through my hair, which probably looked like I'd stuck my finger in an electrical socket, and chuckled darkly. “Nope. I have a gargoyle in my bedroom.”

Mordecai raised an eyebrow as he found a whisk. “One, I didn’t know you rolled like that, and two, I’m glad it’s not a student.”

I gaped at him. “I’m not sleeping with him, Mordecai! And are you sleeping with your students?”

He shrugged.

“What does the shrug mean?”I was his friend; I could ask, right? Was I being nosy? Yes! But still—he shouldn’t be sleeping with students!

“Once or twice,” he admitted, dumping everything into a sizzling skillet.

I glared at him, and he hunched his shoulders and turned his back to me. “It was just sex, Indie. It doesn’t mean anything.”

I got up and smacked the back of his head. At his “oww!” I snatched the spatula from him and pushed him toward the table. “You are now required to co-teach Love 101 with me. You can be my teaching assistant. You’ll do better than Horror, at any rate.”

“Lust and love are two different things, my friend.”

I nodded emphatically. “Exactly!”

He sighed deeply and scratched the black stubble on his chin before slumping in his chair. “Yeah, it might be good for me,” he finally said. “I’ll help teach it. It fits into my schedule, anyway.”

I flipped the first omelette out of the pan and served it to him with a fork and napkin, then went to work on Mesmer’s and my own. “What is wrong with you? It’s like you’re self-destructing.”

“You don’t know me well enough to say that,” he argued, glaring at me indignantly while moaning over his food. Seriously, it was just an omelette.

“I’m a cupid! That gives us more authority than any therapist will ever have.” I waved the spatula at him. “And you've got self-destruction written all over you.”

He sat back and shoved his empty plate away. He was quiet for a moment. “Maybe I am, just a little.” He admitted. “What am I doing with my life? I feel so lost since my mate walked out on me.”

I plated my omelette, popped Mesmer’s in the microwave to keep warm, and sat down, dumping ketchup on it. “Mordecai, honestly, you're registering on my cupid senses as someone who's a bit of a mess right now.”

He sat up, a thunderous expression on his face. But before he had the chance to yell at me, I shrugged and raised my hand. “That doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you just like everyone else. The truth is, we all have strengths and weaknesses, and they constantly evolve and change. Are you a bit whiny right now? Yep. A little self-destructive? Also yep. Do you rudely barge into people’s houses at seven-thirty in the morning and invade their fridge? Yeah, you do that too. I've also seen you be kind and thoughtful. You're still hurting. Hurt people hurt people.”

“My guess? You’ve confused your mate’s cheating and leaving with you having no value. You take what you think you can get instead of what you deserve. You’re a fire lily in a sea of roses.”

I could hear Leo laughing from my bedroom, but I ignored him. “Stars and hearts, the fact that you came to befriend me, the outcast, should tell you something about yourself!”

“It's not that I'm kind, Indie. It's that everyone is wildly jealous and intimidated by you, and I finally decided not to be.”

I choked on my eggs, and he had to round the table and pound on my back. I gulped down some water and felt like a sea gargling nymph when I wetly said, “What?”

He sat down and shrugged. “It’s true. People are either intimidated by you because you’re so good at what you do, or they’re petty and jealous.”

I had no idea how either could be the case considering my inability to match my assignments. “Which one were you?”

“Petty, jealous, and wildly intimidated,” he said, laughing.

“Is this why you gave me sour-puss face all the time?”

“I did not give you sour-puss face!”

“You did too!” Leo chimed in from the back, still eavesdropping.

Mordecai bit his bottom lip in thought, then looked across the table at me. “I’m sorry, Indie. I didn’t mean to be a pompous jerk.”

I smiled. “Forgiven.”

Mordecai's eyes sparkled with interest. “Now, about this gargoyle in your bedroom...”

I sighed.

It was a cruel joke that my one and only day off also coincided with Mordecai’s, and that he wanted to meet Mesmer and watch a movie that evening. He went home to ‘do house stuff’ while I helped Mesmer change his bandages and wash his hair again.

I winced whenever he turned chalky pale, which usually meant he was holding in all the curse words and wanted to howl like a banshee. I told him he could, and I would put in earplugs. But he held it all in, and, when we were finished, took a nap, while I tackled house chores too.

When Mordecai came back that night, Leo and I had already selected a movie. I had two guys in our movie-watching group, three if you counted Leo, who always reminded me that as a sentient being, he counted. I grumbled and made five different kinds of popcorn, including my two favorites: white chocolate popcorn and cheese and jalapeno popcorn. Then I made little sausages wrapped in croissants, some mocktails, and spicy chicken wings. I finished everything off with hot jalapeno artichoke dip and some crusty, herby garlic bread for dipping.

Both guys looked at the movie-watching spread like they’d died and gone to heaven.

“It’s just food, guys,” I grumbled, sitting down with a plate and digging the remote out of the chair cushion beside me.

Leo cleared his mechanical throat. “You don’t need the remote!” he said indignantly. “I can control the movie.”

I sighed. I don’t know how I could have momentarily forgotten that Leo got perturbed when I tried to handle a tech task in the house that he considered his kingly domain. “Sorry, Your Lordship. Just what we picked earlier, please.”

Mesmer was rolled into the living room by Lance after he grabbed his plate. He looked a little better after his nap, but I’d be staked out in the sun, slathered in butter and honey, and covered in bees and ants before I admitted that. For one, he was very aware of the fact that he was mostly helpless right now, and he did not like it one bit. And for two, he was... handsome when he didn’t look like someone had run him over with a megaton cruise ship, then staked him out in the desert and tied him to a prickly cactus to die. I mean, he was handsome anyway, but, yeah, I didn’t feel as guilty ogling him when he wasn’t in as much pain.

Also, I was secretly enjoying, just the slightest bit, that this big, strong gargoyle needed me for a little while. Just a little. And yes, I know I needed therapy for admitting that. But I couldn’t remember the last time someone had ever needed me. I mean, it’s been a long time, if ever. It felt... good. I sighed. No. Nope. I wasn’t doing this. I was supposed to be finding his forever mate.

“You okay?” Mesmer asked, parked next to my chair. Mordecai had taken my loveseat and was sprawled across its entire length. It reminded me of those little kids who licked their ice cream all over so no one else would steal it from them.

Really, he needed therapy too. Probably much more than I did. I thought I remembered hearing that King Draven is an accredited therapist... Hmm. Something to consider.

“How are you so observant?” I asked Mesmer.

He shrugged his broad shoulders, hunching over his food. “I don’t speak much, but I do a lot of observing.”

“That’s... frightening.” Really, because in all the time I’d observed Mesmer, he’d never struck me as someone trying to round up a second brain cell so the first one would have a friend.

He flashed a small smile at me, then hunched over again, whistling through his clenched teeth. He was clearly in pain but was being masochistic again. “When’s the last time you took your pain meds?” I asked, eyeing him with concern.

“Yesterday?”

“Mesmer!”

He grimaced. “They make my brain foggy. I don’t like them.”

I marched to his bag of meds on my kitchen counter, grabbed them and a glass of water, then marched back and handed everything to him.

“I don’t want them,” he said stubbornly.

“Better do what she says, bro,” Mordecai said, his eyes on the movie playing behind me. “Indie’s mean. She’s got a reputation.”

I nodded. Yes, yes I was. And I wasn’t afraid to use dirty tactics when necessary.

Mesmer sighed, glaring at the pill in his hand before he popped it in his mouth and swallowed it down. “She’s not mean. She’s a barbed wire marshmallow with a squishy center.”

I gaped at him.

And then Mordecai nodded, he nodded, and said, “Yep, that was my read on her too after a while. That’s why I finally got the courage to approach her and beg her to be my friend.”

I frowned at him. “That was not how that went down.”

“That’s exactly how that went down,” Mordecai corrected with a charming smile.

I ignored him and focused on the movie. There was a bomb on a speeding train, and a woman and a man were systematically trying to figure out where it was hidden. I’d seen this one before. The villain was driving the train, and he’d hidden the bomb beneath it.

“It’s under the train,” Mesmer said, his eyes starting to look sleepy again. His meds were kicking in.

“Dude!” Mordecai exclaimed, throwing sticky popcorn at him. “I haven’t seen this one yet!”

Mesmer shrugged. “I haven’t either. It’s obvious.”

I snickered. “Maybe obvious to you.”

The movie was only halfway over when Mesmer crashed. Lance took him to his room, and Mordecai and I tried to gently get him into bed without dropping him on the floor.

“This guy,” puff, wheeze, “is massive ,” Mordecai groaned. We made it to the bed, but as we dropped him, he bounced a little. He didn’t even wake up. He just kept sleeping.

“You’re not wrong. Leo, what’s his temp?” I asked, feeling Mesmer’s forehead.

“100.2.”

“Hmm. Better than yesterday.” I looked at Mordecai. "Amskray, I’m going to check under his bandages.”

“You can’t do that right now! He's asleep!” Mordecai said indignantly.

I grimaced. “You’re right. You better stay. Just... face away from the bed. Look at the lovely bathroom with the amazing amenities of a toilet, sink, and shower.”

Mordecai chuckled as he spun away from the bed and checked out my bathroom. “You’re right. Your bathroom is lightyears ahead. It makes me mad that I have to bathe in a tin tub with sputtering, smoking candles every night.”

I scoffed. Mordecai’s fancy mansion in Devotion was legendary. He was a cupid of some renown, inherited from his parents and his own hard work. I guess that had come back to bite him in the butt when it came to finding love. He also, apparently, taught Statistics of Love for fun. So, really, there was no saving him.

I peeled up Mesmer’s shirt, feeling like a creeper because I hadn’t asked his permission, then carefully removed a few of the bandages and got a good look underneath. Most looked fine. The ones that the doctor had been worried about still looked kind of nasty, but they did look better than yesterday.

“Don’t fondle him,” Mordecai warned.

I snorted. “As if you have room to talk. And I’m not.” I lowered his tee shirt and pulled the covers up over him. “He looks like he’s healing, definitely better than yesterday. Let’s let him sleep.”

We made our way back to the movie, but I could tell Mordecai wasn’t really in the mood to watch it anymore. So, we just sat and talked.

“So, he’s the big guy you’ve been working on for a year or so now.”

I nodded, scooping up a piece of bread and dipping it into the artichoke dip. “Yeah, he’s been a tough one. Never been assigned to a gargoyle before.”

Mordecai looked thoughtful. “Did you know they don’t find their mate until they... exchange saliva?”

I choked. “What!”

“Yeah, I’ve been looking into it for you, asking the sentient tech at the Cupid U library to do a little research. Their sense of smell is only slightly better than a human’s, and they lack the intuition that vampires and other shifters have. The only way for them to tell is through taste.”

I gaped at him. “So... the only way for me to find his soulmate is to get him to kiss a million women?”

Mordecai frowned. “It doesn't sound half bad, actually.”

“You are such a... ugh!” I picked up a popcorn bowl and dumped it on his head, then went to change so I could hit up the Cupid U library.

“I’m such a what?” Mordecai said, trailing me to my bedroom door and speaking through it when I shut it in his face.

I quickly threw on a black Cupid U sweatshirt and dark wash skinny jeans, then sat on the bed to put on my shoes. Grabbing my keys, I tossed my ID lanyard over my head.

I opened my bedroom door so quickly that Mordecai almost fell on top of me. “You’re a pig.”

“I am not!”

“You sleep with your students, probably love it when they flirt with you and call you professor, and you’re jealous because Mesmer might have to kiss a whole country to find his mate. You. Are. A. Pig.”

Mordecai rubbed his chest over his heart, as if my words were causing him physical pain “You’re being awfully judgy.”

“Am I? Am I being judgy? You’re supposed to teach your students the Statistics of Love and nurture their passion for learning, not take advantage of them. You're at least supposed to make the money their parents paid for their education count!”

Mordecai grinned that devastatingly handsome grin of his. “I’m making it count, alright.”

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

“Mordecai,” I said softly.

“Yes?”

“Get lost.”

“I’m coming to the U with you to help.”

“I don’t want your help.”

He looked confused. “Are you genuinely mad at me right now?”

“I am. Look, I know it’s not fair for me to judge, but I can’t help being protective of the students. You’re in a position of power over them. Stars knows what you’re doing is legal, and I know other teachers do it too, but I still think it’s an abuse of our power as educators.”

Mordecai folded his arms over his chest defensively. “You know no one feels like being a teacher is powerful.”

“And yet it is,” I said, searching for my wallet. “We help shape minds and lives. That’s powerful.” I pulled out my ID and credit card and tucked them into my jeans pocket before turning to face him again. Pink ethereal light filtered through the lace eyelet curtains of my living room window. “How difficult could it be to sleep with adults your own age instead?"

“People my own age don’t like me.” He sounded perturbed by this fact.

I sighed. “You’re what, three, four hundred?”

He snorted. “Eight.”

I grinned. “Well, there’s your problem; you need to ask the geriatrics out.”

“I am not old,” he growled, sniffing and looking away from me.

I approached and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You have a lot to offer, Mordecai. Stop letting your past define you. Just because she left you doesn’t mean there isn’t someone great out there for you.”

His face crumpled, though he still wouldn’t make eye contact. “She was my soulmate, Indie. You only get one of those.”

I stepped back, giving him some space. “That’s untrue. You teach Statistics. You know very few supernaturals only have one. One soulmate is largely a myth. Most supernaturals who have soulmates usually have at least three or four possibilities throughout their lifetimes.”

He looked down, barely holding back tears.

I scowled up at the ceiling, cursing under my breath, then sighed and held out my arms. I was nearly knocked over when he suddenly closed the distance between us. We wobbled for a moment before stabilizing. My rule of hugs applied here: always let the other person let go first. I wasn’t a hugger, but if I was going to do it, it had to be done right. According to hug science, if you’re not a natural hugger, the other person has to break the embrace first.

We stood there for a long time. And for once, I didn’t mind.