www.Cupid Read online

  “Speaking of which, I’ve got plenty of work to do. Shut the door on your way out, please.”

  Allison opened the request page on Cupid’s website. The closer it got to Valentine’s Day, the more requests came in and needed to be filled. Everyone who emailed Cupid had something to ask. Some requests were more complicated than others. Allison pressed the on button on the printer and listened to the whir as the paper began to be spit out.

  Aphrodite was coming that afternoon to inspect their building. She would be moving most of her offices here after the merger and she’d wanted to make sure everything was what she needed. There was a lot riding on this merger and Preston was endangering everything. At least his assignments would keep him out until Aphrodite had come and gone.

  She grabbed folders and sorted the requests into the agents’ files. The pile had grown larger than yesterday, telling her today would be twice as busy. This meant staying late again to get all the reports completed and filed so she wouldn’t be backed up the next day.

  Allison stepped out into the work area. “Attention, people. I have your assignment sheets for today. Not too many complicated ones but each one will need your attention to detail. You’re going to find you have a few more than usual to complete, but you should have enough time to do them all. Your guidelines are included and I expect complete compliance from everyone.”

  She looked pointedly at Preston. “And I mean everyone. Mr. Carlyle, please see me before you leave. That’s it. Good luck and make sure you do your romantic best.”

  She walked back into her office with Preston on her heels. She turned and he was right behind her, forcing her take a step back. “I don’t want any slip ups today. Cupid is watching you closely, and, in turn, me. I don’t want to get fired or have Aphrodite back out of the merger because you refuse to be a team player.”

  Preston closed the small gap between them, and Allison’s cheeks heated.

  “I’ll be a good boy, Allie, don’t worry. But you need to bend, just a little, to see my point of view.”

  “Preston, you have to follow the rules. Cupid put them in place centuries ago. They’re there to protect the humans and us. You’re a good agent and important to this department. If you keep breaking them…”

  “I already said I wouldn’t.” He took her hand in his. “And is it just the department I’m important to…or do you still care for me?” He waited, but she said nothing. “Is there anything else, boss?”

  Allison gazed at him. Her hand lightly caressed his cheek, and she leaned a little closer, before shaking her head. “No. Just make sure you get your paperwork to me by the end of the day.”

  Preston smiled. “I think you keep calling me in here because you still like me.”

  “I refuse to dignify that with a response.” She retreated behind her desk and sat down. “You’d better get going or you’ll be behind schedule.”

  “All right. See you later, Allie.”

  “My name is Allison,” she said loudly as he walked out.

  She watched him through the glass windows as he walked to the elevators and disappeared behind the doors. She breathed a sigh of relief. If he’d stayed one more minute, she might have been tempted to kiss him, and that was definitely against the rules. And deep in her heart, she still loved that he called her Allie.

  ****

  Preston hurried to his cubicle and pulled on his long coat. He yanked open the top drawer on his desk and grabbed his matter destabilizer and round sunglasses with deep rose-colored lenses with a small button on the arm. Stuffing the files in his thin briefcase, he grinned when Will joined him at the elevators.

  “So, what happened when she called you into her office? Did you pick up on anything about your relationship?”

  “She still has feelings for me. She just won’t admit it.”

  “I knew she would,” Will said, straightening his tie. “And the whole office saw you two through the windows. You need to lower the blinds if you want some privacy.”

  The bell dinged and the doors opened in the lobby. “I’ll remember that, next time.”

  The two men headed in different directions to their cars. Preston checked his sheet. He had two fairly simple ones, and then a guy was proposing at a sporting event. He rolled his eyes. Like that had never been done. Why couldn’t humans be more original? Maybe he could spice things up a little. He’d check out the situation and make a judgment call. He looked at the file again. There was a note in there with the words, Follow the rules, Preston, in bright, red, ink and written in Allison’s script. How could she still yell at him through paper?

  “Heck with it,” he said, balling up the note and throwing it in the backseat. Flipping a switch on the dashboard, he drove through the veil that separated his world from the humans. He would do things his way, rules be damned. Love didn’t have rules governing it, and neither would he.

  He found his first two couples and with only a little bit of rule breaking on his part, got them to where they should be. Thanks to him, there were two more marriages looming on the horizon. He pulled out the last file with the sporting event notes in it. The destination was across town, so he had to hurry to make it by his appointment time. He snorted. As if the couple in question knew he was coming at a certain time and was waiting for him. They’d never know if he was late or early. But Allie would.

  The GPS proclaimed he had reached his destination. Flipping open the file, he double-checked the address.

  Yep. This was it.

  It might be a sporting event, but this was the first time he’d seen someone do it at a professional wrestling show. This had so many possibilities he immediately lost count. The banner proclaimed it a big Valentine event. He chuckled. Cupid would love that. For being in charge of love and everything that went with it, his boss could be a real stick in the mud.

  Preston grabbed his long coat from the back seat and stuffed his arms in the sleeves. The coat made him invisible to humans. The car didn’t need to be hidden because it blended in with the rest in the parking lot. He strode toward the entrance and pulled the matter destabilizer out. It was a small device that looked like a cross between a screwdriver and a wand. He pointed it at the glass door and waited for the telltale rippling effect, before walking through it. He aimed the destabilizer at it again, putting the door back to normal.

  As he walked passed couples, he would touch them on the shoulder and suddenly they’d hold hands or put their arms around each other. A couple standing by a souvenir stand stood too far apart, and the young woman did not look happy. Preston sensed the man wanted to ask her to marry him but was struggling for the right words as he held his empty hands behind his back.

  Preston reached under his coat and pulled out a red rose with a card that simply read, Please marry me and complete my life. He tucked it in the man’s hand and swung the man’s arm out, offering the rose. The woman’s expression immediately changed, and she threw her arms around her man’s neck, kissing him soundly.

  “Another rule broken,” Preston murmured. “Still don’t care. The poor guy needed help.”

  The arena was only half filled and the noise was already deafening. Ring handlers where doing last minute prep work and previous matches were playing on the giant screen that took up the width of the stage and rising almost to the ceiling, and it was still thirty minutes until show time. Preston put on the sunglasses, tapping the button on the side. The rose-colored lenses helped him scan the crowd for his assigned couple. An alert binged from the glasses, and he smiled. There they were, right by the ramp near the stage in the first row.

  As he trotted down the steps, he twisted the ring on his finger, allowing him to pass through the crowd like a ghost. Every person he walked through would turn to their partner and show them some sign of affection. He was supposed to avoid doing that, because, again, it was against the rules. Preston thought that was ridiculous. As bringers of love, shouldn’t they spread the feeling as much as possible? According to Cupid, so many people bei
ng affectionate all at once in the same area, would arouse suspicion and make their jobs more difficult. He sighed. His boss was so wrong on this and so many other points.

  Maybe he should take that point up with Cupid one of these days. The couple from the file sat in the front row at the corner of the ramp leading to where the wrestlers would make their way to the ring. He hopped up on the stage, waiting for the right moment. As the camera panned the crowd, images of various couples popped up on the giant television behind him. As the man proposed, Preston set off the pyrotechnics early, accentuating the moment.

  An acrid smell drifted to him on the slight breeze from the ventilation system. It definitely smelled like something was burning. Raising his head, he sniffed the air then looked behind him. It was him! He was on fire! The fireworks had ignited his coat and smoke was rising from his back. He whipped the coat off and stomped on the smoldering material until he had it out. When the emergency was over, realization of what had just happened dawned, and he stopped to look out at the arena. The crowd closest to him was pointing, and the rest of the fans were beginning to do the same. A quick glance at the giant screen showed him standing on the stage, his coat smoking. The whole incident, captured on camera, was being replayed.

  “Uh oh.”

  “Hey, you. Stop where you are and put your hands in the air,” a security guard shouted.

  More guards ran toward him in pairs and looked like they were coming from anywhere there was a door. Snatching up his still smoldering coat, he shoved his arms through the sleeves, and ran out the side door before security grabbed him. A spark from inside the coat zapped him in the back, a telling sign the cloaking mechanism was damaged beyond repair. There would be no hiding from the humans chasing him.

  Running down the corridor behind the stage, Preston finally found the outside door. He shoved the door open. The clang as it hit the wall drew the security guards to his location. Picking another way to the parking lot, he could still hear voices yelling at him loud and clear to stop and put his hands up.

  “Don’t these guys ever give up?”

  Running around the corner of the building, he charged right into a couple of parking lot security guards, sending the three of them down in a tangle of arms and legs. There was the sound of something cracking in his pocket that could only be the glasses. The one thing not broken on this little venture was the matter destabilizer. At least something came out intact.

  Hands grabbed him before he could pull himself out of the pile of humanity on the ground and, in the space of what felt like a few seconds, someone pushed him firmly into the back of a police car and hauled him away. Allie was going to completely lose her cool when he called her. The city flew by him and he just stared out the window. He really screwed up this time.

  Chapter Three

  The bright lights of the police station made Preston blink. He barely listened to the murmur of voices around him as they led him back to the booking area. The phone call he knew he had to make left his mouth dry and his stomach sour. A word didn’t exist to describe how Allie was going to react to this situation.

  “What the heck?”

  Preston looked at the officer taking his fingerprints. “What?”

  “You haven’t got any prints. Every time I try, I get nothing.”

  The card lay on the table and there were black smudges and blurs where the swirls of his fingers should have been. The officer grabbed his hand, stared at it, and tried again, getting the same results.

  “Okay, buddy, how are you doing that?”

  “I’m not doing anything,” Preston said. “Maybe I just don’t have any to take.”

  The officer grabbed him by his shoulder and took him to get his mugshot taken. “Yes, you do. I can see them.” He shoved Preston’s hand in his face. “See? I’m going to talk to my boss about this. We’ll try again when they get done with you.”

  Preston faced the camera, holding the card in front of his chest. The officer behind the camera frowned and soon swore under his breath.

  “Is there a problem?”

  The officer glanced up and scowled. “I can’t get this thing to focus. At all. No matter what I try, I can’t get a clear shot of your face.”

  “I wish I could help, but I don’t know anything about cameras.”

  The officer went back to turning dials and the lens moved in and out. “I don’t need your help. Just stand there.”

  Thirty minutes later, they put Preston in a holding cell. He looked around at the other people in there and sat on the bench closest to the door. One man, lying on the far bench on his back, snored softly. Two other men leaned against the wall and talked to each other and ignored Preston, which was completely all right with him.

  He’d called Allie and, he’d been right. She let him know, very loudly and in no uncertain terms, he’d messed up big time. She’d be there as soon as she could to get him out, but he was sure he was safer in the cell then he would be in her company right now. He dreaded seeing her when she came for him.

  He leaned his head against the wall and wondered how he could have been so stupid? Why couldn’t he just do what he was told? All Allie wanted him to do was follow the rules, but he’d done enough of that in college. She’d been the free spirit back then, and he’d knuckled under to every demand placed on him.

  The change in him had really taken hold when he started at Cupid Corporation. The more assignments he’d gone on, the more he found Cupid’s rules hampering his ability to do his job. More than that, he’d found most of them were downright ridiculous. So he started by bending a rule here, a rule there. Flat out breaking them came later, when there’d been one assignment that just couldn’t be accomplished the way it was laid out in the file. So he’d ditched the file and did things his way. That was when Allie became involved with his every movement.

  He’d never told her how he envied her freedom in college; the way she just let things happen and dealt with situations as they came up. She’d never been tied down the way he’d been. When they left school, he’d decided to try things her way. He loved the feeling of not being the good guy. The dependable guy. The guy everyone called to help make things right. These days, he’d dumped that responsibility on other people. And now, he was happy. He’d found a balance between freedom and rules and walked, sometimes even straying off, the narrow edge.

  This time, though, his mistake was off the charts. His mother would say catastrophic…and she wouldn’t be wrong. He’d been seen, damaged company equipment, and been hauled away by human police officers. In one afternoon, he’d lost everything including, he was sure, Allison McCall.

  The door opened and another man walked in and sat near him. Preston glanced at him and instantly knew he’d had a fight with his wife. Their relationship was nearly damaged beyond repair. He shook his head and looked away. Just like him, the poor guy had made one stupid mistake.

  “What?” the guy asked him.

  Preston stared at him. “Hitting your wife, even by accident, is not a good thing.”

  The man jumped to his feet. “How do you know why I’m here, and why do you think it’s any of your business?”

  “It’s kind of my job.”

  Sitting down again, but a little farther away, he just stared at Preston. “What are you, a social worker or something?”

  “Something like that. I help people find or fix their love lives, and you, my friend, have screwed up almost as badly as I have.”

  “Did you drink too much and lose your temper too?”

  Preston shook his head. “No, but I did mess up. It’s serious, and I think I may have lost the girl of my dreams because of it.”

  The two looked at each other, seeing their pain reflected in the other’s eyes. The man stuck his hand out. “Nathan.”

  “Preston,” he said, shaking Nathan’s hand. “You and your wife got married about five years ago, right?”

  “How’d you know?”

  Preston moved down the bench toward him just a few
inches. “I thought you looked familiar. I had your file. Your wife adores you. How could you do something like this to her?”

  Nathan’s eyes narrowed. “What file? And I look familiar?”

  “I’ve said too much. My work is sort of classified.”

  “Oh no. You don’t get off that easy. How do you know me?”

  Glancing at the others in the cell and seeing they were still ignoring him, Preston lowered his voice. “You’re not going to believe this, but I’m actually not from here. I live in a world where magic is the main force behind most things. I work for Cupid.”

  “Wait,” Nathan said, holding his hands up. “Are you telling me you work for the Cupid? What do you do?”

  “I help people fall in love.”

  Nathan was silent and stared hard at him. “You’re a nutcase.”

  “Maybe, but I know you had been going into that café every morning for two months because you wanted to ask the cashier out. How do you think you finally got the nerve? That was all me, buddy. The proposal, the wedding, and everything else, that was all you. I just helped you get started in the right direction.”

  Nathan’s mouth hung open for a moment. “Maybe you aren’t crazy.” He looked away. “But I’ve definitely ruined everything.”

  “Maybe you just need some help. Do you usually drink that much?”

  “No. Things have been bad lately. I got laid off from my job and money’s getting tight. I just wanted to forget for a little while. She started telling me about different jobs she’d found for me, and I ignored her. I didn’t want to hear it, so when she showed me what she’d printed out, I knocked the papers out of her hands. I guess I swung too hard, because I clipped her jaw. Next thing I know, the cops are bringing me here.” Nathan glanced at him. “What did you do?”

  “I had an assignment at the pro wrestling show. I guess my calculations were off. My coat caught fire and damaged the cloaking mechanism. I was seen, and apparently, the arena crews don’t like it when you mess with their stuff. They chased me and here I am. I had to call my boss and she’s beyond furious.”