Page 107 of The Cupid Chronicles

This is why I stopped dating. This is why I don’t let myself get close to people. This is why I am better off alone.

Watching her at dinner, the way she slipped so seamlessly into my life, it changed something inside of me. Seeing the way my people gravitated to her. The way both Nic and Val found me after family dinner and gave me all the reasons I needed tomake sureI didn’t screw this up. Two nosy sisters who swear they know what I need better than I do.

“She makes you happy.”

“You’reyouagain.”

“She’s just so fun. Like sunshine. Heck,Imight be in love with her.”

“We’re all in love with her.”

In love with her. The words feel strange as they pinball around my mind for the rest of the night. People use the word so casually, but love—real love, the kind I don’t believe in anymore—there’s nothing casual about it.

And on the day of Aria’s funeral, I promised myself . . . never again. I was content with that promise. Iamcontent with that promise. Because if I ever have to go through that kind of pain again, I won’t survive.

Besides, Iris needs someone who likes to share emotions and feelings and all the crap I suck at. I don’t see that changing.

The next day, when she shows up after work and Val loops an arm through hers and insists she stay for family dinner, the attraction doesn’t wane.

If anything, it only grows.

And somehow, we get past the awkward near-kiss moment without ever addressing it, which is not very adult, but I’m not going to complain.

Days turn into weeks, and Iris and I settle into a strange new rhythm. I suppose most people call it “friendship,” but it feels slightly foreign to me.

She comes by after work, eats with us, charms everyone, then leaves. I find her waiting for me when I get home from work, usually with a new newspaper and five different theories about what it wants us to do next.

Us.

People say it takes twenty-one days to form a habit, and we’re well on our way.

Winter has lost its chilly grasp on the air outside, and things are starting to wake up. It’s been three weeks since I almost kissed Iris, and we keep getting closer.

And I still haven’t told her about Aria.

It’s a weight I need to unload, but I haven’t found the right time. I don’twantanything to change. The light feeling I only feel when she’s around. The way she doesn’t see me as broken. The quiet laughter she tends to coax out of me.

When she’s around, it’s like I’m collecting a list of things I like about her—the trail of freckles across her nose. How excited she was to give a wonky-looking crocheted jellyfish to one of my servers who is pregnant with her first baby. How she pulls a chair up to the opposite side of my counter and tells me stories about her day while I work. She’s so animated when she talks about her job, I feel like I know all of her students. And her co-workers, whom she’s brought to dinner several times.

Val and Nic take to them immediately, and twice I’ve let them go home early so they could all go out for “girls’ night,” which, I found out later, was just going back to Iris’s apartment to watch chick flicks and eat leftovers from the restaurant.

For whatever reason, Iris isn’t put off by my attitude or my tendency to hold myself out of conversations. She’s content to do most of the talking. She asks plenty of questions, but she spaces them out, probably worried I’ll shut down like I always do.

Her approach is working. Little by little, I’m opening up to her. I tell her stories about summers with my grandparents and the way I discovered how much I love to cook. I tell her about studying in Italy with a chef my grandma knew and about starting the restaurant.

Still, I do not tell her about Aria.

The newspapers seem to be on a fairly regular deliveryschedule now, like we subscribed and whoever’s sending them wants a five-star review.

They’re still all addressed to me, still all delivered to her.

In the three years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never had such frequent deliveries. And every time we solve a riddle or meet someone new or connect old friends, Iris is thrilled she gets to help another person.

I’ve started to appreciate something that used to be such a burden. And I know that’s because of her.

She beams as she plans a singles event in the courtyard to connect two young people over their incredibly specific and unique love of guacamole.

She giggles as an animal lover just so happens to be in the right place at the right time—standing next to Iris and me at the coffee shop—when she overhears us talking about a new dog park that’s opening and they’re looking to hire new people.

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