Page 18 of The Cupid Chronicles

“Okay. Let’s do this.”

I hop out and grab my bag and water bottle from the back seat. I contemplate calling Brooke. She’s been begging for an invite to my place, and maybe I shouldn’t be alone right now. I pull out my phone and start to dial but change my mind and click it off.

If I’m having a breakdown, I need to have it on my own.

That’s great advice,I think.

I try to act natural as I walk into the entryway, but I can feel my eyes darting around and the small hair on the back of my neck standing on end. Once I see that there’s no one else around, I race through the lobby and straight into the stairwell. I bolt up three flights of stairs, skipping every other step, and when I reach the third floor, I stop, hand on the door handle and draw in a very slow, very deep breath.

“Everything is okay.” But I hear the shake in my voice as I open the door to my floor. It’s weird, but a small, tingly part of me wants it to still be there.

I peek around the corner and down the hall, squinting like a child watching a horror movie, not really wanting to see the scene in front of me but compelled to keep looking.

But when I sort out which door is mine, my eyes whip to the floor in front of it, and I let out a relieved sigh.

It’s gone.

My sigh turns to laughter, and I shake away thoughts of delusion.

Hallucinations. My eyesmusthave been playing tricks on me. That or Matteo noticed it and picked it up on his way out of the building that morning.

“You need more sleep, Iris,” I say out loud as I stick the key in my door, vowing to forego Netflix tonight in favor of actual rest.

I push the door open, and all the good feelings in my body disappear.

On the floor, just inside my door, is a rolled-up newspaper.

Inside my apartment.

Behind the locked door.

I stare at it.

I cock my head and stare at it longer.

In a daze, I slowly turn, close the door, hang up my bag, and then kneel down and gently reach out and pick up the paper.

Not a hallucination. It’s real. I can feel it.

I turn it over and see the same name—Matteo Morgan—on the outside label. I run a finger over it, unsure what I’m looking for. Do I expect the words to come to life? Are the photos going to start to move? Is this paper like some kind of magic fortune cookie, rhyming riddles or predicting the future?

Ooh. Will it make me travel through time? Because I’d really love to find out who Jane Austen was imagining when she wrote Mr. Darcy . ..

Stop it, it’s not real.

I shake it. I stand and move it around like a wand.

Nothing.

It’s just a paper. It’s not exploding in my hand or playing music or turning me into a newt. The only thing special about it is that it’s here, in my apartment.

And while I’m sure there is a logical explanation, I’m also sure that the only person who might know the answer is the man this newspaper belongs to.

I open the door, walk down the hall, and raise a fist to knock. But then I remember my first encounter with him, and I pause. I don’t want to get a reputation as “that deranged single woman who moved in last fall.”

I also don’t want to handle rudeness right now.

I drop the paper at Matteo’s door and pivot back the way I came, thankful when I don’t see anything on my welcome mat. I go inside and close the door behind me. “Not going to try to figure out how that thing got inside,” I say out loud as I open the refrigerator and pull out a Dr Pepper. “I’m sure there is a perfectly logical explana?—”

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