Page 5 of The Cupid Chronicles

I scan the text and black and white images neatly arranged under the banner that reads,Serendipity Hall Ledger.

Finally, I spot it. Near the bottom of page three. The article with my marching orders. Now, I just have to interpret the directive and carry it out.

Again. Like I’ve done for the last three years.

But it didn’t come to me this time.

Maybe this is it.

Maybe since it was delivered to someone else, The Serendipity is finally getting the hint that I suck at this.

Maybe it will finally be over.

Then maybe, just maybe, I’ll get a little peace and quiet.

Chapter Two

Iris

“Okay.Yes. Fine. He was good-looking, Brooke, but you’re ignoring the most important part.”

We’re standing in the teacher’s lounge, me waiting for my single cup of coffee to brew, and my co-worker Brooke wasting her one precious free hour. The things she’ll do for even the hint of gossip.

I arrived at work coffee-stained, sticky, and twenty minutes late, and attempted to slip into the staff meeting already in progress. I tried to be stealthy so I didn’t disrupt the principal, Mr. Kincaid—Charles—I have a hard time calling him by his first name, though he insists—but I might as well have been wearing a headband with sparklers on it. Everyone turned to look at me the second I opened the door.

And now, half the day has passed, and Brooke has been waiting to get what she expects is the salacious scoop about why I was late. Save for the coffee, the truth is, unfortunately, utterly lukewarm.

“I can’t think ofanythingmore important,” Brooke says, still expecting drama. “Come on! You’re hot and single.”

“Ha.”

“He’shot and single.”

“Nobody said that?—”

She continues like I’m not even talking. “The universe is practically forcing you together. You can’t ignore that.Hispaper onyourdoorstep? It’s the building. Has to be.”

“Brooke, come on.”

“Iknewthat place is magic.” She spins in a circle. “Are there any apartments for rent? Or do you have a spare room? I just want to see it for myself.”

I groan and roll my eyes. “It’snotmagic.” I pick up my cup from under the spout of the Keurig machine, move down the counter, and pour in so much creamer that it hardly even tastes like coffee anymore. “And what kind of magic would it be? The kind that makes me late for work? The kind that makes me spill coffee all over my shirt?”

“The kind that brought you face-to-face with a hot neighbor.” Brooke opens the refrigerator and pulls out two cups of yogurt, waving one in front of me.

“I can just dump this right on your shirt if you want, save you the time,” she jokes.

“Hilarious,” I deadpan.

She puts one carton back in the fridge, closes it, then removes the foil from the top of the other. “You’re refusing to see what’s right in front of you.”

“Okay. Let’s just say you’re right, for argument’s sake. If ‘magic’ brought me face-to-face with that jerk, it was only to remind me that just because someone is good-looking, it does not make them kind.”

Even as I say it, a question enters my mind: Why is he so rude? Did something happen to make him that way?

Brooke must’ve seen the question on my face because she points her spoon at me. “Ha!”

“No.No, Brooke, I have zero interest. None.”

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