Page 94 of The Cupid Chronicles

She studies me and then starts slowly shaking her head.

“What?”

“You’re just like . . . areallydecent human.”

“Okay.” I walk the dishes over to the sink and flip on the water.

She grins, then picks up both of our mugs and walks straight into the space beside me, rinsing them out under the faucet. I tighten at her nearness, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

I open the dishwasher and file the plates in as she turns off the water and hands me the mugs.

It’s mundane, really, but it feels significant.

Having another person in my space, helping with simple things, feeling comfortable around me—notreminding me of the past or trying to plan my future—is nice.

I close the dishwasher and turn around. She’s standing next to the sink, but without something in her hands, she’s fidgeting again.

“Do I make you nervous?” I’m not sure where the question came from, but I am curious why she’s always fidgeting around me.

She follows my gaze to her hands, then shoves them in her pockets and turns away. “No. I mean, maybe.” She leans against the counter. “Okay, yeah. You’re a little intimidating.”

I frown. “I’m intimidating?”

“Well, youwere.” She looks at me. “Not as much anymore.”

“Yeah. I was a jerk,” I say. “I never really apologized for that, did I?”

She winces.

“I am sorry,” I say. “That’s really not who I am.”

In one fluid motion, she lifts herself up onto the counter and crosses one leg over the other. “Okay, so who are you?”

I tilt my head at her.

“I know, I know,” she says before I can remind her. “No questions. But I don’t care. If I’m going to have a Magic Mentor, I need to know who I’m working with.”

My stomach tenses at the comment, mostly because I don’t want her to know who she’s working with. I don’t want the light, easy, new rapport we’ve got going on to change, and once she finds out the truth, it will.

Just like always.

People find out about Aria, and I become a charity case. It’s not a good feeling.

That’s why I keep to myself.

I actually kind of get along with Iris. I like being around her. Maybe because in her eyes, there’s no pity, no plan—only the quiet question,Who exactly are you?

And my own quiet answer that it’s better if she doesn’t know.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Iris

I setmy alarm a full forty-five minutes early. There’snochance of getting woken up with?—

*THWAP*

It’s basically torture at this point.

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