Page 42 of The Cupid Chronicles

Simultaneously we say, “. . . smacked you/me in the head.”

He glances my way but doesn’t exactly make eye contact.

Something inside me settles. “What is going on?”

He looks past me, again, making sure—what, that we aren’t being followed?—and then motions to the stairwell.

I follow him into the dimly lit space and blindly think that under different circumstances, it would be pretty hot to escape into a dark stairwell with a very good-looking man who knows how to cook.

When he turns back and looks at me, I feel my knees wobble because, holy heck,those eyes.

I want to look away. Looking away could be considered self-preservation. But it’s like when someone tells you not to stare directly at the sun during a solar eclipse. Knowing you shouldn’t do something sometimes makes it harder to do.

“You’re not . . . seeing things,” he finally admits. “Weird things happen. Sometimes. It’s just part of living in this building.”

I frown. Okay. A mention of the building. This is progress. “Is this place, like, haunted?”

“No, I don’t think so. It’s not . . . like that, exactly.”

I pause. Am I really going to ask this aloud? Yes. Because I really want to know.

“Is it . . . magic?” My words echo in the cathedral-like acoustics of the stairwell, and I swear I hear the distant tinkle of chimes. Asking the question out loud makes me feel ridiculous, which is probably why I whispered it, even though we’re standing here, just the two of us.

Just the two of us.

My brain makes more of that than it should.

“Do you believe in magic?” Matteo asks.

“Do you?” I counter.

He pulls a face. “I didn’t used to.”

“But now?”

He shrugs.

“Then explain the newspapers,” I say, a little more forcefully than I mean to. “Because it doesn’t make sense.”

He squints at me, as if trying to place my face after having only met me once. “And you’re uncomfortable when things don’t make sense?”

“No, I’m perfectly comfortable when things don’t make sense. Algebra makes no sense, and I survived high school,” I say. “This mustache trend on guys in their twenties makes no sense, but that’s never bothered me enough to make me lose sleep.” I sigh. “Thisis making me lose sleep.”

“I wish I could help more. I really do. I just don’t fully understand it myself.”

“But you read the paper! You showed up at Winnie’s with Italian food!”

“And you brought a cat.”

“Because of the newspaper.”

He shifts, as if he’s only now realizing he might’ve just proved my point. “Why a cat?”

“I thought she needed one,” I say. “It’s what the article talked about. I searched all over God’s green earth to find a cat that matched the exact color as the one she had before, but I had no luck. And then, out of nowhere, this random black kitten with white feet was sitting in my parking space right before I was headed upstairs to knock on her door.”

He looks antsy.

“Do you really have to get to work?”

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