Page 48 of Incurably Cupid

He smirked, taking my phone. “What if I order five meals?”

“Then I’ll use your credit card to pay and thank you for covering my meal.”

He chuckled and chose his meal, then leaned back against the cushioned headboard. He looked like his strength was returning. He didn’t bring Lance with him tonight, though technically he still needed to use him for a few more days. But I understood; we were just next door to each other. He should be okay to use the ether path in a day or so.

I found what I wanted to order and ticked all the boxes, adding them to my cart. I paid, and then we settled in to wait for our food while scrolling through the channels looking for something good.

We settled on a sci-fi film. One of the passengers in cold sleep had been awakened early by the ship’s computer because someone was awake on the ship and attempting to sabotage the ship’s key systems. They started failing one by one, and the woman was racing against time to save the rest of the passengers in cryosleep and regain control enough to land on a habitable planet.

It was totally and completely gripping, which is why I jumped nearly a foot off the bed when someone suddenly knocked at my door.

Mesmer bit his lip, trying not to laugh. “You okay there?”

“I think my spirit almost left my body,” I complained, retrieving our food.

We paused the movie and sat at the table to eat, both of us carefully avoiding the topics from earlier. Instead, Mesmergently asked me questions throughout our entire meal—about my job, about being a cupid, along with many other things, like how I'd first met Leo—and he did it so skillfully that I didn’t realize I’d basically monopolized the entire conversation until much later.

“So, Leo was brand new from the fae engineers when you got him?”

I nodded, taking a bite of my omelette. “It was fine for a few months, and then, randomly, in the middle of the night, he became sentient. Some weird male voice started talking in my room, and I about had a heart attack.”

Leo, from his spot on my bed, warbled in embarrassment. “We’re like little kids when we first become sentient. We have to learn about appropriate and socially acceptable behaviors. I’m so sorry, Indie. I really scared you that night.”

I grimaced, remembering. “Yeah, you did, but it’s okay. It’s over and forgotten. And for someone newly sentient, you learned really quickly.”

“Not quickly enough,” Leo mumbled.

Mesmer looked intrigued, but I waved Leo’s comment away. We would not be getting into some of his more embarrassing moments tonight, because some of them involved me.

After we ate, we both returned to watching the movie. We’d paused it at about the midway point.

I kept glancing out of the corner of my eye at Mesmer, and finally, I just asked, “Do you want to sit over here with me instead of being all the way over there?”

He hesitated, then nodded, bringing his pillows with him.

I scooched over as far as I could because this bed was only a double, and Mesmer was massive. I fully expected to be half off the bed by the time he got fully settled, and I wasn’t wrong. Eventually, he sighed. “I don’t have cooties. You can get closer, if you want.”

“You don’t mind?” I asked, trying to read his expression.

In answer, he lifted his arm enough for me to slide under. “If I minded, I wouldn’t have said anything,” he said quietly. “I mean, at the very least, we’re friends, right?”

My stomach dropped.

Is that all we were? Is that all I wanted to be?

“Yeah... friends.”

After the movie,he headed back to his room, but I couldn’t sleep.

“Leo?”

“Yeah, love?”

“I’m in a pickle.”

He snorted. “Boy, are you ever!”

I rolled onto my side, lowering my voice. I didn't want Mesmer's supernatural hearing to pick up our conversation through the walls. “What do I do?”

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