redeeming cupid 01 - struck by eros

by Jenn Windrow

  “Not a problem, huh?”

  I scooped my bathrobe off the end of the bed and covered up “Not the time or place for I-told-you-so’s.” I stepped in front of him and walked into the hall. “Let’s put him in the guest room.”

  Grayson followed and waited while I opened the door to the room across from mine. He placed Len on the bed and I returned to wait in the hall while he tucked Len in for the night. Once Len was safely deposited, and we were sure he was still asleep, we stepped into the hall and closed the door tight.

  I turned and faced Grayson. “Thank you.” My words were filled with all kinds of sincerity. “And we didn’t have sex.” I surprised myself when the words left my mouth. “I just thought you should know.”

  Grayson nudged me with his elbow. “What’s the plan now?”

  We walked away from the room. “How much do you know about Cupid?” I hoped he knew more than me, but had a feeling he didn’t have a clue either.

  “Nothing more than what you can read on the internet.”

  “You’ve never wanted to know why us?” We made our way down the stairs, past the family photos that have been there my whole life. Pictures of my family, including great-great-great grandparents I had never met. “To get the answers?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “I can’t change the circumstances, why bother finding out the answers?”

  “But what if we could change the circumstances? Find a way to be free from each other once and for all? You’re not happy with me, and I’m not happy with you. All I want is freedom from Cupid, you, this crazy roller coaster. I want to be free to choose my own soul mate.”

  Grayson scoffed. “You assume to know me and what I want, but yet you’ve never once taken the time to ask me how I feel.” I heard the words selfish bitch in the tone of his words. And possibly a bit of hurt?

  Grayson spoke the truth. I’ve never asked how he felt, cared what he thought, or considered him more than an inconvenience in my life. But admitting to all of the above didn’t change the fact that maybe Grayson and I didn’t belong to together and wouldn’t have lasted for more than a quick roll in the sack if Cupid hadn’t intervened.

  I looked up at the guest room where Len lay passed out. There had to be a way out. A path to freedom to be with the man I loved and released from the man I loathed. Used to loathe. Because after the past few days I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that was the case anymore.

  Grayson walked to the front door, his hand closed over the knob. “Grayson, wait.” I rushed forward and stood in front of him. “Help me find a way out. A way to be with my true soul mate. Then once you’re free, you’ll have your life back, be rid of me for good.”

  His shoulders slumped like he had just given up, and his hand fell away from the knob. He took a step back from the door, raised his head, and looked me straight in the eyes. “Let’s be clear that I don’t need to know the why’s, and I don’t want a way out.” He went into the living room, shrugged out of his jacket, and flung it over the arm of the couch. “Because this is important to you, I’ll help.”

  My heart jigged like a leprechaun after finding a pot of gold.

  Guilt turned my cheeks red, and I found myself once again being grateful for Grayson and his willingness to help. “Thank you.” The second time in one night I uttered those words to him.

  He plopped down on the couch. “Where do you want to start?”

  I ran into my office, grabbed my stack of books, placing them on the coffee table. Then I settled next to him on the couch, opened a book, and placed it in his lap. “In the mood to do some research?” I turned to the page I had been reading before Len interrupted me. “Hidden in one of these books is the key to our freedom. We just have to find it.”

  Eleven

  Schoolyard Bully with Mommy Issues

  Opened books with purple sticky notes stuck in various places littered my living room floor, and printed Internet searches covered the surface of the coffee table. Grayson had taken over the electronic portion of our search, and I had gone through the books. After four hours of scouring every story about Cupid we could find, the only thing we had learned was that he was an evil fucker.

  Not that I didn’t know that already.

  And seriously, whoever thought to use him as the embodiment of love really needed to do their research. Cute baby in a diaper with a harmless bow and arrow that shoots people and makes them fall in love? My ass. More like a schoolyard bully with a short man complex and mommy issues.

  A book lay open in my lap, and I played with the end of my ponytail, making a little mustache above my lip. Grayson chuckled from his overly relaxed position on the couch, a piece of paper in his hands.

  “Find something?” I sat straighter, stretching the kinks out of back from hours on the floor.

  “Reading all this reminded me of my mom’s nickname for me.” He placed the paper on the couch next to him. “She used to call me her little Greek god.”

  I rolled my eyes so far back into my head it actually hurt. “Now I know where your over-inflated ego comes from.”

  He held up his arm and flexed his very god-like muscles. “If the nickname fits.”

  I tossed my pencil at his head, but he reached up and snagged it out of the air before it made contact. “Stop playing around. We need to get you out of here before Len wakes up, and we’re not any closer to finding anything.”

  “Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way.” He stood and paced around the couch, slamming his hand into his fist with each new step. “Maybe Cupid isn’t the connection with all of this, maybe it’s something about us.”

  “Something in our past that stuck us together?” I tossed the book in my lap on the table.

  Grayson clapped his hands together. “Exactly. Where were you when the arrow struck?”

  The infamous day that changed my world, along with one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. “At the theater with Len.” I shifted my legs so I sat cross-legged on the floor. “We were twenty minutes into Wicked, then zing, the arrow pierced my backside. I remember jumping up, startled, and when I looked down a metallic gold arrow was just sticking out of my butt.” I rubbed at the spot, remembering the pain. “Len grabbed my hand and pulled me back down, embarrassed I was causing a scene. I asked if he saw the arrow, he shushed me, gave me a look that had “lunatic” written all over it, pulled me back in my seat, and refocused on the play.”

  The next part of my story made my heart jump like a kid in a bounce house: the memory of trying to focus on something other than the urge to leave Len and search for what was missing. I hopped up, not ready to divulge the rest without a few minutes alone. “Want some water?” Grayson nodded, and I went into the kitchen.

  Two deep breaths in and out to calm my nerves. The night I met Grayson complicated things in my life more than the obvious betrayal to Len, because no matter how much I hated to admit it, I was attracted to Grayson, along with every other woman with a beating pulse. But I was starting to think it was more than physical, a deeper connection I wanted to deny. Wanted to ignore. Wanted to go away.

  I came back into the room, handed Grayson his bottle of water, and took my seat on the couch to continue my story. “I made it through the play, but the whole time I was watching, I had this feeling…like…” I picked at a piece of fuzz on my bathrobe because I couldn’t continue. Couldn’t seem to find the right words to express what I felt the night that arrow struck and my life went to hell.

  “You were in the wrong place, with the wrong person.” Grayson dropped his chin and fiddled with his watch.

  Holy shit. It’s like he read my mind. Expressed what I couldn’t. “Exactly.” I lowered my eyes, relieved he understood. “Where were you?” I twirled my water bottle, making tiny whirlpools, hoping my question would take me out of the spotlight.

  “On a date...” I opened my mouth, but he held up his hand and cut me off. “Not a one-night stand, an actual date. With a woman I had been crazy about. She finally
said yes, after months of me begging. Just like you, she thought of me as a playboy, a man-whore, just out for the next roll in the sack.” I flinched as he repeated my words. “But my winning personality and boyish charm finally won out.”

  I scoffed, but held in the sarcastic comment sitting on the tip of my tongue. “Then the arrow came?”

  “Middle of dinner. Right in the ass.” He rubbed the scruff on his chin. “I managed to keep it together until after dessert, but I couldn’t focus on the conversation or her. The whole time I sat there thinking I needed to be someplace else. With someone else.” He took a sip of his water. “I dropped her off and things ended awkwardly, no kiss or promises for a second date. I couldn’t wait to get away, to follow this invisible pull that drove toward something else. I figured out later that it was driving me toward you.”

  Grayson didn’t need to finish the rest of his story. I knew it firsthand. I had followed the same path. A path that led me to a park, a bench, and Grayson sitting under a streetlight.

  Len drove us home, still annoyed at my outburst in the theater. When he parked the car, I told him I needed to run to the store and pick up something I needed for work. He was used to my last minute runs, my lack of planning ahead one of the many things that irritated him.

  I hopped into Doris, and drove, no destination in mind, just this pull that I followed to a local park. I walked the path, confident I was headed in the right direction, toward something that would change my life.

  Grayson sat on a bench, devilish good looks, lost in thought, staring at the playground equipment. Something called to me, not just a physical attraction, but all the way to my soul. I came up next to him. He turned his head my way and smiled. At that second I knew I was a goner. That this would be the night I cheated on Len.

  I sat next to him. Not one word spoken between us. We didn’t need to. Comfort filled the peace between us, like old friends who don’t need to fill up the silence with inane chitchat. Our hands touched, the lust ignited, and before I knew it, we were looking for the nearest bush to duck behind.

  I still carried the guilt and shame of that first time with Grayson around like an anvil tied to my ankle.

  I woke up the next morning to my first text message from Cupid explaining the rules, and a life now filled with lies and deceit since that one moment of indiscretion.

  There was something I needed to say. Something I should have said weeks ago. Something that filled me with a mix of woman-power and remorse. Something I couldn’t hold in any longer. “I hate you for being charming and handsome and desirable. I hate you for causing me to be unfaithful to Len. I hate you for being exactly what I wanted, two years too late.”

  That sentence held the root of the problem. If Grayson had entered my life before Len, I would have fallen in love…hard. But he hadn’t, and I had made a life with Len, a life that was now destroyed.

  He rubbed the heal of his palm over his heart like I had physically struck him with something more deadly than words. “I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, try taking some accountability for your actions. The way I look, who I am, that’s not the reason you’re ready to jump on my joy stick in less than a minute whenever we touch.” He raised one eyebrow. “I’m not the reason you cheated on Len, because you’ve been a very willing participant since that very first time.”

  “I’m never willing, not with you.” I tucked my knees closer to my chest. “It’s the lust that Cupid cursed us with. If it wasn’t for that I would never have sex with you.” Even I didn’t believe the lie.

  Grayson frowned, forming tiny wrinkles between his eyes. He looked at me as if he didn’t know what I was talking about then shook his head slightly, before he knelt down next to the pile of research he had printed off. He dug through each stack and finally held one up.

  “The story of Daphne and Apollo.” He slapped the pages in his hand.

  He pulled a pair of black-framed reading glasses out the pocket of his brown-leather jacket and put them on. Damn…they made him look even sexier. He leaned back on the couch and thumbed through the pages. “I kept going back to this one. Something you just said made me think of it. Do you know it?”

  “No, but the names sound familiar.”

  Grayson sat back on the couch, skimming the story. He smiled, nodded, and pointed at the printed words. “That’s it.”

  “Care to share with the rest of the class?” I said, anxious to hear what he found.

  “Our boss, Cupid, a god not known for his sense of humor liked to meddle in people’s love lives.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me, since he meddled in ours.”

  He traced his finger over the words on the page. “I’m paraphrasing here, but the gist of it is that the handsome, athletic, and proud Greek God Apollo teased Cupid about his lack of skill with a bow and arrow. Cupid didn’t appreciate the ribbing and decided to get revenge. When Apollo fell in love with a beautiful, sea-nymph named Daphne.”

  “Let me guess. Cupid shot them both with a big dose of never-going-to-fall-in-love.”

  He held up his finger and gave me a side-eyed-smirk. “Not exactly. He shot Apollo with a golden arrow of lust, but not Daphne. He shot her with a leaden arrow of aversion.” He paused, reading ahead. “Apollo pursued Daphne, wanting nothing more than to be with her, but when Apollo approached, she would run from him, wanting nothing to do with him.”

  “So he stalked the woman he loved in the hope she would find that charming?” Men had been clueless about what it took to get a woman much longer than I thought.

  “Yep. And when his advances became too much, she begged her father, Peneius, to aid her, saying, ‘Help me! Open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which has brought me into this danger. Let me be free from this man from this moment forward.”

  I sat up straighter, intrigued by what Grayson was suggesting. “Her father helped her?”

  “If that’s what you want to call it. He turned her into a laurel tree to keep her safe.” Grayson placed the pages back on the ground. “Does the story sound familiar?”

  “Could your arrow have been loaded with lust and mine aversion?”

  Grayson chuckled, the kind of chuckle meant to humor me. “That’s one way to look at it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m not the one talking about uncontrollable lust whenever we touch.”

  There was no possible way I was the only one who felt like jumping the other’s bones this whole time. He had to feel it too. I tossed the heaviest book I could find into his lap.

  “Hey, just saying.” He held up his hands in mock-surrender.

  “If Cupid is repeating history, then I was right. I’m not meant for you, and you’re not meant for me. We’re just another Apollo and Daphne for him. A sick game.” I hopped up and grabbed my phone off the table.

  “What are you planning now, Noel?” His I’m-not-ready-for-another-Noel-adventure sigh tried my nerves.

  “I’m taking a leap of faith. Hoping history repeats itself.” I pulled up Cupid’s contact information. “I’m begging Cupid to release me.”

  I tapped out the words that would hopefully get me what I wanted. Freedom. The right to choose my own fate, my own mate. “Help me, Cupid. Set me free. Free to be with the man who is meant for me.”

  I hit send. The green line at the top of my phone stretched across the screen, moving farther to the right, until the word “sending” disappeared. I waited for the bounce back message I always got when I tried to text Cupid back, but it never came. Instead, the little blue magic bubble appeared; the message made it through. I held out my phone, showing Grayson my message.

  “Do you really think that’s going to work?” He stood, picked his jacket up off the couch, and slipped it on, his gaze drifting up the stairs. “Are you going to go climb into bed with him?” Something close to jealousy coated his words.

  “No,” I blurted out, not sure why I felt compelled to defend myself. “I won’t give him any hope un
til I know Cupid has released me.”

  “And if Cupid doesn’t release you, are you willing to let him go?” He removed his glasses and tucked them back away into his jacket pocket, not meeting my eyes.

  “I’m not sure.” The same words I had said to Len.

  “Why do you think he is better for you than me?”

  “He’ll never hurt me.” I tried to hide the sliver of doubt that invaded my words and my heart.

  “What makes you so sure I would?”

  Grayson didn’t understand the hurt and the pain that came from being left at the altar. The thousands I spent on therapy bills to get over the humiliation. The fact that I had to harden my heart, change my personality, all to keep from getting hurt again. He didn’t understand how much he reminded me of my ex-asshole. And that memory was still too fresh. Too raw. “Because that’s all guys like you know how to do. Hurt. Crush. Destroy. Leave.”

  “I’ve never done anything to hurt you.” He raised his eyebrows as if challenging me to disagree.

  The arm of the couch held me and my courage to continue at this point. “You showed up in my life when I was finally happy. Finally content.” I hoped Grayson heard my next words loud and clear. “I can’t fall into your arms. I can’t let myself love you. I can’t accept you for anything more than an inconvenience. I’ll fight Cupid until the day I die to be free. I want to choose the man I spend eternity with, not be forced into it by some supernatural know-it-all.” On the surface my words were strong, but something in my heart bent, cracked, broke, made me regret speaking them.

  Grayson pushed past me on the way to the door. “And what if I said I would spend the rest of my days proving you wrong?” He swept his hand between the two of us. “Showing you I’m nothing like the man who hurt you so bad you ran to the complete opposite of what you’re attracted to. Because I don’t believe for one second that your heart beats for the man upstairs like it does for me.” He placed his hand on the doorknob and turned. “What if I don’t stop chasing?”