Page 12 of Okay, Cupid

“It wasn’t that I didn’t believe you could do it,” she explains. “I just wanted Richard to be wrong.”

“Which I never am,” he says with too much pride in his voice. “Regardless. I still want to keep a close eye on you, Jude.”

“It isn’t going to happen again. I promise the both of you. And I’m going to work on controlling myself. We don’t have to move.”

“I’d like to believe that. I’d hate to lose the two of you,” Richard says. “And I want to trust you. It won’t happen again because it can’t.”

Because kissing a human costs them their memories. It’s meant to be a teaching moment, to show us that we can never have what we want. That second kiss, though? It costs us everything. Our powers, our memories, our lives as Cupids.

Gone. Just like that.

All because of a kiss.

I look at Leah again, and she looks away, unable to meet my eyes. I can tell that she’s still wary, and I wish I didn’t understand why, but I do. “So, if I passed today, if I’m ready … what’s next?”

“Is Jude getting back out there?” Cal asks before I can. I’m glad he does, though. I’m not sure I could’ve been as direct.

“Well, Leah and I spoke to other Cupids, and we came to a decision. Well, less of a decision, and more of a test, really.”

I don’t like the sound of this. “A test?”

“Something tougher than your normal assignments,” Leah says. “Something longer term.”

“Really?” I look over at Cal, who seems to have excitement in his eyes as he looks back at me.

Leah continues, “Two teenagers who live in the area. There’s history there—it’s messy. You both know how teenagers are. But deep down, the two of them still harbor feelings for each other. We want you to go into their school, get ingrained in their lives, and then do what you have to do to enable them to fall in love again.”

“High school?” I’ve never actually been to human high school before, not in any regular way. All my assignments lasted a week at the most, and they usually involved adults, though I’ve had to sneak onto campuses once or twice. Usually all I’ve had to do in the past is steal a job, pretend to be an intern or something. “What do you mean by ‘longer term’?”

“This assignment will be more involved,” Richard says. “You’ll have to do a lot of the work for yourself. So, we’re giving you a month.”

“A month?”

When I say it out loud, it somehow sounds like too much time, and not nearly enough. A month of public school, of being around other kids my age. I’ll go to classes, do homework, maybe some sports games, all while I get to know these two strangers. If the high school rom-coms I’ve seen are anything to go off, high school is a totally different animal. Social hierarchies, drama, hormones running rampant.

Richard continues, “I know it’s a big ask. But this will be a real test of what you can do, your capabilities. You up for it?”

I mean, what could my answer be other than yes?

I can hardly sleep the night leading up to my first day of school.

I feel giddy just thinking it. My first day of school.

For an hour, I roll around in bed before I realize that I’m not going to get any rest at all, so I grab my headphones and my laptop and find Enchanted in my digital movie catalog. Every month we’re given an allowance for food, clothes, groceries, household stuff, and I’m not ashamed to admit how much of my money goes toward my ever-growing rom-com collection.

Okay, maybe I’m a little ashamed.

I have to scroll through my movies to make a decision, wondering if I’m in a You’ve Got Mail or Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist mood. Maybe I want something newer, a Crush or Fire Island, though I do always love a good Pride and Prejudice retelling.

Leah doesn’t like just how much time I’ve spent investing in the human world, in their stories. But I think that by watching and reading the things they create, we can get insight into how their minds work, into the stories that they want to tell and how they tell them, their emotions, and the wish fulfillment they craft into the story.

It’s a pretty bogus lie. But I mean, I’m not wrong.

Tonight, though, I don’t even really watch the movie. No, instead I take my phone, going to Instagram. Leo’s username sits there right at the top of my list, tempting me to tap on it. But I avoid it, typing in the name Huy Trinh letter by letter. That’s one of the people I need to set up—Huy Trinh and Thanh Tran, who also goes by the name Alice. Since all the research is my responsibility, I’ve got next to nothing on Huy or Alice other than their names, addresses, and some pictures Richard has sent me.

The problem is that Instagram is a big website, and simply typing in their names doesn’t really lead me anywhere. So, I go to the Hearst High School website—there obviously isn’t some free database of student names for me to look through, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to look. And my gut feeling is proven right when I get to the page on Hearst’s sports teams, and there, in the lineup of the soccer team, is Huy Trinh. He even has a little Captain in parentheses next to his name.

The picture is obviously different from the school record photo Richard provided. That one looks like it was taken freshman year, when he had a rounder face and shorter hair. He looks thinner here, taller, his hair more grown out. His skin has softened, but there are still pockmarks. I take a shot in the dark back on Instagram, trying out a few different names.