I'm With Cupid (15 page)

Eddie stood outside the hospital room, listening to Lena and Marcus chatting with the young woman and her new match. He was relieved it had finally all worked out. If the mess had dragged on for a day longer, no doubt he would have been on probation again, not to mention all the irreparable damage it could have caused. He had his hands full as it was, putting everything back in order.

He grabbed his phone and dialed. “Yes, ma'am,” he said when someone answered. “Both love matches were successful, after everything.”

He paced around the hallway, listening. He wasn't sure how Marcus and Lena had managed a love match for Olivia when neither of them had even zapped her, but he wasn't going to question it. One thing he'd learned on the job over the years was that you could always count on surprises. For example, the love match between Lena and Marcus suddenly working out after all this time had been a shock. They'd been zapped last spring during their math project, and nothing had come of it. Eddie had figured it wasn't meant to work out. But maybe they simply needed to spend more time with one another. Or maybe they needed all this craziness to bring them together. Whatever it was, he was happy for them. He only hoped they were strong enough to handle what was coming next.

The voice on the other end of the phone grew louder, and Eddie realized he hadn't been paying attention. “What was that, ma'am?” He listened again for a long while, and then he sighed. “Well, they think everything is back to normal. I thought I would let them enjoy things for a little while before I turn their worlds upside down again.” He sighed again. “They will have plenty to deal with soon enough.”

My thanks to L. M. Boston for her haunting novel
The
Children
of
Green
Know
e
; its mention of a play in which Cupid and Death accidentally swap arrows inspired the premise of this book. Thank you to Heather Kelly, Megan Kudrolli, Susan Lubner, Susan L. Meyer, Patty Bovie, and Josh Funk for their feedback and brainstorming help. As always, thank you to Ammi-Joan Paquette and Aubrey Poole for constantly pushing me to make my work better, and to my family and friends for continuing to wave their pom-poms book after book. And thank you to Ray Brierly, to whom this book is dedicated, for reading more versions of my novels than anyone should ever be forced to and for slipping me pieces of chocolate when I need them the most.

Anna Staniszewski lives outside Boston with her wacky dog and her slightly less wacky husband. She was a Writer-in-Residence at the Boston Public Library and a winner of the PEN New England Discovery Award. When she's not writing, Anna teaches, reads, and tries to keep her magical powers under wraps. Visit her at
www.annastan.com
.

Thank you for reading
!

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