Arrow to the Heart: A Dark Cupid Romance

Chapter 12

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"You've been in a mood all morning," Eli says. "Are you going to tell me what's on your mind or are we going to do that thing where I have to badger you into telling me?"

I grunt in response.

"Oh good, instead of communicating, we're caveman grunting." He rolls his eyes and rubs his forehead. "Wonderful."

"I'm fine."

"You're absolutely losing your shit, Declan."

"How do you figure?"

"Please, your under-eye bags have bags. You look like shit. And you refuse to talk about whatever's going on between you and this woman. You're about one bad night's sleep away from pulling a Van Gogh and mailing her your damn ear."

"That's an over-dramatization."

"I won't deny I have a flair for the dramatic now and then, but that's not what this is. I'm just gonna say it: I think you want her and you don't know how to process that."

Want her? Sure I do. But that makes no difference.

"Fine. What of it?"

"You don't think it's driving you just a little bit insane to set her up with other people when you want her for yourself?"

"And what if I do?" I snap. "What if I do want her for myself, huh? What then? You think a girl that fucking perfect would actually want me? You think we'll get married and live happily ever-fucking-after? That's for people like you, Eli. That's not for me."

"Because you don't want it or because you think you can't have it?"

"Both."

"Bullshit. You want it. You're afraid of it."

"Afraid of what?"

"Love. Connection. Letting someone else in."

He's right, and goddamn it that just pisses me off more.

"Afraid of love? You do realize who you're talking to, right?"

"Yeah, you're a Cupid; doesn't mean you know anything about love."

"Please, I'm a fucking expert. Love is what I do."

"The very fact that you think you're an 'expert' pretty much proves my point. You can't be an expert in something you've never experienced."

"A doctor doesn't have to have cancer to treat it."

"And love isn't a disease to be cured."

"Isn't it?"

"Oh Dec, always such a romantic."

"Knowing what I know is exactly why I'm not a romantic. It's not fucking cute or sweet, it's a weapon. A dangerous one."

He shakes his head and pinches his lips in a straight line.

"One of these days, you're gonna fall yourself and you're gonna realize it's not as bad as you've made it out to be in your head."

"Like they say, it's not the fall that kills you. It's the landing."

"And what, in your twisted head, is the landing in this analogy?"

"What do you think? It's the aftermath. When it all blows up and everyone is left in pieces. I've spent a lifetime learning all the ways that love can destroy a person. I saw it with my own parents. I see it every fucking day. No one in the world is worth letting yourself get wrecked like that."