Cupid's Daughter (Cupid's Daughter #1)

  CUPID’S DAUGHTER

  Cupid’s Daughter #1

  J.M. Krumbine

  Copyright 2012 by Jason Krumbine

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental

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  Chapter One

  Randy Tyler was my first crush. He was one of those pretty boys with the impossibly wavy blonde hair and the perfect teeth. You know the kind I'm talking about. Everybody's had one or two in their lives. They looked like the offspring from Hitler's dream society: perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfect bone structure, perfect skin glow. Overall, they’re just disgustingly perfect.

  Anyway, that was Randy. He was a beautiful man.

  A lot of people have trouble with the concept of men being called beautiful, and I'll admit that, occasionally, I'm one of them. For some reason it didn’t sound right. I suppose you could call him handsome, but handsome didn't feel like a word big enough for Randy Tyler. I mean, he was the whole package. You could lose yourself for hours in his eyes. I'm pretty sure that I did that on more than one occasion.

  I mean, really, there was no other way to describe Randy Tyler other than beautiful. He was just a beautiful, beautiful man.

  Well, I suppose he was probably a beautiful boy. But when you're thirteen years old, as I was, and the object of your affection is fifteen years old...Let's just say that the two year age difference added to the allure that was Randy Tyler.

  And he certainly had some allure.

  I'm not sure if he even knew that I existed. That was okay, though. If Randy Tyler had ever actually talked to me, I might have died.

  I'm telling you, it was remarkable how beautiful he was. I'm surprised he never ended up in the Guinness Book of World Records for being so beautiful. To be honest, though, I never really checked to see if he ended up in the Guinness Book of World Records. But I figured that if he had, I would have heard about it one way or another.

  I don't know whatever happened to Randy. My family lived across the street from his until I was fifteen and then we moved to Manhattan, leaving behind the quiet suburbs for the hustle and bustle of city life. In fact, my parents are still living in the same, ridiculously spacious apartment to this day.

  I like to think that Randy went on to become a model or maybe some kind of peace keeping ambassador, bringing religion and democracy to the third world masses by way of his sparkling smile.

  I know. It's kind of a massive gulf between model and peace keeping ambassador, but that was just how my brain worked.

  Most likely he ended up marrying his highschool sweetheart, a cheerleader, of course. They probably had two point five children and he got a job as a used car salesman somewhere in middle America.

  It's been over twelve years since I've laid eyes on Randy Tyler's wavy blonde hair, it's probably all fallen out by now, but I still think of him every now and then. Mostly in my dreams. Twelve years later and I'm still dreaming about my first crush? Yeah, I know. It's weird. But that was just the effect that Randy Tyler had on impressionable teenage girls discovering love and romance for the first time.

  Of course, lately my dreams have been about Randy Tyler being squashed under thirty pounds of crushed ice.

  It probably meant something, but I'm not sure what and I was even less sure that I wanted to find out.

  My alarm pulled me from my current dream, saving me from the horror of having to watch Randy Tyler being crushed yet again by a sudden wave of ice while he was out surfing.

  I just now realized that a lot of my Randy Tyler dreams involved him shirtless on a beach somewhere.

  Really. Twelve years later and I'm still having dreams about a shirtless Randy Tyler. I'm mostly pretty sure that this didn't bode well for me.

  I pried open my eyes and glanced at the clock. I had twenty minutes before I had to be at work.

  How many times had I hit the snooze button already? I couldn't remember.

  Squeezing my aching eyes shut, I rolled over and stretched out, giving one of those squealing yawns that always made me glad that I was still, mostly, single. I sounded like a balloon that's slowly being deflated. I was almost one hundred and ten percent certain that somebody would make fun of me if they ever heard it.

  My dream about the shirtless Randy Tyler was already fading.

  I've always hated mornings. Even when I was a child.

  Well, maybe I should be a little more specific.

  I've always hated early mornings. Anything past ten a.m. was peachy keen. Anything before that, was iffy and anything before eight was just torture.

  Dawn's buttcrack. That's what I called it. Dawn's stinky buttcrack. I mean, the sun wasn't even fully up yet. Nobody should be up before the sun. That's just plain common sense.

  Growing up, my family was extremely 'out of the box.' We made our own bread. Well, Mom made our own bread, actually. My cooking skills were limited to burning things. Both Mom and Dad worked from home. We spent months on end traveling. And I, along with my siblings, was homeschooled all the way through highschool. On the upside, I never had to deal with peer pressure. On the downside, I always had to deal with people asking how I got any socialization. Those people never appreciated the irony of asking me that question, while socializing with me.

  My parents decided early on that when they did have children, they wanted to have children. They had no desire to ship us off every day to school or daycare or after school programs. Subsequently, I spent a lot of time with my parents. Honestly, I haven't decided if that was a good thing or not, but since I didn't end up pregnant at sixteen or a female version of Charles Manson I figured they must have done something right.

  Anyway, because of this, sleep schedules were pretty loosy-goosey growing up. Usually I was up till midnight, or later on some occasions, and half the time I didn't start the day before noon. This, obviously, did not help me when I joined the real world and discovered that it ran on people waking up before noon.

  I'm still not convinced that it all wasn't some cruel trick that my parents played on me.

  I looked back at the clock. Now I had nineteen minutes to get ready. I closed my eyes and groaned. What I wouldn't give for another five minutes of sleep.

  With a deep breath, I swung out my legs and jumped out of bed.

  My apartment was a tiny one-bedroom in the heart of Manhattan. Some might say that it was overpriced. But I thought it was totally worth every penny if it let me sleep in as late as possible every day. Without rain, it was a five minute walk to work. Could you beat that? I don't think you could beat that. Oh, sure, I could find a spacious place over in Jersey. But, then I would be in Jersey. Plus, that would add almost an hour and a half to my five minute commute. In order for me to get to work on time I would literally have to get up before the sun. Before. As in, total darkness outside. No, thank you.

  The girl that stared back at me from the mirror was an older, slimmer version of my thirteen year old self. I'd lost the chubby cheeks, two years of braces had finally straightened out my teeth and the acne that had pla
gued me up until my eighteenth birthday was long gone. Although, I did note with some dismay, I never really did grow any boobs. I've tried to convince myself that this was a good thing, but no such luck. I mentioned it to my Mother once, I'll never do that again, and her solution was breast implants. I wasn't sure what I was more shocked by: my Mom suggesting that I get plastic surgery or that she actually agreed that I didn't have any boobs. Weren't moms supposed to be more supportive than that?

  As for the rest of me, even for a twenty-seven year old, I looked remarkably good. I had shoulder length black hair and a tiny button nose. My brown eyes I got from my Mom. My awkward, stubby little toes I got from my Dad. Walking to work kept me mostly in shape. I had a tiny pouch of skin on my stomach that I was not happy with. I'd poke at it sometimes and when I was feeling really depressed, I'd over exaggerate it in my mind and imagine that I was one of those people who were so fat that they needed to tear out a wall in order to get me out of the house.

  This was not going to be one of those days.

  I pointed at my reflection. "You, look mahvelous!"

  My Dad let me watch way too much Saturday Night Live growing up.

  I turned on the shower and let the water warm up while I grabbed my day's outfit from the closet: a sensible black business suit and the new heels I picked up yesterday. Years of practice had taught me to lay out my clothes the night before. That saved me another ten minutes, which meant, of course, I had extra ten minutes of sleep every morning.

  I tossed my bedclothes into the laundry and turned on the TV to the local news, cranking up the volume so that I could hear it while I was in the shower.

  My cellphone was blinking it's little light that it always blinks when there was a message. I didn't remember hearing it ring. Grabbing the phone, I listened to the message on my way back to the bathroom.

  "Hey, it's me. I know you're still probably asleep, but I wanted to give you a call before I went on duty. I really enjoyed last night," he paused, as though he was looking for the perfect way to end the message and then said, "Okay, well, this became a little more awkward than I thought it was going to be. So, I'm hanging up now before I say anything stupid."

  Smiling, I set the phone down on the sink and stepped into the shower. I winced as the hot water stung my skin. I turned the temperature down just a smidge. Growing up, my Mother was a slight germaphobe, and insisted that we all take scalding hot showers. At the time, of course, I thought she was bonkers, but looking back, I rarely got sick. So, maybe she was on to something?

  I replayed the voicemail in my head again. It filled me with all sorts of warm and fuzzy feelings. A girl could certainly get used to hearing that voice every morning. Of course, hearing that every morning would mean that I was in a relationship and relationships are...complicated, at best. I'm not being a Debbie Downer here, I'm just being realistic. Relationships are complicated. Honestly, I don't know how or why kids these days think they need to start dating at thirteen years old. Thirteen! Your body's already going through so many changes, your hormones are out of whack, pimples everywhere, and now you want to get into a relationship with a member of the opposite sex?

  I didn't start dating until I was nineteen and even then, I was dating with a very specific reason in mind: to get married. Maybe not right away, honestly, probably not until after college, but I thought that I was certainly ready to start shopping around a bit.

  Even at nineteen, it was complicated. Too complicated, really.

  These days, however, I liked to keep the men at arms length. You might say that I've put marriage on the back burner. I'm not sleeping around with every guy that has a pulse. In fact, I'm not sleeping around at all. Mine is a treasure that I'm saving for marriage. Assuming, of course, that marriage ever moved back to the front burner.

  Messages like the one this morning, sometimes make me wish that marriage would make that move.

  I had my shower time reduced to five minutes. Days when I had to wash my hair took a little longer, but not by much.

  Toweling off I listened with half an ear to a news story about some singer and her date from the night before. It sounded like a disaster. The reporters seemed to be taking extra glee in reporting all the juicy details. I glanced back at the TV and shook my head. It was all they could do not to grin like madmen during the story.

  The new shoes fit like a glove. I think I might have actually sighed when I put them on.

  Sometimes I'm super glad I'm single. Eventually, though, somebody was going to figure out that I was a complete dork.

  I avoided makeup whenever I could, which was most of the time. As far as I was concerned makeup was too much work with too little reward. Besides, I wasn't very good at putting it on. Not to be too indelicate, but I kind of looked like a hooker whenever I did my own makeup. I just had no eye for it.

  Grabbing my briefcase and a donut from the counter, I glanced at the clock over the stove. I was up, dressed and ready in thirteen minutes. I smiled. I do believe that was a new record.

  I chomped down on the donut and immediately gagged. It was so stale it tasted like cardboard. How did I have a stale donut out? And, for that matter, when was the last time I went food shopping? Much to my horror, I couldn't remember.

  I stared at the donut. How long had this poor creature been sitting out here? Shaking my head, I tossed it in the garbage disposal on my way out the door.

  "Emma Valentine," I said to myself. "You set a new record for getting ready in the morning. I do believe that you've earned yourself a fresh donut as a reward. Also, note to self: Go food shopping."

  Chapter Two

  That fresh donut, and the accompanying cup of coffee, ended up costing me ten minutes. I was actually late by the time I made it to the office. But only by a little, and the chocolatey goodness tasted so good that it was worth the trade off.

  Although, I was pretty sure I could feel the calories implanting themselves in my thighs as I digested the chocolatey goodness.

  Lane & Pryce, Attorneys at Law was located on the third floor of a twenty-story building at the corner of Forty-Second Street and Sixth Ave. Other businesses in the building included: an accounting firm, two other law firms, a modeling agency and an ad agency that was responsible for the half-naked pictures of the blonde on the bicycle that were plastered all over town. I'm not sure what they were trying to sell, but, honestly, it seemed like a promotion for some kind of a mobile bicycle prostitute. But then, that could just be me.

  Kevin Smalley was waiting for me in reception. At least, I assumed he was waiting for me. It's possible he was waiting for somebody else, but I'm not sure that he flirted as shamelessly with anybody else in the office. He was reading the New York Post. I caught the front page as I raced past him. The headline read: DISASTER DATE! It was a photo of that singer and her date covered head to toe in whipped cream. Wow. It looked so much worse than how the morning news was reporting it. I was actually starting to feel sorry for the poor girl.

  Kevin tossed the paper on the table and got up, falling in step with me as I briskly made my way down the hallway. "You're late."

  "I'm not late," I replied, self-consciously wiping the crumbs from the incriminating donut off my top.

  "You're a little late." Kevin clasped his hands behind his back. He was taller than me by almost two feet. In fact, he was taller than most people by one or two feet. He probably missed his calling as a basketball player. He spoke with a deep voice that just swept you up in its manliness.

  "No, I'm not."

  He laughed. "You are so late."

  "I'm not even in the same zip code as late," I said. "So stop saying that I'm late."

  "Well, by the time you make it to the conference room you're gonna be in that zip code."

  "Only because you keep harassing me on the way there."

  Kevin laughed again.

  Kevin was cute in that puppy dog kind of way. He had big eyes and a large nose. We were both hired around the same time, right out of law school. Th
ere had been a mutual attraction from day one, but we were both professional enough not to do anything about it. Although, I'll admit I came close to doing something once or twice. Usually my will broke down during office parties after I had too much to drink. Which, in case you were wondering, was two glasses of wine. I was pretty much a light lightweight.

  Consequently, I tried to stay as far away as possible from the alcoholic beverages. At least, you know, when Kevin was around.

  "Aren't you supposed to be in litigation today?" I asked, rounding a sharp corner. My office was at the end of the hallway.

  "Funny story about that," Kevin replied, running a hand down his dark grey suit.

  "Oh?"

  "My client died."

  I came to an abrupt halt and spun around to face Kevin. "What?"

  "Oh, you heard me."

  "Your client died?"

  "Yep."

  "How is that funny?"

  He smiled. "I haven't gotten to the funny part yet."

  I frowned. "What's the funny part?"

  "How he died."

  "Do I have time to find out how your client died?"

  Kevin glanced over his shoulder. "Well, I saw Mr. & Mrs. Draper come in about five minutes before you did. Suzy's setting them up in the conference room right now. So you probably have a few minutes before anybody realizes that you're late."

  "Except that I'm not late," I reminded him. I chewed on my lip for a second, weighing my options. "Is it a quick story?"

  "Very quick story."

  "Could you have told it to me in the time it's taken you not to tell me?"

  "Yes."

  I sighed. "Fine. How'd your client die?"

  Kevin leaned in and said, "He choked on an ice cream cone."

  I stared at him for a second. "Excuse me?"

  He smiled again. "I didn't stutter."

  "He choked on an ice cream cone?"

  Kevin nodded. "Mint chocolate chip, in case you were wondering."