Brian attended to his other barflies to leave Geneva and Adrian alone to talk after a stilted introduction. He looked a little wary of the couple but not worried for Geneva. She was a wild flirt as much as he was and they were kindred spirits. Flirtatious folk were often lonely types on the inside. He'd seen her enough to know that she watched others with a longing that she hid beneath pretty eyes and coy smiles. 

        And though they'd flirted casually with one another without any progress toward anything coming from it, Brian was certain that Geneva played an important role in his life. She stood out the brightest among anyone there. Anyone, that was, until Geneva's boyfriend. 

        The other man was not too lean, but didn't look as though he spent much time in the gym. At first glance, he seemed very average, Brian thought, but the more his eyes strayed back to the darkly dressed man, he saw little things that might make Adrian appealing to other women. Or men. The other man possessed a symmetry to his face that Brian liked. Very expressive brows and a generally honest countenance. 

        The man was too serious though. Not once did he see Adrian smile at Geneva. They were huddled together and murmuring too quietly for him to well. The times he wandered closer, he'd caught whispers of words like "Love, death," and "Lizzy." If there was another woman in Adrian's life, Brian's own chances with Geneva would be higher. Perhaps they'd break up tonight, he thought hopefully.

        When Geneva got up and left suddenly, Brian was almost giddy, but then he turned and looked at Adrian. Really looked at him. The longing that he'd seen hidden in Geneva, that he knew he possessed himself, masked but charm, he could see plainly on Adrian. There were no masks, no pretense. Adrian wore his emotions shamelessly on his face. The other man had it bad for Geneva. 

        Adrian didn't need a rival, he needed a friend.

~~~~~~

        Death watched her leave. She'd been upset that he was spying on her, upset that he'd changed his clothes, and even more upset that he'd lied to the bartender about their relationship. He'd never seen her angry before. She smiled even when she was displeased with him, and all the warmth in her turned to blistering fire. She'd called him names but spoke with an eerie calmness. 

        Geneva spoke so quietly too, so that he would have to lean in to hear her. She'd gotten close to him and he could feel the bite of her words all the better with their proximity. Even in her anger, he was hoping that she'd kiss him. It seemed important for the bartender, Lizzy's intended, to see them kiss. To see that Geneva was unavailable. But she abruptly stopped talking and stood, grabbed her purse, and stormed out of the bar. Disappointment and frustration blanketed him. 

        Of course he shouldn't want her to kiss him. Her touch was too potent a thing.

        The bartender, Brian, refilled his brandy and said, "It's on the house."

        Perhaps it would be better now that the Cupid made her exit. He had no idea why she was flirting so carelessly with her Client's soulmate. 

        "Thank you," Adrian replied and was prepared to leave it at that.

        "I didn't know she was with you. I don't normally ask women out while I'm on the job. But..." Brian said in a tone that sounded like apology but held no regret.

        "She's special," Adrian finished and was taken aback by his own admission. It seemed so easy after that. All his woes spilled from him. Without intending to, he'd offered Brian the soft sweet secret feelings he'd felt for Geneva in the past month as if the bartender was some wide open receptacle. 

        Brian didn't look particularly trust worthy. His blue eyes were too shiny, too sure. There was a cockiness to the man that revealed his egotism. And yet, there was a part of him the soothed. Something warm and willing, something comforting, waiting for a friend. Something so very familiar. 

~~~~~

        Geneva was so mad!

        Adrian had been spying her. He knew that she was trying to get Brian interested in other women. And he'd changed. He'd taken the part of himself that was steady and sure, and he'd surprised her. 

        People don't surprise her. Even in chaos, she found people predictable. The moment Aphrodite granted her the clarity of Love, she could see people for what they were and could read them as easily as the Sunday comics. So it was infuriating to have that single stability yanked from under her on top of knowing that Death couldn't be trusted to mind his own business. 

        This frustration made her call Dot, a Cupid from the next city over. There was a regular meeting on the last Monday of each month, but Geneva needed to meet with someone soon. She'd never been close to the other Cupids in her region, but Dot was different.

        They agreed to meet at McGinny, a pseudo Irish pub that was equidistance between Rochester and Buffalo. 

        Geneva arrived first and waited at the bar. It only took one smile to win the bartender over, but he wasn't a natural charmer the way Brian was. Geneva chatted with him for only a few moments before Dot appeared. 

        "Hey, I'm gonna have to see some ID," the bartender said to Dot as she approached. 

        Knowing that this would happen, Dot had her ID ready and laid it on the counter, then she flashed him a devastating smile and, for the second time that night, the gruff looking bartender was charmed.

        Geneva didn't blame the man for demanding some identification from Dot. She had large round innocent chocolate brown eyes and shiny short dark brown hair styled into a pixie cut. Her face was oval and her lips were sweet and heart shaped. Her body, though not sensually voluptuous, was still rounded and petite. She didn't look much older than sixteen. But with a glance to her ID, Geneva saw that she was twenty-three. 

        "Dorothy, huh?" Geneva teased which made Dot snatch her ID away quickly.

        "Do not start with me, Geneva Johnson. You called me, remember?" Dot shot back defensively. Clearly, her name was a sore topic for her.

        Dot mounted her stool easily, ordered a hoppy sounding IPA, and waited patiently for Geneva to begin. Her brown eyes were big and soulful, far wiser than her years, and her mouth was set in a thin hard grimace that drew into a hard frown as she learned how Geneva's last few months have unfolded. She'd left out the bits about making out with the Grim Reaper. 

        "That's against our code. You know who he's supposed be with, you can't change that for your own intentions," Dot said, setting down her half drunken beer. 

        "But Lizzy's my friend. And she is my client, how could I possibly let her die?" Geneva asked, struggling to keep her voice from becoming too thick with emotion.

        "If you just used your arrows like the rest of us, you wouldn't be in the position to care so much, Geneva," her friend scolded.

        Her Cupid support group was well aware of the mystical strategies Geneva used to find love for her Clients. Once a year, there was a summit. At this event, nearly seven years ago, Geneva met a Cupid named Xiang. He was a very wise old man and though his boss was different from hers, they served the same entity. Love.

        It was there that he gave her the patience to untie knots and revealed the string of fate that interlocked between people. The Chinese have used the Red String to bring people together for years. 

        Her previous year before that Summit was rife with failure. She'd made a man fall in love with his coffee table, a cat fall in love with a strawberry patch, and a little girl fall in love with her own barbie doll. All because her aim skewed a little to the left. Each disaster came with a stern dressing down by Aphrodite herself. Reversing these amorous mistakes proved to test her skill but, Geneva was convinced that she saw her first client ogling a coffee table strangely at an Ikea some years later. 

        "I'm horrible at archery," Geneva mumbled and cupped her face in her hands. "What am I going to do?"

        "You've got to do right by your Client. And when Death comes to collect, you punch him in the face," Dot said it with such dangerous conviction that Geneva laughed. The other woman was so small and sweet looking, it was almost unsettling to hear her say such a violent thing so seriously.

        But Dot was no ordinary Cupid. She specialized in break ups. Xiang's way of matchmaking brought soulmates together. But Cupids with arrows took too many chances with Love, bringing two people together who might not belong together. Dot traveled around western New York to break up couples so that other Cupids could try again. 

        "There's got to be another way," Geneva murmured as her mind focused unconsciously on the bartender. The man turned bright red and refilled her beer with shaky, nervous hands. When Geneva smiled at him, he nearly dropped her glass.

        "Well, you're aggressive. Tone done your aura," Dot said, but she was grinning with amusement.

        "I don't know how," Geneva admitted sheepishly.

        "You mean you've been walking around on full blast for that last decade?" Her companion asked with her dark brows nearly touching her hairline.

        "Full blast? No, that's not full blast. I've brought Death to his knees once," she'd said with just a hint of boastfulness.

        Then it dawned on her. Dot reached out to touch her arm as the same thought emerged in her own mind, but it wasn't until her friend spoke it aloud did Geneva realize how achievable her plan could be.

        "If you did it once, you can do it again."

___________________________________

Author's Note: 

Oh my goodness! The character's are interacting with different people! Brian feels sympathy for Adrian! There is a man out there who still loves his coffee table. His name is Gary. 

I'm excited to see you again next Wednesday! And I hope that you enjoyed yourself. If so, please vote, comment, and follow. If not, you can still comment! 

I have also planning on updating No Sweeter Sin because that story is actually complete, but not very well edited. But I'm going to show it to you anyway. I'll probably update that story on the weekend, but I'm not sure yet. But this story is stil every Wednesday!