I’m greeted on Saturday afternoon with a delivery to my apartment. I open the box to reveal a spooky chocolate cake for Halloween and a card with the words “No tricks here, just treats. Sorry for showing up on your pink doorstep like that. Hope to see you tonight. —Bennett.”
I break off one of the chocolate gravestones and let it melt in my mouth. It’s possible I’m being irrational about him influencing me, but I can’t risk being hurt again. It’s like Mom says, “Evidence is what matters, not speculation.” As much as I don’t want to go to the party, I need to know the truth.
Several hours later, I follow signs for ZodiaCupid’s Halloween party and take the elevator up to the rooftop. With sweeping views of downtown LA and a glowing blue moon as the backdrop, the hunched plastic skeletons and spider-filled cobwebs strung throughout the space look spooky in a fun way.
Dressed as Rembrandt, I wear a vintage black cloak and beret that Pó Po was able to find in her boxes of old clothing, and I’m armed with a plastic painter’s palette. The outfit wouldn’t be complete without a stick-on mustache and mouche.
Around me, people dressed in skintight tiger costumes, snake-print jumpsuits, and Cupid outfits carry drinks and mingle. Michael Jackson’s song “Thriller” blasts from a speaker near the bar. I scan the crowd for Bennett so I know the general vicinity to hang around.
I wind through people in animal costumes and walk toward a woman with long, wavy platinum-blond hair cascading down her back. The guy next to her in a chef’s outfit lifts his toque and immediately I know it’s Bennett from the way his hair falls. My palms break out in a light sweat at the sight of him.
My steps slow as I observe the situation. I take cover behind a witch’s cauldron of punch bubbling over with dry ice fog. The woman with platinum hair smiles at something Bennett says and rests her hand on his shoulder. In my mind, I see his peony count number increasing. He’s the start-up world’s most eligible bachelor, after all. Why wouldn’t he be dating other people? Other people clearly want to date him.
I crouch lower to get a better angle of him and the woman who’s giving a solid A-effort to imitate Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons. She leans forward to better hear him and then laughs vivaciously at whatever it is he said that probably wasn’t even funny.
I’m bumped from behind by a man circling the cauldron, and he almost knocks me off balance.
“Olivia?” a voice says.
I hold my beret to my head and angle my face up toward the stars. Standing over me is the host from our live panel interview.
“Marcus?”
Marcus waves from above. What was a stylish suit at the live podcast interview is replaced by a bright red bacon strip costume. His face appears through a cutout hole in one of the pink layers.
“Well, well, I didn’t expect to see you here tonight,” Marcus says. “Especially after everything with the wager. That’s very big of you.”
“It was a last-minute decision to come. Don’t tell anyone you saw me,” I instruct as I stand to face him.
“Are you meeting your date here?” he asks excitedly. “Or rather, your love.” He squeals. “I can’t believe ZodiaCupid actually worked. Secretly, I had my money on Lunar Love.”
“Hold on.” I smile to be polite but am downright confused. “What do you mean, ZodiaCupid worked? And did you say love?”
“We were notified yesterday that a winner had been established. You both went on dates, and apparently, you fell in love. Congrats!” Marcus says with a laugh.
The pieces fall into place. Finally, I have clarity. I’ve been played.
“I’m not…I can’t be in love,” I stammer.
Marcus grins. “You’ve got the glow of a woman in love.”
Never in my life have I hated a piece of bacon more. My thoughts race in every direction as Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” flows from the speakers. I abandon Marcus mid-sentence and make a beeline for Bennett.
“Who do you think you are?” I blurt out, interrupting his conversation with one of his probably many women.
The Mother of Dragons awkwardly backs away.
Bennett’s caught off guard when he sees me, his eyes widening. “Olivia!”
I should’ve trusted myself. Of course he’s exactly who I thought he would be.
“I’m leaving,” I say, gathering the fabric of my cloak and turning to go. I push through a group of partygoers in uninspired dog ear headbands.
“Wait,” Bennett calls out. He catches up to me faster than I expected. “Slow down. I’m so glad you made it.” He bends down to hug me, and my cheek smushes into the shoulder of his chef jacket. Sweat forms on my lower back, and I’m thankful my perspiration won’t be visible through the cloak.
“I’m sure you are,” I say. “I’m going now, so you and your dragon lady can get back to your date, or whatever this is.”
“Our what?” he asks, his eyebrows scrunched. “We’re not on a date. I don’t even know who that was.”
“Says the man with the high peony count. Looks like you gamified, after all.”
“Uh, what? You know my peony count is high because my profile is how we test features. You’re the only peony for me.” His look of excitement to see me turns to confusion.
I scoff. “How can I believe that?”
He frowns. “We spent a lot of time and money building the gamification feature. We at the very least had to try it. I owe that to my team.”
“I had a long talk with Harper and heard about your plan to manipulate me,” I say. My heart thumps wildly inside my chest. How could I have let this happen? I can’t fall for a Rat. It won’t end well, it never does.
Bennett thinks for a moment. “Manipulate you? I wanted to spend more time with you. That’s the only reason why I worked with her. I thought we had a good time.”
I laugh bitterly. “You can manipulate numbers all you want, but you shouldn’t manipulate people.”
Bennett gently guides me to the side and out of earshot from an eavesdropping Easter Bunny. We tuck under an arch of plastic skulls while a group of Monkeys watches us from the dessert table.
“I have explanations for everything but you’re not listening,” Bennett says, getting visibly frustrated. “You did some things for us to meet. I did some things for us to keep seeing each other. Our efforts brought and kept us together. I wasn’t trying to work you over or sabotage you. Never have, never will. And there’s definitely no one else.”
I hear him, but his words aren’t convincing me otherwise. “This isn’t a situation that you can handle or control,” I inform him.
“I’m not trying to control you,” he says. “Though that’s perfect for you of all people to say that. You think you can control who loves who and the outcome.”
“I just want people to be happy. Oh, and you haven’t heard the best part yet. Yesterday, you go and tell Marcus that I’m the one who fell in love and that Lunar Love lost.” I clap a hand against my palette. “Power play. Very nice. Kick the small, old, traditional, boring matchmaking business while it’s already down and going under.”
Bennett holds his toque against his chest. “I did no such thing. I haven’t talked to Marcus since our panel.”
I cough out a laugh at his denial. “Bullshit. I just saw him, and he told me everything.” I’m such a fool! On what planet did I think being with Bennett and running Lunar Love could work?
Bennett thinks for a moment and looks like he has a realization. “Elmer,” he mumbles. “Elmer must’ve told him. He’s probably still feeling resentful for being tricked.”
I shake my head. “Everything’s Elmer’s fault, isn’t it? Even though it’s your business. We had a pact. And we called the bet off! There wasn’t supposed to be a winner.”
“And I honored that. I don’t care about the wager,” he says, his voice rough. “I care about you. I want to be with you. If I haven’t made that obvious enough, I’m sorry.”
“Of course you don’t care about the wager. You don’t need it! Your business is going to be fine. I, on the other hand, needed those clients. I gave up those clients for you. Well, congratulations,” I say sadly. “We’re at the end of the month, so I guess you also win the article and the podcast episode. Marcus is probably already making plans for it.”
We step closer to let someone dressed as a parrot pass by. “Parrots aren’t in the zodiac, you know!” I call out after her. I survey the scene around us, shaking my head.
Bennett steps sideways to block my view of the rainbow-colored bird-person. “I thought agreeing to the wager would show you that we can both coexist as businesses; that our companies offer different things for different people,” he says.
“Coexisting is out of the question. You were the one who turned down my pó po’s matchmaking efforts. Yet now you want to be together? Please.”
A strand of loose hair falls across his forehead. “I was focused on building ZodiaCupid. Can you blame me?”
“And you did. You built ZodiaCupid. Once we’re officially out of business, you’ll be able to proudly say that you destroyed Lunar Love.”
“I don’t want Lunar Love to go out of business,” Bennett says defensively. He shifts his footing, and a clip-on rat tail swings around his leg. “You know that’s not why I started ZodiaCupid.” His eyes plead with me, and my heart flip-flops back and forth disloyally. This is what happens when I become too attached, too emotional.
I straighten my shoulders and steady my voice. “You’re my rival, nemesis, competitor…take your pick. I can’t believe I ever trusted you and…your stupid little Rat chef outfit.”
“Hey! Don’t disrespect Ratatouille like that,” Bennett says, tucking his tail back behind him. “He may have been a rodent, but he had big dreams. In fact, he—never mind,” he says when he sees my serious face.
Bennett’s head is tilted to the side, his jaw clenched. He’s uncomfortable.
“Seeing me was probably just some way of collecting data points on how long it would take for me to fall for you,” I say, adjusting the stick-on mustache that has slipped down over my lip.
“All of that is not true. Please, Olivia. Let’s just forget about this stupid wager. I want to be with you. Let’s not fight.”
When Bennett’s this close, I can’t stop myself from thinking about the way he smells. His smile. His lips. I can still feel his arms wrapped around my waist pulling me into him. My heart aches at the memory. But there’s no use. It’s too late.
I look at the ground. “It’s pointless,” I say, my sadness crystallizing into something firmer. How could I have let my guard down? “Honestly, what’s the use? All roads lead to moments like this. I don’t make the rules.”
“Yet you’re so good at enforcing them,” Bennett says.
“We believe in different things,” I say.
“You have this idea in your head that we’re incompatible, but I disagree,” Bennett urges in a low voice. “I think that people can surprise you. That’s what love is about. That’s what the zodiac you’ve worked to promote your entire life is about.”
“You don’t get to tell me what the zodiac, love, or my life is about.”
Bennett rubs his hand against his forehead. “Do you really think I started ZodiaCupid to put Lunar Love out of business? Do I come off as that terrible of a person to you? That I’m single-handedly trying to destroy the zodiac itself?”
“I don’t know what your scheme is!” I shout-whisper defensively. “You’re such a Rat! I figured you out early on, and I should’ve known I’d be right. You take other people’s ideas to get a free ride, you try to please everyone so you’re not rejected by anyone, you’re dishonest and secretive, and you mislead for your own advantage.”
As soon as the words come out, I regret them.
Bennett looks at me stunned and quiet, any trace of a smile wiped clean from his face. “Maybe you’re right,” he says dejectedly. “I’ve been trying to figure out who I am for a long time, and you figured it out after knowing me for what, a month? You’re never going to trust me, are you?”
Trusting is a dangerous game, especially when it comes to the rules of compatibility. I’ve already bent those rules too much. We’re incompatible, and I should never have let myself get this far with him. I bite my lip.
Bennett gives a small, humorless laugh, the upturned crease next to his typically happy hazel eyes nonexistent. “I’m not your ex-boyfriend, Olivia. I’m not going to leave you or hurt you. I may not be a compatible animal sign, but I’m definitely not him,” he says, looking pained.
“Neither of us should have to change who we are to be together,” I say, trying to swallow the aching. “And I don’t think either of us can stand another heartbreak.”
Bennett’s face clouds over with hurt. “No one’s asking you to change. You speak so highly of emotion and human connection, yet here I am trying, and you’re not willing to see it from another perspective. You’re being so damn stubborn. We’ve been getting along, despite our so-called incompatibility, despite our jobs.”
“Lunar Love isn’t a job. It’s my life.”
“Isn’t what we feel real? Because it’s real for me.” He takes a step closer and reaches for my hand. “Can’t you give us a chance? I don’t want to lose you.”
“This way you won’t,” I tell him.
I stare at Bennett as all my conflicting emotions wear me down. For a fleeting moment when our hands touch, a life together feels possible. But it’s an illusion. We were born when we were born. We are what we are.
“I’m sorry. I just…can’t.” I extract my hand from his and turn to leave, disappearing into the herd of animals.
A throbbing sting crawls its way up the back of my throat, working its way to my eyes. Tears stream down my cheeks and onto the sticky ground, carrying my mustache with it.