Lunar Love (75)

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?”