Read Online The Cupid Effect by Dorothy Koomson - Free Book Online

turned on. I hadn’t felt like this in a long time. Not even when I’d last had sex, it wasn’t like this. Every part of me burnt with lust. A cold shower wasn’t going to cure this. How Ed got through the day with all this pumping through him I didn’t know. Watching Angel now would be a bad idea – I’d probably end up dry-humping the TV screen.
    If anything, Ed was understating his feelings. Maybe he just didn’t have the right words to explain how much he felt. Well, with me he didn’t need to. Sitting next to him told me how he felt.
    â€˜So, she doesn’t know you’re alive, what are you going to do about it?’ I asked.
    Ed froze for a few seconds, then his head creaked around to face me. ‘Do?!’ He’d screwed up his face. ‘ Do?! ’
    â€˜Are you going to ask her out?’
    â€˜Don’t think so,’ he scoffed.
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜Erm, possibly because she goes out with actors and businessmen, she even went out with a duke once. Those are the kind of men she goes out with – famous, important men, not people like me.’
    My legs ached from sitting cross-legged. I prised my lower limbs apart, stood up a little shakily because they weren’t used to being contorted like that and shook them out to get the blood circulating again. ‘How do you know she doesn’t go out with people like you if you’ve never asked her out?’ I asked Ed.
    â€˜I just do,’ he said with the conviction of a man who knew someone was totally out of his league.
    â€˜What if she doesn’t go out with people like you but actually goes out with you.’
    â€˜She wouldn’t.’
    Seeing as I was in love with someone who happened to be a 250-year-old vampire that lived only in my telly, I didn’t think of anyone as out of my league, so didn’t see why Ed, when he knew this person, should think like that. I mean, if I knew I was going to end up with said vampire, then why shouldn’t he at least ask this woman out?
    â€˜There’s this expression us old folk use,’ I said, staring at Ed. ‘It goes something like, “Faint heart never won fair lady”. Be a coward about this and you’ll be dreaming about you and her until you read about her wedding in Hello . Besides, the worst that can happen is she’ll say no.’
    â€˜No, the worst that can happen is that she laughs in my face, tells me to piss off then emails all her friends and they laugh at me too. Or she could publish my picture on the Internet with a transcript of our conversation, so the whole world will laugh at me,’ Ed replied.
    â€˜Or she could say yes and turn out to be a total cow, which’ll mean all this time you’ve loved her from afar has been wasted on some silly bint. That’s the worst that can happen.’
    â€˜No, the laughing thing is definitely the worst.’
    He had a point. I took my seat back in the bed, covered myself with the duvet again. ‘I know how you feel.’
    Ed smirked. I’m sure he thought I had no idea what love of the unrequited sort was all about. He’d be surprised. My unreturned affections hadn’t been exclusively aimed at fictional TV characters.
    â€˜No, really I do,’ I reassured Ed. ‘I spent over nine years in love with someone and, it’s a long, loooonnnnggg story, but the short of it is, I’m between relationships. And, sometimes, I mentally kick myself when I talk to him. Or he leaves messages with my new flatmate.’
    â€˜Ohhhh . . . Drew! He’s Drew?’
    â€˜Yes. He’s Drew.’
    Drew and I had been in the same psychology classes and I’d had a major thing about him since we were assigned to work together on a project in first year. We’d become friends after that assignment, but despite us being very close friends, I’d never really known how he felt about me. On the one hand,