Sitting in my living room, it was silent. The television was off and there were absolutely no sounds except for the occasional snore from Pyro who sat on the opposite couch. I sat staring at the blank screen of my television wondering what had happened the night before. Peyton had been silent on the ride back down to Earth and she gave me a very cold shoulder after our unusually warm embrace. It was awkward and she only muttered a goodbye after arriving at my place.

There was a soft knock at my door and I raced to open it knowing exactly who it would be. Pyro moved from the couch to inspect who it was as well. Peyton met my eyes and gave me a brief smile before entering my apartment. She patted Pyro's head and moved to go and sit on the couch. I wasn't quite sure how to treat this situation. Did this make us closer than friends now? How close could we get? Was that even allowed?

Peyton had made herself comfortable and Pyro had moved to go lay down somewhere else. I approached Peyton slowly.

"Look, about yesterday-"

"Let's forget about it," Peyton suggested. "I've already pushed it out of my mind and I suggest you do the same."

I watched her for a moment trying to see if she really meant it. Peyton needed someone but she just didn't want to admit. Her mother was awful and obviously seeing her had brought back some unimaginable memories. She needed someone, but I just let the whole thing drop. She obviously didn't want to talk about it and I wasn't going to pressure her to tell me.

"What were you planning for today?"

Peyton stood suddenly and moved into my kitchen obviously looking for something. She walked into the living room unable to find whatever she was looking for. I stuffed my hands in my pockets. Peyton spotted my cell phone and excitedly handed it over to me.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Call your-soon-to-be-girlfriend, and set up a date," Peyton replied as she moved to sit back on the couch.

Staring at the phone in my hands, I wasn't sure I was ready for that step. Calling Lily and making it all official, something about that didn't seem right. Glancing over at Peyton, she encouraged me to go on. I took a deep breath and then dialed.

A few painful minutes of silence were only interrupted by the ringing on the other line. Finally, a sweet voiced filled the other line.

"Hello?"

"Lily? It's Nate. I was…uh…wondering if…" I hurriedly left the room to get away from Peyton's curious eyes. I just couldn't seem to think straight with her staring me down. "I was wondering if you wanted to go out tomorrow for some lunch?"

"Like a date?" Lily asked with a giggle.

I smiled and nodded even though she couldn't see it. "Exactly."

"Tomorrow should be great," Lily said after a minute. "Around noon?"

"Perfect," I agreed. "I'll pick you up from your place?"

"Sure, I'll give you the address."

After fumbling around for a piece of paper and a pen, I hurriedly wrote down the address she told me. Then we said goodbye after exchanging a few more words. After I set the phone down, it took a minute for me to actual realized what had just fully happened. I had a date for tomorrow… I hadn't spent any time with a woman alone in… centuries.

I just got a date.

I just got a date.

I laughed at the thought and ran out into my living room proudly, "I got a date."

"Good, when?"

"Tomorrow," I replied with a smirk. That's right! Who had a date? This guy did!

"Okay," Peyton announced suddenly as she moved from the couch and began heading into my room.

"Wait," I began alarmed. I hadn't exactly cleaned up since she had been here. This could turn out very badly. "What are you doing?"

"Planning your outfit for your date," she replied innocently before opening the door. Panicking, I rushed to stop her from entering but it was too late and she was already inside.

"What the hell?"

Sighing, I moved into the room and looked around at my unsorted laundry. There were only a few handfuls of it, but it certainly piled up.

"I told you to do laundry!" Peyton lectured. "You have a washer and dryer in your apartment! The only thing I made you do was laundry." She let out a frustrated breath and just glanced around the room. She threw her hands up in irritation.

"Sorry," I replied a bit uncaringly. It was kind of too late now to do anything about it.

"Not yet," Peyton insisted storming out of the room. I followed after her unsure of what she was talking about. She found some large trash bags under my sink and tossed them in my direction.

I internally gasped at her message. "You want me to throw it all away?"

"No," she replied simply and left me for the bedroom once again. After I appeared behind her and the mess, she continued, "You are going to stuff all your clothes into these bags and we will travel to a wonderful place called the Laundromat."

"Are you going to help me put these clothes into bags?" Stuffing the few mountains of clothes into the bags, Peyton just went and sat on my bed gracefully.

"They aren't my clothes and I'm not touching gross boxers or briefs or whatever," she said simply while lying back.

"She just thinks she's so good because she's practically a goddess and stuff," I muttered bitterly under my breath.

After a few minutes of silent work, I had the whole floor cleaned up.

"Wow. I don't even think I have that many clothes."

I gave her a small shrug. "I have to keep up with the style."

Peyton grabbed the smallest of all three bags while I took the other two and we prepared to leave. After gathering my keys and everything, we made a hectic journey down my apartment building to the curb of the street. Then, Peyton got the attention of a cab driver and we had an interesting time shoving all the bags into the trunk of the cab.

At the Laundromat, I offered to pay the driver because I actually had money on me, and then we worked on dragging the bags inside. We found ourselves alone in the little place. Peyton instructed me on sorting everything by color and some other things only girls did with laundry. After filling up a good portion of washers in the store, Peyton bought some detergent and things and added the soap to the washers. While she was busy doing that, I got change for what it would all cost. Together, we filled the washers with the right amount and then we were forced to wait.

With only hard plastic chairs for seating, Peyton chose to hope on a washer and sit. I leaned on the washer next to hers and crossed my arms as I looked out in the distance.

"What now?" I asked.

"We wait."

"It's going to take hours," I pointed out.

"Deal," she bit out simply. "It's all your clothes."

I let out a breath and decided to occupy my time with humming a soft random song. Peyton physically seemed to lose interest in everything around her. Through the corner of my eye, I could see her shoulders fall in disappointment.

I wondered briefly what she had thought about us the night before. There was a doubt in my mind that she even thought about it at all. She probably didn't care. Guys probably cradled her all the time when she needed it.

Still, the whole thing bugged me immensely and in our silence I found myself asking, "Are we going to talk about last night?"

Peyton seemed surprised by the sudden topic but gathered herself.

"No."

"Never?" I asked with a slight gasp.

"Never. There's nothing to talk about."

"Peyton," I warned politely and moved to face her better which consisted of me blocking her on the washer. I looked up in her hazel eyes that were especially green today. Shaking away the thought, I focused on the topic on hand. Peyton needed help. I would provide it, but she wouldn't want it from me. She just needed it from someone. "You have a lot of problems that need to be expressed."

She rolled her eyes and gazed away from me annoyed. "It was one moment of weakness. I'm still me and I'm not just going to break down and cry again okay? I'm fine and I don't need any therapy bullshit."

Well, I had not expected to have been met with such bitterness. Nevertheless, I wanted to help.

"Well, I'm here if you ever need to talk."

She bent her head down and gave me a sarcastic grin. "Stay out of my personal life."

"Why should I?" I countered getting equally close to her face. Peyton opened her mouth to reply when she drew back suddenly after clearing her throat. Obviously her closeness with me had made her feel awkward and pull back out of the fight. It still didn't get her out of this conversation though but I moved to lean back against the other washer. There didn't seem to be anything more that could be said now with this awkwardness.

"Look," Peyton began suddenly. "My life is my life and even though I'm active in yours, it does not give you the right to be active in mine. Let's just keep my personal life out of this and focus on yours."

I nodded, understanding her reasoning but not her feelings of the whole situation. Peyton, to avoid further silence, moved from the washer to look out the window of the Laundromat. I moved slightly to stand a few feet behind her.

"Why don't we go across the street and have a drink at that little café place?" Peyton pointed to the little shop. It was some family owned place as the name didn't seem that familiar.

"Okay."

We wordlessly left the Laundromat and ended up at the little restaurant. Peyton seemed to relax once we were inside and seated.

She began the conversation with a lame "So…"

I couldn't help her further. There was only one topic on my mind and she would refuse to discuss that. My brain could not process why she didn't want to discuss what had happened? Sure, the crying part might have been a bit humiliating, but people cried sometimes. It wasn't a sin. She didn't lose any respect from me for it, in fact, she gained it. It wasn't every day that a girl could admit so much, about her own mother nonetheless, and then could cry her feelings out to someone who she wasn't even that close to.

After our drinks were ordered, Peyton turned away leaving me in my thoughts. I inspected her though as she watched other people enjoying their brunch. Someone entered into the store causing her attention to look back my way. I avoided her eyes by staring out the window and back at the Laundromat.

Suddenly, she met my eyes and a grin widened on her face. I raised my eyebrows at her curiously.

"Remember last time I hooked up the waiter and that one girl?"

It hadn't been long since that time. Peyton had just simply talked to a guy and suddenly he was off talking to his soul mate apparently. It seemed too easy. I didn't understand why anyone didn't just do it.

"Then you said that you could do my job and I said I would let you when the opportunity arises?"

"Yes," I replied. There was an opportunity for me to try my hand at matchmaking. It didn't seem like it would be too hard.

"Well, do you see that man about three tables behind me?" Peyton asked pointing discretely. "Go and match him up with the waitress."

I glanced around the place. "Which waitress?"

"She's wearing yellow and she's talking to the chef over there," Peyton said glancing behind her into the kitchen. Looking over in that direction, I spotted only one waitress and she had a very familiar face. It was Grace! I had no idea Sean's wife worked at a place like this.

Glancing back at Peyton, she encouraged me to go on and it was only then that the impact of what she was saying finally set in. She wanted me to set up Grace with some other guy! But she was married to Sean. Her and Sean were perfect for each other. They made each other happy. They were husband and wife and Peyton wanted to destroy that. I felt sick to my stomach at the thought. Grace wasn't Sean's soul mate… he would be so heartbroken. He would be crushed.

"I can't do that!"

Peyton shrugged innocently and began to move out of her seat. "Okay, then I will be right back."

"No!" I shouted reaching for her arm. Peyton slowly lowered herself back into her seat.

"I have to do my job," she insisted.

"No, you can't," I argued quietly and trying to stay calm.

"Why not?"

"That's Grace," I explained. "Sean's wife."

"Oh," Peyton said thoughtfully. "Did you know she worked here?"

I shook my head but kept my eyes trained on her. I didn't want her getting up and leaving to ruin Sean's life. This would break him and he was my best friend. That was my best friend's wife. I would not let her do that!

Peyton looked back at the main sitting in the both and sighed.

"Nate," she began slowly. "I have to tell her."

"You can't! Sean will be crushed."

Peyton seemed conflicted but she still persisted. "He will only be more crushed if it's two years from now and they have a kid."

I never really thought about that point but Peyton couldn't know that for sure. Surely people worked together even if they weren't completely made for each other. Grace and Sean could still be happy together. It wasn't fair for her to just destroy someone's life so easily.

"You can't do it."

Peyton narrowed her eyes at as if she took my words as a challenge. "Watch me."

"No!" I shouted reaching out to her again. "Listen, there has got to be an easier way to do this."

"I've broken up people before," she replied. "It's tough at first but he will realize that she isn't the right person for him."

"Peyton, it's really going to hurt him," I tried again.

She gasped suddenly. "I should have realized this during dinner!"

"What do you mean?" I asked eager to get her off the topic.

"Sean said they barely get in fights and that they have so much in common," she reminded me.

"That's good," I replied.

Peyton shook her head. "No it isn't, not in the long run anyway. At first, a relationship is story telling. You tell stories back and forth about your life and such. Then once you get to know each other, things should get bumpy. You should fight. If you always agree on something then you don't have a real conversation or connection with a person. That's all a conversation really is! It's civil arguing. One person speaks their opinion and the other speaks theirs and you have an interesting conversation. You need fights in a healthy relationship."

"Peyton," I insisted noticing that his was one of our many fights. "Please don't do this."

"Do you think my intention is to hurt Sean? I hate this part of the job, but that girl deserves to be happy and though she might believe she's happy now, she won't be later."

I began to say something but then thought better of it. There didn't see m to be any convincing I could do.

"She isn't going to go and quit her marriage tonight," Peyton continued when she noticed my dejected look. "But I can't ignore the feeling I'm getting between her and that guy. It's a very strong attraction."

"Like my attraction to Lily?" I wondered briefly to see if I could possibly get her off topic again.

"Not exactly," she replied much to my disappointment. Though before she would explain more, she moved from her seat to go and speak with Grace.

I scoffed and avoided staring over at the two of them. I didn't need Grace to recognize me but it didn't matter much. Grace was fully absorbed in whatever nonsense Peyton was spewing out to her. That was it. This whole thing was over. Sean would never be happy again and all because of Peyton.

As she came back to our table, I spotted Grace walking over to the man with a big smile on her face. I found myself unable to look at Peyton and kept my eyes out the window.

"It's over," she announced. That was most certainly true about their relationship now. "You can quit acting like you're mad at me."

"I'm not acting!" I shouted facing her once again. Who was she to say that I wasn't actually mad about all of this? I couldn't believe she was just do this to him without feeling remorse. "How could you do that to Sean? Would you do that to your friend, Brooke?"

"I did that for my friend," Peyton said growing irritated. "Her boyfriend was my assignment and I had to break them up."

"This isn't a boyfriend," I pointed out. "You just ruined someone's marriage. How can you live with that?"

I didn't even want to hear any excuses she had for me. Sean was going to be crushed and she didn't even care. He was my only true friend here in New York and now he would hate me if he ever found out what Peyton had done. Peyton was here because of me and now she was ruining his life. Pulling a ten out of my wallet, I threw it down on the table and left the café to head back over to the Laundromat. The further I was away from Grace and Peyton at the moment, the better.

I didn't think I could ever live with seeing her again.

Happy CC Sunday! It's late but better late than never!

This is chapter 13 from Cupid's Granddaughter in Nate's point of view obviously. Now we can understand why this hurt him so much! It's his only friend and he kind of feels like it's his fault since Peyton wouldn't be there if it weren't for him!

I'll see you all next weekend with an update!

Hope you enjoyed!

~GermanSam