Maya had a system, and the system had never failed her.

Before agreeing to a second date, she ran the numbers. Not literally — there were no spreadsheets, no algorithms. Just astrologycompatibility.org, a birthday, and fifteen minutes of honest reading. Sun sign, Moon sign, rising if she could get it. She’d plug in both charts and let the synastry do the talking.

Her friends called it ridiculous. She called it efficient.

“You ghosted a perfectly good architect,” her roommate Claire reminded her one evening, “because Mercury was in retrograde.”

“Mercury was in retrograde and he was a Gemini sun with a Scorpio moon. That’s a storm system, not a relationship.”

Claire stared. “You need help.”

What Maya needed, apparently, was a plumbing emergency.

The pipe under her kitchen sink gave out on a Tuesday, and the building sent up a repair guy named Daniel — quiet, efficient, slightly amused by the water pooled across her floor. While he worked, she sat at the kitchen table with her laptop, pretending to answer emails.

“What’s your birthday?” she asked, before she could stop herself.

He looked up from under the cabinet. “Excuse me?”

“Sorry. Weird question. Forget it.”

He told her anyway. November 9th.

Scorpio. She typed it in without thinking, filling out the fields on the compatibility site — her Pisces sun against his Scorpio, checking the planetary overlays, the house placements, the aspect grid. The reading came back almost immediately.

Deeply intuitive connection. Water signs in harmony. Emotional depth, mutual understanding, occasional intensity. High long-term potential.

She stared at the screen.

“Good news or bad news?” Daniel asked. He was watching her from across the kitchen, a wrench in his hand, a look on his face that suggested he had correctly guessed what she was doing.

“It says we’re compatible,” she said, deciding honesty was the only reasonable response at this point.

He considered this. “And you believe that?”

“I believe it’s a useful framework.”

“A useful framework,” he repeated slowly. He put the wrench down, dried his hands on a cloth, and leaned against the counter. “My ex was also a Pisces. The site probably would have said we were compatible too.”

Maya closed the laptop. “What happened?”

“She moved to Edinburgh. We wanted different things.” He shrugged. “No planet caused that.”

Maya thought about the architect. About Claire’s expression. About how many first dates she’d skipped based on a website that knew nothing about whether someone laughed at her jokes or showed up when things got hard.

“For what it’s worth,” Daniel said, picking up his tools, “the pipe is fixed. And you seem interesting.”

She looked at him. He looked back, unhurried.

She opened the laptop again — then shut it for good.

“There’s coffee,” she said. “If you have time.”

He did.