“I was making progress,” Luke insisted as she dragged him toward the bar by the elbow.
“That’s exactly the problem—Ravenfell is the last people in the world we want to get involved with.” He looked at her uncomprehendingly. “They’re a bunch of vampires, Luke!”
“I know you’re not crazy about how the venture capital thing works—”
“I meanliteralvampires! The founder’s, like, three hundred years old! And notorious for bragging about having pulled one over on the Infernal Plane. My father complained for weeks about him refusing to share any information about how he did it.”
“Oh.”
“Oh is right,” she said.
Across the room, a whole team screamed and jumped as a biscuit skipped off the floor at ankle height.
“Yeah, let’s see some healthy competition!” Brad called. The equipment manager said something sharply to him.
“Do you know which House?” Luke asked.
“I don’t know the name, but Mom said something about a lion’s head sigil. Does that help? Does it matter?”
“Yeah, it matters.” They placed their order and stepped back from the bar to discuss while the bartender started mixing drinks. “That’s House Valefar. They’re a major competitor. If Ravenfell managed a victory over Valefar, that’s really bad.”
She watched Carter line up a shot. He didn’t look particularly steady on his feet. Just as he gave the biscuit a shove, one of the opposing team called out something taunting. Carter slipped. The biscuit flew through the air.
Ayumi from Accounting took it right between the eyes.
She bent over, blood streaming from her nose. Her teammates gasped and clustered around her. Someone called for another Lyft.
The equipment manager marched over to Brad, looking murderous, and started gesticulating. Brad raised his hands soothingly. Then reached into his pocket and handed the guy what looked like a hundred-dollar bill.
“Crap. So is Brad off the table?” She’d really wanted to see him fall, she realized.
“I’m going to have to ask Bel’aliol,” Luke said slowly. He glanced at his bracelet, reluctant to start another round of interdimensional messaging.
“Shit.”
“Definitely.”
“Woo!” Ronaldo tried to chest-bump Vijay as their team was declared the winners of the second match despite their lack of teammates. Brad glowered briefly and then rearranged his face into a smile.
“Best three out of five!” he declared.
The other teams who had finished their games and were waiting to rotate in glanced around. No one was going to complain to Brad about the tourney brackets getting ruined, though. They cautiously started setting up another game against their current opponents.
Hayley tottered her way back toward the bar.
“What the hell, girl. You need to slow down,” Morgan muttered under her breath.
“She doesn’t want to be here,” Luke said softly. “She wants some kind of shield between her and Brad. Alcohol’s all she’s got.”
“What?” Morgan asked, startled. Hayley was always one of Brad’s biggest cheerleaders.
“She doesn’t want to do the PTO thing,” he said.
“Oh.” She’d always found Hayley’s endless cheer to be irritating, but it had never occurred to her it might not be genuine.
“She’d do anything to get into a better position somewhere else,” he said, intrigued.
“I don’t…” She’d kind of hated Hayley, she realized, but now she felt bad.
