Page 35 of Only Fangs

I make a face. “Given this is the second conversation we’ve had about dick-pics I feel that it’s a rather sad indictment of the normie population.”

“You wouldn’t be wrong there. I mean, I don’t have anything compromising. But I’m kind of rare if we’re honest.”

“You humans are such an odd species.” I can’t help but shake my head. Just when I thought I was starting to understand the normies a little, I discover something else about them. “But anyway, back to the pictures you chose.”

“OK. So the first one is the view from Haytor.”

“Because you like to walk up hills in the freezing rain?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Cool. Me too.” I flash him a smile. “Although obviously I don’t feel the cold so it’s probably far more pleasant for me.”

“I’m a little jealous.” He grins at me. I return my attention to his phone and scroll to the next picture.

“Bookcases.”

“It’s a shelfie,” he corrects. “I like to read all kinds of stuff: manga and sci-fi mainly, but I dabble in other genres. I have an Instagram account where I post short reviews and pictures.” He seems almost bashful and it’s kind of endearing.

I scroll to the next picture. It’s a pretty Devon village all decked out for Christmas.

“I adore the holidays,” he tells me. “Wrapping up warm, and mulled wine, and mince pies, and twinkly lights.”

“Umm… what is this?” I ask as I scroll to the next picture.

“That’s a paraglider,” he says. And he isn’t wrong; there is a glider and a helmet laid out on the ground.

“Because you paraglide?” I ask. It just doesn’t fit. The rest of his photos show someone who likes the gentler things in life. That’s the Brody I’ve come to know over the last few weeks. Paragliding does not go with the man sitting in front of me drinking a cup of tea in a pair of figure hugging jeans and a nice cable knit sweater.

“Well…” he says and then breaks eye contact to stare at the coffee table. “I mean, I technically… My brother does.” He says the last sentence quickly.

“And so you’ve included it because…”

“I thought I might seem a bit dull,” he replies and I can tell from the look on his face that it’s a brutally honest answer.

“You’re not dull.”

“Yetty used to say I should try to be a bit more interesting.”

“Yetty is a fool. And I thought we agreed she was a bitch?”

“I…”

“You can’t take it back. She’s a bitch and she didn’t deserve you and she absolutely does not have the authority to tell you anything about yourself.”

“OK.”

“So no paraglider, OK?” He nods. I scroll to the next picture.

“This is my friends’ dog. She’s adorable and I love animals.”

I look more closely at the picture. “Hey, I recognise that dog.” It’s the one I met a few weeks ago by the canal, the one who greeted me instead of barking. The same warm feeling I felt that day floods my chest.

“Lily? She belongs to someone I used to work with. Small world.”

“The only problem is that generally vampires don’t like dogs. So perhaps a cat instead?” He makes a face. “You don’t like cats?”

“I do. I just don’t love them. They aren’t like dogs.”