Page 46 of Only Fangs

“You’re not convincing anyone, you know that right?” he calls after me.

I head to work as usual in the morning, trying not to think about the almost kiss. Or the way my dreams had painted a different ending to the evening, one that didn’t end in me drinking hot chocolate in the living room with Matt.

I try to act normal in front of Ari. I don’t want to make her feel weird and uncomfortable around me. So I pretend nothing has changed between us, even though I can feel the subtle shift in the air. But no. I stuff the thought down and get on with my work. We have a dating app to launch and we don’t have time for this.

My phone rings. It’s a number I don’t recognise and so I send it to voicemail.

“You’re not going to answer that?” Ari looks up from her seat on the sofa and asks.

“Unknown number,” I tell her.

“So?”

“So, you never answer a number you don’t recognise.”

“Why not?”

I narrow my eyes at her to check she isn’t taking the piss. “Are you seriously telling me you answer every call you get?”

“Of course. It might be important.”

“But that’s what my gran does.”

Ari clears her throat and shifts in her seat. She’s older than my gran. The thought hits me like a spear. It’s so easy to forget. To think we’re the same – well, except for her being a million times hotter than me – but you know what I mean.

“Anyway,” I move us on quickly, I cannot think of her true age, it’s too big, too difficult for my brain to process, and so I shove it aside to the dark recesses of my brain where it belongs. “If it’s important they will leave a voicemail.”

Just as I say it, my phone dings. They did actually leave me voicemail. It doesn’t really help my argument so I keep my mouth shut as I play the message.

It’s Rhys. Our Business Banking Guru from Squirrel Bank. He must be ringing to confirm the loan so I rewind to the beginning and put it on speakerphone so Ari can hear the message too.

“Hi. It’s Rhys. So, firstly I wanted to say thank you for coming in yesterday. I know it was a bit of a journey and it was umm…” he clears his throat, “err… lovely to meet you. Both.”

There’s something wrong with the cadence of his words. Like he’s struggling to string a sentence together properly. I look at Ari and I can tell that she hears it too.

“So, anyway. I wanted to call you. Umm… it turns out that there’s a slight issue with the loan application. You remember when I asked if you were human? And you said yes. Well, and look I don’t want to cast aspirations here.” I think he means aspersions. “But you weren’t being honest with me. And we can only loan to humans.” He pauses for a few moments. “I didn’t know about the whole vampire thing,” he adds and he sounds genuinely hurt. Like we’re friends and we lied to him.

“You’d think he might have realised given the thing is called Only Fangs,” Ari hisses. “I knew we should have told him yesterday.”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” I tell her, trying not to let my disappointment show.

“It would have avoided me getting my hopes up,” she counters. “Now we’re back to square one and I’m out of ideas.”

“It’s only a minor problem. I’m sure there’s an alternative. We’ll think of something. It isn’t over yet.”

“Just please stop, Brody. For fuck’s sake. Stop being so fucking positive for five minutes. I can’t deal with it.” She gets up and heads toward the kitchen as if she can’t bear to be around me.

I have three sisters. Three highly strung sisters who like to be as dramatic as possible and who were constantly slamming doors and telling everyone to fuck off when we were growing up. And so I do what I always used to with them. I scribble a note.

I’ll leave you in peace for now. But I’m only a phone call away if you want to chat. I’ll be back tomorrow. After much debate I pick the pen back up and add an x at the end.

Then I slip out the front door quietly. We all need time on our own, but together we can find a new path. Anything is possible if you put your mind to it.

Chapter 25

Ari

Iknew I shouldn’t have gotten all positive and enthusiastic. I knew I should have continued to imagine all the things that could go wrong instead of going out and toasting a win that wasn’t ours to celebrate.