Page 56 of Only Fangs

“He isn’t boring.” I feel the need to jump to Brody’s defence.

“He’s a nerd, Ari.”

“Yes. But that doesn’t make him boring.”

“Jesus. You actually do have the proper hots for him,” Ivan says. He winks at me. “You should just go for it. Finish what you started in Wales.” He waggles his eyebrows.

“Absolutely not. We talked about this the other night. He is my employee. And a human. And I don’t date anyway.”

“I wasn’t meaning you should date him.” Ivan’s eyebrows dance and he makes an extremely crude gesture to further illustrate the point he was making.

Matt arrives at five, apologising for having to work.

“We won’t hold it against you, you are a newbie after all,” Ivan slurs at him. “But you need to play catch up.” Ivan drags him to the bar and I watch as he forces three shots down him. Actually, forcing is totally the wrong word, Matt takes zero persuading, throwing bright green shots down his throat and then slamming the glass on the wooden bar. After the third he leans his head back and howls like a werewolf. Ivan laughs and preens. Oh dear.

“I think you might need to rescue Matt from Ivan,” I lean in to whisper in Brody’s ear.

“Why?”

“Because Ivan will eat him alive.”

Brody blushes, the tips of his ears turning pink. “I think that’s what Matt wants,” he says softly.

“You don’t approve?” I ask with a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t want him to get hurt. But I also think he needs to get laid very very badly.” The second sentence slips out and Brody raises his hand to cover his mouth. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

I grin at him. A rare glimpse behind the mask. Maybe he isn’t such a goody-two-shoes all the time.

“It’s just, it’s been kind of a while. He doesn’t really date much…” he trails off as Matt and Ivan return to the table.

Clara is the last to join us, having been forced to finish the day by meeting with her father. “Fuck I need a drink,” she exclaims as she plonks herself into the last empty chair at the table, the one I’ve been forced to guard all afternoon from people trying to claim it as their own. At one point I had to bare my teeth at some little human who thought they deserved it more.

“How did it go with Daddy Dearest?” Ivan asks as he pours her a huge glass of red wine from the bottle on the table.

“He’s desperate for me to finally marry Luca.” She rolls her eyes and then downs the entire glass, smacking her lips loudly at the end.

“How much time did you manage to buy?” I ask her.

“He gave me the whole ‘you’re not getting any younger’ spiel. And the ‘you need to face up to your obligations’ one. And then we had the ‘don’t you want to make your mother happy’ conversation.” She twerks her eyebrows at this one. Adeline is hardly a model for the nurturing maternal figure. She spent most of Clara’s childhood pretending her daughter didn’t exist, like she was an irritating fly and she couldn’t understand why it was buzzing about her. And then when Clara hit puberty, her mother gave her “the talk” one time and resumed pretending she didn’t exist. Unless she wanted something.

“It sounds hideous,” I tell Clara.

“Got me another ten years though,” she replies with a grin.

“Nice.” I high five her.

Ivan’s attention had been drifting towards Matt but now it snaps back to the table. “How much?”

“Ten.”

“Fuck yeah!” Ivan jumps up and quicker than a flash he’s by her side and enveloping her in a huge hug.

I catch the look on Brody’s face. Matt won’t be that speedy yet and I don’t think the pair spend time with other vampires. Or really anyone else outside the two of them. His expression changes to confusion and I can tell he wants to ask something but he’s too afraid to.

“You can just ask, you know,” I tell him softly. “These two are like open books, you can ask them anything. Just be prepared for a fully honest answer.” I say that last bit like the warning I intend it to be. Clara has no filter and Ivan has no shame.

“I just…” he stumbles. But then he clears his throat. “What are you buying time from?”