Nikolo
It’s been a week and a bit since I pulled my head out of my ass, which equals nine shifts at Bloody Temptations since I apologised at the staff meeting.
I’m getting close to balancing out the total number of shifts I messed around on and I’m still getting approving looks when I ‘responsibly’ make my way out the back to the staff room for my breaks.
Specifically doing it alone, and not with a customer.
I might have only done it once—or maybe twice?
The disputed second occasions involved a couple of rapid fire shots.
I don’t remember inviting them so much as them following me and me doing nothing about it which is just as bad.
But it was one—or two—times too many. Screwing around in the storeroom is one thing, but the staff room is where we all keep our shit while we’re on shift.
Lifo raged for nights about me putting their privacy at risk.
I wave to Erod, one of the security guards, as I pass and smile at his approving up-nod.
The staff here may still be wary that the flip that switched, the one that turned me into a dickbag for two weeks, might be ready to switch back on at any moment, but they have been pretty forgiving about it all.
There’s been a lot of backslapping and jokes, but the jokes have felt with me and not at me.
And most of them have been centred around the dumb shit they’ve done to make me feel better.
It couldn’t be any more different to the way I grew up in the clan, and the whole experience kind of feels like it’s healing some scars I didn’t know I was carrying. It feels… good. Really fucking good.
With only fifteen minutes until I have to go out, I snag a blood from the mini fridge and grab my phone from my locker before throwing myself on the staff room couch.
I’m shocked—but not unhappy—to see a message from Willan. Actually, there’s a lot of messages.
“What in the actual fuck?” I chuckle, sitting up to be able to read them properly.
Willan
Those pants really are something
The first message is followed by a blurry screenshot of a video taken last week, judging by the aforementioned pants.
We were wearing these tight leather pants with cutaways on the pelvis and hips, essentially leaving us with leather straps holding up the legs and leather underwear.
Thank the Gods we don’t really sweat as vamps—it would have gotten really nasty wearing them all shift and then dancing around like dickheads.
Willan must be on a deep dive through the Hot Vampire Bartender fan pages because there’s at least a dozen mid-motion video screenshots, of at least half a dozen outfits. Some are zoomed in.
One is not only zoomed in, it has a big lime green circle around my crotch. That night we were in tiny denim cut-off shorts and bright orange safety vests and hard hats. There was a tool belt involved at some point, but I’d ditched it to dance.
There’s no comment to go with the highlighted circle. It’s just my dick—and it’s a pretty fabulous dick, even if I do say so myself—encased to maximum effect in denim.
There’s another message beneath a photo of me kneeling on the bar, my back arched back in a backbend with complicated black straps wrapping around my torso.
Willan
what even is this????
The little Willanator has been digging through my history.
Interesting. Biting my lip against the stupid grin there, I rub at the strange ache in my sternum, swearing to myself that no matter how hot he is, I’m not going to flirt with Willan—my ex-best friend’s little brother, member of my former clan and the cause of my recent tailspin. I’m not. Much.
I reply directly to the first message.
Damn straight they’re something. Jealous?
Checking the time and drinking some of my blood, I settle into the uncomfortable old couch.
I’m pretty sure it’s only here because one of the old staffers brought it in rather than taking it to the dump.
I’m not really expecting another message, so I flick away to a different app and play a stupid matching game to pass the time, trying to not think about how it’s just after midnight—late for non-vamps—so really, Willan could have just sent the message before he went to sleep.
I keep my focus on the tiny pieces of fruit exploding into bigger pieces of fruit when I pair them up, rather than the question of why he was looking at the HVB videos before he went to sleep.
My phone buzzes with another message, just as the game timer starts flashing and fruit starts rapidly appearing. Quitting the game without a second thought, I jump back to my message thread with Willan.
Not sure I could pull them off like you do
Leather gets sticky man, pulling them off is tough for everyone
Well you definitely do it better than most
Gods tits, the man is really, really testing my resolve to do the right thing here. Be the bigger person and not jump on the first thing that feels remotely good. It takes all of my resolve to flick back to my game, where I immediately lose and I throw my phone to the side in frustration.
Why’d he have to grow up to be good looking?
Why couldn’t he have been one of those siblings that’s a carbon copy of their older brother or sister?
Nothing would kill a boner quicker than looking at Aleksi’s hazel eyes or square features.
But where Aleksi looks like their father, Willan favours their mother, with her sharper features and tall, lean frame.
The damned phone buzzes again and I’m snatching it up before I can think twice about it.
Do you really do all the outfits yourself? I’m not really surprised, you always were great at that sort of thing.
If this is what friendship with Willan is going to be like—him sporadically sending me screenshots of my thirst traps at night and random compliments—I might need to enact the buddy system with Kai or something to get through it.
Fuck what Laurence said about ‘going with it, whatever it is’.
Only two minutes left before I’m due back on the floor.
I drain the last of the blood and give the bottle a courtesy rinse in the sink and chuck it in the recycling.
Willan’s last message comes through just as I’m putting my phone away in my locker.
There’s a zero percent chance of me working with that lurking in the back of my mind, so I open it up.
Ugh. This tisane Lusce made is kicking my ass. I feel like I’m floating. Gonna put my phone away before I say something dumb. Like how much I like your hair. It’s so bouncy. Night.
Oh. Well, on the good side, he likes my hair.
I pat my curls, which are particularly bouncy today.
But on the other side, he’s high. Or close enough.
It doesn’t entirely take the shine out of his random messaging, but it does dull it around the edges just a bit. Just enough to let me get back to work.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I’m not meant to have it on me while I’m behind the bar, but I forgot to put it away after my break.
The bar is pretty much dead. We’re in that lull between office workers going home and the vamps coming in for the night.
The other vamp working tonight, Belinda, is down the other end of the bar chatting to a regular, and so I pull my phone out and check the message.
I really don’t like the way my stomach swoops when I see it’s Willan.
Willan
Sorry about messaging under the influence the other night. Won’t happen again.
I’ve thought about messaging him at least twenty times in the past two nights. Which doesn’t sound like much, but considering it’s spring and there’s an incredibly limited number of hours I’m conscious in a twenty-four-hour period, it’s a lot.
If I was going to get defensive, I’d say it’s probably about the same amount of times I thought of him before I dragged him to the Rusty Nail. Only, the throw downs we have in my imagination have entirely different outcomes.
Seriously not a problem. You pull up okay?
Yeah, it wasn’t great, but I survived.
Do that often, do you? Get wild with the tisanes?
There is a small part of me that’s hoping he’ll say yes and give me an out of whatever he’s stirring up inside me.
I left all that kind of shit behind years ago, before I turned, and I swore I wasn’t going to get caught up in it again.
That and Laurence would kick my ass if I ever did.
If that’s Willan’s thing, fine, but it’s a hard line that would allow me to draw a line in this… thing.
Gods no. Man, do you know how shit it is to teach a class at eight am when you’ve been seeing overgrown sprites dancing on the walls all night? Lusce swears he didn’t mean to mix up the bottles of vervinase and stracucasa. It was an accident.
Well. There goes that line. He just ran right through it.
What do overgrown sprites look like? Has anyone ever actually ever seen one close enough to know what they’d look like overgrown?
No idea. But these were overgrown naked women. Boobs everywhere - all glowing and gold and everything.
Glowing gold boobs bouncing around? Not a terrible way to pass the night.
Lol, no. But also not really my thing.
Ah. That would’ve been a rough night.
I lick my lips, my heart beating slightly faster at the dumb thing I’m about to do. I look down the bar at Belinda, waving off the raised eyebrow she gives my phone. Just give me five seconds Bel, I think, and then I’m not going to want to look at my phone for the rest of the night.
Maybe Kai and I can make it up to you. It’s not exactly naked sprites, but I have some gold hot pants I’ve been meaning to style up. I even have gold body paint.
I hit send and power down my phone, pointing to it and over my shoulder several times to let Belinda know that I'm putting it away.
The notifications are sitting right there when I turn it back on later.
Deal.
BTW I’ve told Finn what you said. He’s told Kai. I hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself into.