Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
LUCY
My heart’s in my throat when I call Jon’s number, just like always.
I’m sitting on a stack of crates in the small alley behind Bram’s bar, sipping on the gin and lemonade that he wordlessly slipped into my hand before disappearing back through the door with a wink.
I did find it odd that he knew my usual drink order without me having to tell him, but maybe I’m just that easy to read.
Or maybe it’s the sign of an experienced bartender?
Either way, it’s mixed perfectly – bordering on sweet, but with enough of a bite to keep things interesting.
Like Bram, my brain whispers, before the call connects and I lose all power of rational thought.
‘Ey up, Fluff,’ Jon says down the line, the gravel of his voice making my heart leap.
I don’t love the nickname, I can’t lie, but I let it slide when it comes from him.
Something about the warm timbre of his Yorkshire accent catches me off guard every time.
‘How’s Whitby treating you? You dressing like Mina yet? ’
I can’t stop my chuckle at the idea. ‘Not quite,’ I say, ‘but I am sitting outside a vampire-themed bar right now, so it might not be long.’
I hear the breath he huffs out, somewhere close to a laugh. ‘I thought the interview was at The Pier?’
‘It was.’ My drink swirls in my glass as I spin it, small rivulets forming in the condensation.
I notice for the first time that a tiny set of fangs has somehow been etched into the rind of my lemon, and a smile pulls at my mouth.
‘I’m off the clock now, at one of the bars I’m going to be writing about for the article.
The owner mentioned it in the interview, and I couldn’t resist checking it out. ’
I hear Jon’s hum over the line – a sound he makes when he’s trying not to give too much away. ‘He invited you to his bar?’
That isn’t at all what I said, and I note his leap with interest, not to mention the fact that he didn’t ask which of the two bars I meant.
There’s a strange quality to his voice too, something close to jealousy but which stops just short of it.
Whatever it is, I suddenly feel like I have to explain myself, even though I don’t think that I’ve done anything wrong.
‘Bram’s just being friendly.’ I wonder if I should mention the mix-up with the cottage, or the fact that Bram and I are currently sharing that very small space.
Or the fact that I have seen every firm, tattooed, naked inch of him.
I decide against it. ‘Did you know he’s Mina’s cousin?’
The silence on the other end of the phone is charged.
Jon doesn’t correct me, confirming my suspicion that he was talking about Bram.
I hear the small breath Jon pulls in and the creak of his chair as he shifts forward, and it doesn’t surprise me at all that he’s still in the office after 7pm on a Friday.
‘I did,’ he says eventually. ‘Did you know he’s bad news?’
That lands like a slap in the face. I actually didn’t know that.
Maybe I would have if I’d have remembered the warning in Jon’s email from earlier and managed to put two and two together.
I don’t mention any of that to Jon, though.
I don’t want him to think badly of me and my poorly honed investigative skills.
Instead I settle for a noncommittal, ‘Oh?’
‘Yeah, he’s a real piece of work.’ He huffs out a breath. ‘He was in a crazy viral video a few years back, and he’s been in and out of the press ever since. Never in a good way, mind.’
I don’t say anything. I’m not quite sure what to say.
The Bram that Mina described to me last night, not to mention the Bram I’ve seen with my own eyes, doesn’t seem like that kind of person at all.
If anything, it was actually Dean who made me feel uncomfortable.
I smiled through it, of course, but there was something about his veneer of niceness that made my skin crawl.
Jon clears his throat, obviously not waiting for a response. ‘He went full Ozzy and bit the head off a live bat a couple of years ago. Viral Bat Guy, the internet called him. Look it up.’
I almost choke on my mouthful of gin. ‘A bat?’
My mind flashes back to the image of Bram, barely able to hold little Lestat in his hands, and I can’t quite make the leap to him mutilating a live animal on camera. Could it have been an act earlier? Surely not. That fear in his eyes looked one hundred percent real.
‘I saw the video. It’s grim.’ Jon’s chair creaks again. ‘He doesn’t even pause.’
The image makes me feel a little sick.
‘But you know,’ he says, stringing his words out a little, like he’s cooking up a plan on the fly, ‘we might be able to move this story into a different gear.’
I feel the energy shift as clearly as if Jon was standing in front of me, and it makes me frown into my drink. I don’t know what it is that Jon’s about to suggest, but I know I’m not going to like it. ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean,’ I say, as evenly as I can manage.
His momentary pause does nothing to reassure me. ‘What if’—he starts slowly—‘and just hear me out here – you manage to get a little closer to him, and you can really get to the heart of some of these stories.’
There’s an uneasy roll of something deep in my chest. I’m not sure if it’s the idea of getting close to Bram that makes me feel like I can’t get enough air, or the idea of doing it under false pretences.
‘Closer?’
‘I mean, you don’t have to sleep with him or anything, though God knows you wouldn’t be the first’—he laughs a little, that quiet chuckle that I usually love—‘but I’m sure you could use your feminine wiles to dig up some dirt on him.’
I’d laugh out loud if I weren’t so shocked.
My feminine wiles are limited at best, and, I’d thought, reserved only for Jon.
I can’t quite believe he’s even suggesting it.
I’m Lucy Partridge, for God’s sake. I once ugly cried at a donkey sanctuary because it turned out that the donkey I was writing a story on was best friends with a goose. It was so wholesome I couldn’t bear it.
‘I don’t know,’ I manage, worrying my lip between my teeth. ‘I’m not sure I’m cut out for something like that. You know I’m a positive news person.’
‘Fluff,’ he says, and his voice is softer now. Encouraging. ‘You are beautiful and brilliant. No man in his right mind would turn you down.’
The compliment throws me. On the one hand, it’s everything that I ever wanted to hear from Jon, but hearing it like this has taken some of the shine off.
‘I know you’re normally a good news kind of girl, Fluff,’ he continues, ‘and I love that about you.’ My heart leaps with his word choice, despite the knot of discomfort in my belly. ‘But you know as well as I do that scandal sells more papers than celebration does.’
I hate that about the human race, but I know he’s right. I look over at the window opposite me and just happen to see Bram himself, his inked arms straining around something. He sees me looking and smiles, just a little. Not enough to bare his fangs.
God, those fangs. I did a double take when I saw them. I knew I hadn’t imagined them last night. It was weird that he was still wearing them in the shower, but I’m sure he just forgot to take them off or something.
Pretty sure, anyway.
I smile back at him automatically, but I feel a bit guilty as I do. I need to find out who the real Bram is, because the man who Jon’s describing is at odds with everything else I’ve learned about Bram so far. But it has been less than a day. Maybe I just need to dig deeper.
‘Fluff?’ Jon asks, so gently I can barely hear him over the thrum of music from the bar behind me.
‘Yeah?’
‘Don’t overthink it.’
A small laugh escapes me before I know it’s coming. ‘I would never!’
His laugh in return is soft and breathy, and it makes giddiness bubble in my chest. ‘You’ve got this. Sex it up a bit. Make stuff up if you have to.’ His voice drops a little. ‘And I’ll take you out to celebrate when you absolutely smash the story. Just the two of us.’
My traitorous heart slams so hard into my ribs that I don’t fully take in the first part of what he said. Jon asking me out properly is all I’ve wanted for the last four years, and the swell of excitement crashes over my earlier discomfort like a wave.
This is Jon. And he wants me.
I’m not particularly proud of it, but that’s the part I hear more loudly than anything else.
‘Lucy,’ he mutters, with a drag to his voice, and either that or the fact that he uses my real name for once sends a bolt of pleasure right through me. ‘Do whatever it takes.’ He blows a breath out. ‘Night, beautiful.’
And then he’s gone before I can reply.
I sit in silence for a good five minutes after I lower the phone from my ear, trying to process what just happened.
My first thought is that I absolutely can’t seduce Bram like Jon’s suggesting.
I can’t come on to people in my normal life, so I’m not sure how exactly Jon thinks I’ll be able to put my moves on Bram of all people.
It’s not that I think he’s out of my league so much as I’m pretty sure we’re not even playing the same sport.
There’s also Mina to think of. She’s my best friend, so doing this to her self-professed favourite person in the world would be nothing short of a betrayal. I’m relatively certain she’d never speak to me again.
But then this is Jon. And he wants me.
I tap Bram’s name into the search bar in my browser, but not much comes up. Bitten’s website, a few local news stories about the launch of the bar. Nothing recent. Then I remember what Jon said, and I try searching ‘Viral Bat Guy’ instead.