7. Ari
Ari
Brody accepts my job offer within five minutes of me messaging him.
I mean, he did say he was a little desperate, but he was also hugely enthusiastic so maybe this is how he responds to everything.
To be honest, I kind of hope it is desperation; I don’t know if I can cope with that level of exuberance.
He calls me on Sunday evening to ask for the address of the office.
“The office?” I reply. I’m a little distracted as I’ve just applied some part-cured nail wraps and the whole palaver is decidedly harder work than the packaging had implied. There was a cute little infographic on their website and I think they might have been lying to me.
“For my first day tomorrow?” he sounds uncertain.
“Ohhh. The office.” I make it sound like I just misheard the first time, or at least misconstrued what he was implying. It isn’t like I can tell him the truth. I hadn’t even thought about it; but he’s right, we will need somewhere to work.
“Are you alright—”
But I cut him off with a scream of anger as I fuck up the nails on my right hand.
Have you ever heard a vampire scream? I don’t recommend it to be honest, there’s a certain quality to the sound that’s developed over the centuries and it’ll make your blood curdle in your veins as your lizard brain tries and fails – which is most terrifying of all – to decipher the threat.
“Sorry,” I say into the phone. My cheeks flush – metaphorically at least – I hate letting out that primal side of myself out in public.
“I’m trying to do my nails and it’s a disaster. ”
“Oh. Well that’s…” he trails off. “I thought something bad had happened.”
I want to tell him that something bad has happened.
But I don’t think he’d understand. I’m doing my own nails at home because I can’t afford the salon.
I can’t afford anything. I have just enough in savings to keep paying my rent for a few months and fund the meagre salary I’ve promised Brody, but after that…
He breaks me from my reverie. “So, the office?”
“Right. Yes. Well. You see. Umm.” I scratch around in my brain for a solution I know doesn’t exist. I don’t have an office and I can’t afford to rent one.
I can just about stretch to a cup of coffee in the local cafe but I don’t think that will cut it.
It leaves me with only one option. “I was thinking we could just use my flat.” I say it almost like it’s a question, just in case he has a better idea. But alas he doesn’t.
“Great. That’ll be perfect. What’s the address?”
I scan the room as I reply. It’s probably a good thing I don’t need much sleep, it’s going to take me hours to get this place into some semblance of order.
No one ever comes here. Why would they? Clara has that gorgeous house so we tend to congregate there.
Ivan has an apartment – it’s far too fancy to call a flat – overlooking the canal, but it’s always a bit like running the gauntlet of whatever bodily fluids his “friends” have deposited around the place.
At least my flat is small. Really really small.
There’s an open plan kitchen/living/dining room, a tiny shower room and my bedroom which just about fitted a double bed, but I still have to be careful I don’t hit my head on the eaves when I sit up in the morning.
But less space means less to clean and organise.
So, you know, perhaps there’s a silver lining to being broke.
Brody looks disappointed when he arrives the next morning. “I thought you all lived in those fancy houses in St Leonard’s?”
“No character,” I tell him, trying to keep my tone blasé.
Like I chose to live here. And not in the gorgeous Georgian house I used to own on Victoria Park Road.
When I thought that perhaps I’d finally made it, reached vampire adulthood and I could relax with some sense of security around me.
But it was just an illusion and eventually it all crumbled to dust once more.
“Besides, the neighbours here are awesome.” I’m lying.
My neighbours are an absolute nightmare, they come and go at all hours and are constantly fighting and slamming doors and stomping around as if they’re wearing steel toecaps inside.
All. The. Time. But beggars can’t be choosers.
And besides, Brody and I are going to launch Only Fangs and make a fortune and then I can move back to St. Leonard’s and live with normal people.
Well, other vampires. But you know what I mean.
“Tea?” I ask him, determined to at least be a passable host.
“Please,” he replies.
“Or I can make coffee if you’d rather?”
“Honestly, whichever. I’m easy.” He grins as he says it and I wonder if he realises just how attractive he is. He doesn’t have that arrogance that normally accompanies such perfect cheekbones, but perhaps he’s just learned to hide it well.
I motion to the seating area and cross my fingers he takes the sofa.
There’s a curious mark on the chair which I couldn’t scrub out last night and I don’t want him to think too badly of me.
I think it’s glue – I ill-advisedly tried to brighten the place up when I moved in with a feature wall, but the paper wouldn’t stick and it all got a bit messy.
I put the mugs of tea down and then I realise I’m displaying the disaster of my nails in all their glory. I tuck my hand into my pocket.
Brody cocks his head and looks at me from under that floppy fringe of his. “Are you sure you’re OK?”
“Fine. Fine. Fine.” If I say it three times he has to believe me.
“Do you have something in your pocket?” he asks with a hint of suspicion, like I might be hiding a weapon in the pouch of my hoodie.
Like I’d need a weapon if I wanted to hurt him.
Which I don’t. And I definitely don’t want to sink my teeth into that pretty neck of his. Let’s just be really clear about that.
“No.” But I can hear the way the word sounds weird, hanging in the air between us, laughing at me and my inability to act like a normal vampire despite the one hundred and seventy-two years of practise. You’d think anxiety would wear off eventually but if anything it’s worse now than ever before.
He raises an eyebrow, but his casual act is belied by the nervous flick of his tongue across his lips.
“Fine.” I acquiesce and pull my hands out. “I made a total pig’s ear of my manicure, OK?”
He smirks. “Pig’s ear?”
“It’s something my dad says.”
“Is he?” He raises an eyebrow.
“Yep. He lives in Scotland though so I don’t see him much.
” He’s happier on his own, whiling away his days in the freezing cold of the Aberdeenshire wilderness.
He moved up there after Mum. Said he needed to be away from all the people telling him to start dating and that life was far too long to mope around pining for a human.
Vampires can be cruel and I can’t blame Dad for wanting to get away from them.
“I could help you,” he says softly and for a moment I think he’s meaning he could help me visit Dad. But then I realise he’s looking at my nails.
“You want to help me do my nails?”
He shrugs and turns pink. It does something to me but I tamp the reaction down. “I’m pretty good,” he tells me with a hint of pride.
“Sisters?”
He nods. “Three.”
“They’re gels. Or at least they were meant to be.” I add ruefully, inspecting my fingers once more.
“You’ve got one of those lamp thingies?” he asks.
I nod and then stand up. “Only if you’re sure?”
His hands are warm and he works with the kind of focussed intensity I have always found attractive in a man. He’s silent as he uses a solution to soak off the gels I messed up last night and then carefully applies the new ones. A minute under the heat lamp and I’m staring at perfection.
“Wow,” I say, looking up from my nails to meet his eyes. How had I not realised how blue they were before?
But no. I’m not going to think of him like that. He’s human. And even if he wasn’t, now is absolutely not the time to be getting involved with anyone. I have a job to do. Money to make. Debts to repay. Plus, I don’t date. Not now, not ever.
I pull my hand back. “Right then. Well, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he says with a soft smile.
Damn you.