24. Brody
Brody
Iwalk the long way home from dropping Ari off at her flat, keen to let the cool air take the last vestiges of my inebriation and give myself time to hold onto the memory of the night before reality comes crashing down.
For a moment I’d thought she was going to kiss me.
And I wanted her to.
Oh, how I wanted her to.
I know she’s my boss. And a vampire. And that she pushed me away last night. And that I have horrible taste and always fall for the wrong girl. But what if I’m not wrong this time? What if she really is the perfect woman for me?
I should have been braver this evening. I should have initiated a kiss.
But she was tipsy and on a high from the news of the bank loan and I didn’t want to misjudge the situation and make things even more weird between us.
She doesn’t date and I need to respect that, however much I want her to have a change of heart.
Matt is still up when I let myself into the house. “Where the hell have you been?” he calls out from the living room. “You were due back from Wales hours ago.”
“Just out with Ari,” I tell him, adjusting the volume of my voice as I walk toward him.
“Oh my god. Like on a date?” He sits up from his prone position on the sofa to stare at me. “You’re grinning like a lunatic.”
“It wasn’t a date. Just a celebration. It looks like we’re going to get the loan.”
“Seriously? That’s amazing news.” He stands up and pulls me into a hug.
We watch an episode of the Office – the American one, obviously.
After it finishes Matt makes us hot chocolate with squirty cream on top and I dig out some treats from the secret stash of chocolate.
It’s not actually a secret but it’s buried in the back of the kitchen cupboard so we don’t see it every time we’re hungry. We watch an episode of Brooklyn 99.
“Right,” I say as the credits roll. “I’m going to head to bed.”
“To dream of your sexy vampire boss?” Matt asks.
“No.”
“Not even after last night?”
“Nothing really happened last night.”
“But you went on a date this evening?” He cocks his head as if he’s trying to understand the situation.
“It wasn’t a date.”
“But you had drinks and then dinner and a romantic stroll along the canal.”
“We went out to celebrate,” I remind him, standing up.
“But not on a date?”
“Definitely not on a date,” I say as I leave the living room and start to head up the stairs. “She doesn’t date. You were the one who told me that.”
He does this little head wobble as if to concede that he was indeed the one who imparted that particular wisdom. “You like her though.”
“I do not,” I say, reaching the top of the stairs.
“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.