27. Ari
Ari
At ten past five, only minutes after Brody has left for the day, the sound of my doorbell trills through the flat. Someone is obviously leaning their whole weight against it. Ivan.
“Come in,” I say as I open the door.
“Jeez, this place is…” he makes a face as he gives himself a tour, wrinkling his nose as he takes in the highlights of the flat.
“It’s a shit hole. This is why you’re never invited over.”
“Thank god.”
“But yet, you’re here…” I wait for him to explain the purpose of his visit.
Instead he goes into the kitchen. I hear some swearing under his breath and the clinking of glass. He emerges with two gin and tonics and hands me one. “Clara told me you’re going after some of that sweet vampire funding for Only Fangs.”
“Clara is a gossip.” I literally only rang her half an hour ago to confirm that Brody and I would meet her dad.
“She is.” He nods a few times. “But you, young lady, are a halfwit.” He puts his hand on his hip and shifts his weight to the other leg. He stares at me.
“Bit mean.”
“You do realise your man is a normie?”
“Of course I do.” I narrow my eyes at him. “I told you that the other night at the Cloisters”
“You did?” He shrugs. “I don’t remember.”
“So how do you know?”
“Matt told me.”
“Oh.” I guess that makes sense.
“Are you seriously going to take him to Andrei and try to pass him off as a fucking vampire?”
“Umm…”
“You can’t lie to Andrei.”
“Not lie. Just, you know, bend the truth a little bit. You know what he’s like, he won’t even ask. He’ll just assume Brody is a vampire and think nothing more of it. He’ll barely even register his existence.”
Ivan pauses, his stare growing more intense. “You’re right.” Then he grins. “This could work you know. It’s basically using his own prejudice against him. He dislikes humans so much he’d never assume you’d want to work with one.”
“Exactly.”
“And not just work either,” he says and the grin turns wicked. He moves to sit down on the sofa.
“Ha ha.” Why is everyone so obsessed with the idea of me and Brody?
“Clara told me everything.” He flaps his hand as if to say that I don’t need to give him any more information. “He’s not my cup of tea but I can understand the attraction. And it has been… what? Like literal decades since you had a boyfriend?”
“I don’t date. I don’t want a boyfriend. And I definitely don’t want one who’s my employee. My human employee.”
“Oh the lady really doth protest too much,” he says and raises his gin glass to his lips, staring at me over the rim.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I tell him.
“Like what?” The epitome of innocence.
“Like you think you know me better than I know myself.”
“I know you wanted to fuck his little human brains out in Wales and you regret not following through with it and you’re still wondering what he would feel like and—”
“Alright. Stop. I…”
He winks at me and his stupid face breaks into a dirty grin. “See. Told you so.”
The next morning, Brody arrives just before nine, carrying takeaway coffees from Sangers.
“I came with breakfast and caffeine,” he says with a smile.
I try not to think of the conversation with Ivan last night, or the way the gin loosened my tongue just enough to admit that perhaps I do think Brody is attractive and I might regret pulling back in Wales.
Just a teeny bit. I didn’t mention the inappropriate dreams or the way I imagined it was him touching me as I slipped my hand between my legs in the shower.
Brody isn’t interested in me and besides, I don’t want a boyfriend anyway.
“You’re a life saver,” I tell Brody. “We have a tonne to get done today.”
“Well, we’d better get on with it then.” He flashes me a smile.
“Yes sir.” I kind of like it when he gives me orders.
“So, can we use PowerPoint?” Brody asks after we finish the pastries he bought.
“PowerPoint? What, like you want to put up a pretty little slide deck?” I try to keep the ridicule out of my voice but judging by the hurt look in his eyes I fail miserably.
“I just thought we could show the logo and the UX sketches and some of the projections about signups and profitability and stuff.” He sounds so defensive and it’s utterly adorable.
“I don’t know how to use PowerPoint,” I tell him. “They hadn’t even invented the vertical lantern when I went through school.”
“The what?”
“The vertical lantern. Like an early version of the overhead projector.”
“The what?”
“Jesus Christ. You really are a baby.” I shake my head in mock admonishment.
He grins. “OK, no PowerPoint. But maybe we make up a few boards of the key information? Like they do on that TV show.”
I give him a blank look.
“That show where they pitch their ideas to get funding?”
Does he really think that would be a fun evening for me? Watching sweating humans trying to answer questions about their companies. Sometimes normies can be so weird.
And sometimes normies can be so right. Who has been hiding this show from me?
Watching nerve-wracked humans try to answer questions about their business ideas, the ones they have poured their hearts and souls into for years, is one of the most entertaining things I’ve ever seen. It’s also surprisingly educational.
I watch the first episode in silence, but before the second starts to autoplay, I jump up and grab a notebook.
“You’re taking notes?” Brody asks me.
“Absolutely,” I reply, already engrossed in writing down as many of the questions as I can remember.
We’ll need to make sure we’re prepared for the big pitch and I’m not going to fuck this up by once again not doing my homework.
“This isn’t like that bank loan that was all forms and spreadsheets.
This is about winning hearts and minds.”
I send Brody out to get us lunch just before midday.
Having a normie employee certainly has a benefit for the lunch run.
I love Sangers, but they don’t employ a vampire greeter and so I have to hover around outside until someone notices me and invites me inside.
It’s normally OK when it isn’t busy, but if there’s a queue it can take forever.
Clara rings me while Brody’s out. “I’ve managed to get you the meeting with Daddy,” she says without any kind of preamble. “Tomorrow morning at ten. Can you be ready by then?”
I cast my eyes around the flat in a panic.
At the boards we haven’t prepared and the questions I’ve written down we can’t answer yet.
At the frozen image of a business tycoon on the TV screen where I paused the show in the middle of a particularly vicious take down of Jenny from Margate’s dream of starting a rabbit jumper boutique.
As in jumpers for rabbits rather than made of rabbit wool. Fucking batshit.
“Earth to Ari,” Clara says.
“Sorry. I… errr…”
“Daddy says if you can make tomorrow then he can get you a slot with the High Council next month. Otherwise it’ll be sometime in the summer.”
“Oh.” The summer is too late. Far far too late. But why is every meeting about Only Fangs always so last minute? Perhaps I’m cursed. I swallow and then put on a fake happy voice. “Tomorrow is fine.” My voice squeaks a little on the last word.
“Great. I’ll let Marjorie know.” Marjorie is her father’s long suffering PA.
She’s been doing the job since Clara and I were little and I have no idea why she didn’t retire a century ago, she’s certainly earned her freedom.
Ivan always says that masochism is a well-documented vampire trait and she’s the text book case.
Brody returns with the sandwiches to find me pacing up and down the tiny flat.
“Everything OK?” he asks as he hands me the bag from Sangers.
“Clara called. The meeting’s tomorrow morning.”
I watch as his cheery demeanour crumbles. “But we’re not ready.”
“No. But it’s tomorrow or never.”
“Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.” Each repetition is quieter, the final “wow” barely audible as he slowly sinks onto the sofa.
But then he snaps back to standing as if a switch has been flicked.
“Right then. We’d better eat our lunch to give us the quick energy we’re going to need.
” He grins at me, the edges slightly maniacal.
“There isn’t time, is there?” It’s a question, but also not a question, there’s obviously not enough time for us to prepare.
“Do you believe in Only Fangs?” he asks me.
“Of course.”
“That’s the only thing that matters. We do our best to prepare and then you wow him with passion and creativity. Plus, you have me remember. And I don’t like to brag but I’m kind of a genius.”
I can’t help but smile as I look at his earnest little face. “Does this mean you’ll come with me to pitch?”
“I will be there. Sweating and trying not to throw up in front of Andrei Hele. As long as you promise he won’t lose his shit if he figures out I’m human.”
“He won’t figure it out,” I tell him. It isn’t the question he asked, but I don’t think he can handle that particular truth and I don’t want him too terrified.