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’mnotgoing 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. Quittingthe 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,reallytesting 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 lastof 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.
