Page 14 of Just the Pool Boy at Vampire Mansion

“Can I get a selfie?”

She scooped her arm around my shoulders, thrust a phone in front of my face, and took the picture. I barely had time to put my cup down.

What was happening? I turned my face away too late. The phone flashed.

“Wow, hashtag freckles, hashtag splashsnack.” She squealed. “You’re cute.” And then off she went, face in her phone, typing fast.

“What was that?” Bet asked.

“I have no idea.”

But inside, a seed of realization had been planted and began to sprout. I turned my phone over, flicked it open, brought my socials back online, and stared at the Instagram notification number. Three hundred and fifteen. “Oh . . . he didn’t.”

I opened IG and immediately got virtually mobbed. Reaction videos to a ship called #Thowen. A lot of girls screaming. Some guys too. Mailbox blow-up. Mentions off the charts. #FangsDeep. #Freckles #Splashsnack #MinimumWageMaximumTrauma. That last one. Wow.

“Uh, Bet . . . I have to go.”

“What is it?”

“Oh, you know, a thing . . . Just a thing I have to deal with.”

I found the original post on Theo’s account. A quick video of him climbing into the back of a car at night. “Shout out to my pool guy.” Theo’s sly smile showed a bit of fang, the money shot. “Owen helped me through it.” And then all the hashtags, implying I wasn’t just a pool guy he’d met that morning. Implying a whole lot more. That’s where #Thowen had come from. We’d been shipped. And now the internet had lost its collective mind.

Oh. Well. That was rude. Didn’t I get a say in these things?

He couldn’t just splash me all over the internet like that. I was going to have to have words with him.

But I didn’t have his number. I’d have to go over there. This wasn’t right. And it wasn’t some innocent mistake. He’d tagged me deliberately, dragging me into his orbit. I’d told him to leave me out of everything, and he’d done the exact opposite. Clearly, rich boy vampires did not know how to take no for an answer. And that was a problem.

“Owen?” Bet asked, her tone concerned.

“It’s fine. I just need to teach someone some manners.”

“Owen, what does that mean? Don’t do anything risky!”

I waved her off. “I’ll call you.”

Theo thought he had teeth, thought he could sink them in deep. #FangsDeep. But just because he happened to have money and influence, didn’t mean he could push me around.

I seethed the whole drive over, and by the time I pulled up at the Witherborne Mansion’s closed gates, it was late afternoon. The sun was still up. I had an hour before dusk. I’d go in, say what I had to say, and then get out of there.

But sitting at the gates, engine running, I didn’t move. Didn’t press the intercom. Kept my hands on the wheel

I needed this job. Needed it for a lot of reasons.

If I stormed in there and told Theo to back off, I risked him pulling the plug on my employment. And what would it achieve? I’d feel better. Lose my job. Be alone in my apartment, sadder, lonelier, poorer.

“Dammit.” I put the car in reverse, turned around in the drive, and headed home.

Tomorrow, I was due back to check the filters anyway. I’d go, ignore it all, like anything Theo could do wouldn’t touch me. When his antics didn’t get a rise out of me, he’d get bored and move on.

Yeah, that’s what I’d do. Show up for work tomorrow like nothing had happened. “Hashtag not bothered, asshole.”

Show up, do the work, go home.

Theo wasn’t on the lounger this time, so that was a win. But the raging argument going on inside the house distracted me from the delicate work of balancing the filter flow rate. From the snippets I caught, Geraldine wanted to host a party, Theo argued for waiting until the fallout from his arrest had died down, and Bentley wanted a pony.

I wasn’t sure on that last one. The closed, thick windows made it tricky to hear. But there was shouting, shattered glass, and slamming doors. Then quiet.