Page 7 of Just the Pool Boy at Vampire Mansion

“Uhm . . . he said to put him there . . .” Sort of. “Look, man, I don’t know anything about any of this. I just have to be somewhere else.”

“You put my brother in a bush,” he said again. Not asking this time. More coming around to the idea that his brother was in a bush in the yard and I had something to do with it. His eyes narrowed, his gaze hot and heavy, pinning me down.

“Oh well,” he said flippantly, suddenly breaking the spell. “I suppose it’s for the best. You want a drink?” he asked, nodding toward the bar set on its own little raised area at the side of the living room.

“Uh, no, not really.”

He still blocked my exit. I tried to discreetly step around him, but he braced an arm against the glass, using his body to block my exit.

“What did you say your name was again?” he asked.

“I didn’t.”

He walked forward, and unless I wanted to get a face full of fluffy towel and man chest, I had to back up too. I stumbled over my own feet.

“Mother!” he called. “Theo is dying again!”

“Bentley dear, do keep the noise down.”

Bentley, that was it.

A woman appeared through a marble archway that I assumed led into the hallway, wearing a bright purple dress, as though she’d just stepped off a red carpet. Her long blonde hair was curled and pinned high in the kind of design that took three people to arrange. She strode into the living room, or whatever this fancy room was, plucking off earrings and unclasping the jewelry around her neck.

It was then I remembered the ring from the pool filter. But now didn’t really seem the time to bring it up. Theo was outside, dying in a bush. Why weren’t these people more concerned?

She eyed me like she was scrutinizing the neighborhood yappy dog, one she wanted to drop-kick across the block. I swallowed hard. The only Witherborne who actually knew me was Leander, the father who’d hired me off Facebook, and he didn’t seem to be around.

The mother draped herself into an armchair beside the cold marble fireplace. She eyed me hard, and I had the sensation of finding myself in a lion’s cage.

She clicked her fingers at Bentley. “Go find your brother.”

“I’m in a Gucci gown, Mother.”

Her gaze, when she turned it on Bentley, turned bitterly cold. She didn’t have to say another word. The gaze did all the talking for her.

Bentley huffed. “Ugh. Fuck my life.” He tore off his sleep mask, tossed it onto the couch, and strode toward the sliding door.

This was my chance to escape. “I’m just going to⁠—”

“Come along, pool boy.” He grabbed my shoulders with stonelike fingers and steered me back outside. “Show me which bush.”

Bentley let go when we were outside, but I was getting the impression I didn’t really have a choice.

I retraced my earlier steps, crossing the yard again, following the flattened grass path between the bushes, toward the fence. Bentley marched me along, tall and imposing beside me. A muscle in his cheek fluttered, probably because the sunlight was about to ruin his already foul mood.

“What did he bring you out here for, huh? You two fucking?” he asked.

“What? N-no!” I spluttered. “We just met.”

“That’s never stopped him before.”

Wow. “No, he uh . . . There was a possum.”

“A what?” Bentley snapped. “What the fuck is a possum?”

“Uh, small furry creature—never mind.”

“You were chasing this possum?”