Page 36 of Only Fangs

Now that is something we can agree on.

He takes the phone back and scrolls for a few moments. “Aha. I knew I’d taken a picture of a cat at some point.” He turns the screen to show me. The cat is winding around his legs, its little face lifted towards the camera. I have to admit it is kind of cute.

The next day, Brody turns up on my doorsteps with bacon sandwiches and little pots of fruit salad.

“Bacon for energy, fruit because I don’t think either of us has eaten anything even remotely nutritious all week,” he tells me with a grin.

“Bacon is nutritious.”

“It’s not.”

“Well, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”

We eat our breakfast and then I bring up the list of tasks we still have left to do. “We need a pitch line,” I tell him. “Like one perfect sentence that says exactly what Only Fangs is all about.

“The dating app for vampires,” he says in a grand voice.

“Lame.”

“It does what it says on the tin,” he replies.

“Yeah. But the tin is slightly smeared in shit.”

“Wow.” He places his hand over his heart like I’ve struck him with a mortal blow.

“This is important, Brody.”

“I know. I was just warming up the old pitch muscle.” He stands and stretches his shoulder by pulling one arm across his body. He switches sides and then cracks his neck.

“What about a pun?”

“This is a serious app,” I remind him.

“Everyone loves a pun.”

“They don’t.”

“They actually do,” he says and this earnest look crosses his face. It’s kind of adorable. “I remember that from university.”

“What did you study?”

“Computer science with a minor in marketing.”

“Impressive.” I’m only half joking.

“What about you?”

“What about me?” I ask.

“What did you study at university?” He asks the question like it’s legitimate. Like he’s actually being serious.

“I was born in eighteen-fifty-two.”

“I know.”

“Women didn’t go to university. The first degree awarded to a woman was in eighteen-seventy-eight and it was a momentous occasion.”

“Oh.”