Page 36

“Thanks.”

“And your shirt is such a cute colour, Taylor!” Susan added.

“Thanks, Susan.” He blushed again.

Holt tossed back his long hair and placed a hand on his hip, seemingly waiting for something. When no one else spoke up, he pointedly glanced down at his baby pink silk pussy bow shirt and high-waisted pants.

After a few more long seconds of utter silence, he huffed and straightened. “Fuck all of you. Okay, it’s Tuesday, so you know what that means.”

We all perked up. Even Crossbody turned off his treadmill, grabbing his towel to dab the sweat from his neck as he hopped down off the belt.

“Time for the match line-ups,” Holt declared. Like a well-oiled machine, Taylor tapped swiftly on the tablet and passed it over to him. Holt gave him a dopy smile. “Thanks, babe. Right,” he continued in a louder voice. “Rafe said the test runs for the pay-per-view all went great, which means the official launch will be going ahead as planned this week.”

“Who’s Rafe?” Crossbody drawled, even though he’d met him.

I rolled my eyes. Despite Rafe practically being a ghost at work, by this point we were all at least aware of him. Crossbody was just being a dick, as per usual.

“Oh.” He sniffed. “You mean the other ghoul?”

I looked over in time to see him sneering at Vince, as if ghouls were a lower lifeform to him. I mean, Crossbody thought everyone was a lower lifeform to him, so it wasn’t that surprising.

Still. After seeing how awkward Rafe had been around me and Vince last week, a tiny hint of protectiveness flared at the thought of Crossbody inadvertently making him feel like any more of an outcast.

“Hey Crossbody,” I began, “why don’t you—”

“Get fucked,” Vince finished for me in a bored voice. “And shut the fuck up until you learn how to actually contribute meaningfully to any conversation.”

Crossbody’s nostrils flared in outrage. “You don’t get to—”

“Enough, boys,” Biff ordered in his stern voice. I saw Gabe’s nipples visibly stiffen in response, which made me snort. The spike on the end of his long tail quivered, and I’d fooled around with enough incubi and succubi to know exactly what that meant.

When I turned my attention back to Holt, he just looked bored by our antics—he was used to them—whereas Taylor seemed a little worried. He hadn’t had as much time to get used to us and our general dynamic.

“Don’t worry, handsome,” I drawled with a crooked grin to reassure him. “You’ll get used to Crossbody thinking he’s better than the rest of us.”

Holt raised his brows meaningfully in a clear look of agreement, but he pretended to be very busy peering down at his tablet screen as he cleared his throat. “Right, anyway…”

“Hold on, honey,” Taylor said quietly. “Frank and Beans aren’t here.”

“Ugh.” Holt wrinkled his nose as he lifted his head to look around. “Anyone know where they are?”

“They’re here.” Larkin appeared through the door behind him and held it open so that Seb, Holt’s werewolf bodyguard, could walk through. Attached to his legs were Frank and Beans, like two horrible little parasites, but Seb’s face was as stoic as ever.

“Swear to god, you two, I meant what I said.” Larkin pointed down at them, trying to make his angelic face threatening. “If I see any hands creeping higher up Seb’s legs, I will punt you. No inappropriate touching.”

“Did you manage to get hold of Corey?” Holt asked him.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Uh-huh.” Larkin held up his phone and turned it to face us. He was connected to a video call, and on the screen was Corey, Goliaths’ resident orc diva, sitting in a hair salon. He’d propped his phone up against the mirror in front of him and carefully arranged himself into an elegantly casual pose, one leg crossed over the other. His little Pomeranian, Cora, panted merrily in his lap as he flicked idly through a magazine and sipped from an espresso cup.

“I’m here,” he declared.

“Fantastic.” Holt tapped on his tablet screen, then cleared his throat and looked up. “Okay, first, the main events for each night. Thursday, we have Vince and Dan closing out the show.”

“Sick.” Vince grinned as we fist-bumped.

“Friday,” Holt continued. “The G.O.A.T. and the Silent Scream.”

Heidi grinned over at Susan, who clapped her hands and said, “Ooh, fun!”