Blood And Budgets |16+

The man sitting across from me had fangs. Not the cute, cosplay kind. The I-could-open-a-beer-bottle-with-these kind. They caught the fluorescent office light every time he smiled, which was often, because I was apparently hilarious. "So," I said, gripping my résumé like a prayer card. "Mr.…?" "Vex," he supplied. "Just Vex. Like the emotion, but sexier." "Vex," I repeated. "And you're the… night manager?" "Owner," he corrected. "Of this fine establishment." He gestured around the room, which looked less like a business and more like a Victorian fever dream had a baby with a dentist's office. Velvet curtains. Leather chairs. A suspicious number of heavy-duty floor drains. "We specialize in bespoke solutions for clients with… dietary restrictions." I glanced at the job posting I'd found taped to a gas station bathroom mirror. Personal Assistant. Night Hours Only. Must Have Thick Skin (Literally Preferred). I'd assumed it was a joke. "Your references are glowing," Vex said, paging through a folder that smelled faintly of copper. "Former employer says you're 'unflappable.' Is that true?" "She also said I was 'alarmingly comfortable with chaos,'" I admitted. Vex's eyes—amber, with pupils that dilated like a cat spotting a laser—lit up. "Perfect. Most humans run when I do this." He moved. Not fast. Wrong. One second he was behind the desk, the next he was perched on its edge, inches from my face, fangs bared in a grin that should've been terrifying. His breath smelled like expensive whiskey and something darker. Old blood, maybe. Or really aged balsamic vinegar. I didn't flinch. Mostly because my fight-or-flight response had broken sometime during my last retail job. "Interesting," he murmured, tilting his head. "Your heart rate spiked, but you didn't scream. Why?" "Screaming is for people who can afford therapy," I said. "I just finished paying off my student loans. I don't have the lung capacity." Vex stared at me. Then he laughed—a startled, genuine sound that made the fangs seem almost friendly. "Oh, hell. You're hired." --- The first week was an education. Vex was a hybrid. Half vampire, half human, and apparently one hundred percent disaster. He couldn't go out in direct sunlight without turning into what he called "a very expensive leather wallet," but he also couldn't fully turn off his humanity, which meant he felt guilty about the whole blood-drinking thing. "Do you know how hard it is to be a predator with anxiety?" he demanded at 3 AM, pacing his office while I updated his calendar. "I spent forty minutes last night psyching myself up to bite a deer. A deer. It looked at me. I apologized. We made eye contact. I think we're dating now." "You bought a farm," I reminded him. "For ethically sourced blood. You're a vampire with a subscription service." "It's called growth, Eleanor." "It's called a midlife crisis, and you're technically two hundred, so you're overdue." He threw a stapler at me. It missed by three feet. Vampire reflexes, apparently, did not extend to office supplies. But the job was easy enough. Manage his schedule (sunset to sunrise). Screen his calls (mostly angry witches and one very persistent werewolf ex-boyfriend). Keep a cooler of ethically farmed O-negative in the breakroom fridge, which I labeled "Vex's Juice Boxes—DO NOT TOUCH, HUMAN RESOURCES WILL BE NOTIFIED." It was weird. It was funny. It was the most stable employment I'd had in years. Then came the night I found him in the supply closet, crying. Not metaphorically. Not a single dignified tear. Full, ugly sobs, his forehead pressed against a shelf of industrial-strength bleach, shoulders shaking. "Vex?" I hovered in the doorway, suddenly aware that I was wearing bunny slippers and he could probably kill me before I could say PETA. "Hey. What's—" "I killed a spider," he choked out. I blinked. "…I'm sorry?" "I killed a spider." He turned, and his eyes were red-rimmed, his fangs digging into his lower lip hard enough to draw blood—his own, which seemed inefficient. "It was in the bathroom. I didn't see it. I just… sat down. And I heard the crunch." I waited for the punchline. It didn't come. "Vex," I said carefully. "You're a vampire." "I know!" "You drink blood for a living." "I know!" "And you're devastated about a spider?" "It had a family!" he wailed. "Probably! They have families, Eleanor! Little spider wives! Little spider mortgages! And I just—" He made a squishing motion with his hands, then looked so horrified by his own hands that he started crying harder. I didn't know what to do. My last boss had been a CPA who cried when the Keurig broke. This was a two-hundred-year-old apex predator having an existential crisis over arachnid homicide. So I did the only thing that made sense. I sat down on the floor next to him, pulled a granola bar from my pocket, and broke it in half. "Here," I said, handing him the smaller piece. "Eat your feelings." He stared at the granola bar like I'd offered him a live grenade. "I don't eat solid food." "Then hold it and look sad. You're already doing the sad part." Vex took the granola bar. He held it. He looked sad. And after a while, he leaned his head against my shoulder, which was cold and heavy and weirdly comforting, like a weighted blanket made of marble. "You're not afraid of me," he said quietly. Not a question. "I am," I admitted. "Sometimes. When you do the fast thing. Or when you look at my neck too long." "I don't look at your neck." "You literally have a Post-it on your monitor that says 'Eleanor's neck: 10/10, do not sample.'" "That's a compliment!" "It's a health hazard!" I shoved him lightly, and he let me, which felt important. "But you're also the guy who cried over a spider and sends apology fruit baskets to the deer on his farm. You're not scary, Vex. You're just… complicated." He was quiet for a long moment. Then: "The Post-it is because I want to. Your neck. I want to. And I don't, because you're—you're you. And that makes it worse. Because I want to, and I won't, and every night I don't, I feel more human than I have in a century, and I don't know if that's a good thing or if I'm just starving." The air went still. My pulse hammered in my throat, and I knew he could hear it, could probably smell the sudden spike of adrenaline. "Vex," I whispered. "Yeah?" "If you ever eat me, I'm haunting you. And I will hide your keys every day for eternity." He laughed. It was wet and broken and real. "Deal." We sat there until dawn threatened the edges of the curtains. Two monsters in a supply closet, sharing a granola bar neither of us would eat, terrified of each other for completely different reasons. I didn't quit the next day. I think that was the moment we both realized we were in trouble. --- [End of Chapter 1] ---