Page 27 of By the Pint

“Got my hundred silvers then?” he said aloud, holding out his hand and making agive it to megesture.

I held my own hand out. “Ha, you wish. I sold every single copy of my book.”

His grin vanished. “You didn’t?”

“Yep. Hand it over.”

Both Joey and Holly laughed.

Goldie stood, scraped around in his pockets, and withdrew two very crumpled fifties. He slapped them into my palm.

“Urgh, why are they wet?” I tucked them into my pocket.

“Holly got extra excited and knocked her beer onto my lap,” he said. When I gave him a confused look, he added, “Couldn’t be bothered to go upstairs and change.”That’s not why you’re smiling. What is it?

I shrugged, but my burgeoning grin was about to give everything away.

“What’s up with you?” Joey said, narrowing her eyes at me.

“Yeah,” said Holly. “You’re being unusually quiet.”

Goldie assessed me. Tilted his head to the side like a puppy. Sucked his teeth. His expression fell into recognition just as Joey yelled, “Oh my gods, you got laid!”

“Did you?” squealed Holly, grabbing my hand in hers.

“Maybe,” I said, trying, and failing to maintain a straight face, and immediately lapsing into the giggles.

“Dima, you scoundrel.” Goldie leant over both Joey and his wife to fist-bump me. “So, what’s he like?”

“Well …” I gave myself a few seconds to bring back Casey’s perfect image. “Hot. So inconceivably hot. He’s Aries. An only child. He’s an ENTJ, but he cheats on personality tests. He irons his underwear.”

“Bad Dima!” Joey said, slapping the back of my hand. “You went into his mind?”

“Only a little bit. Not all the way,” I countered. “I didn’t mean to. I just got … a bit carried away. I didn’t see everything. Promise.”

Holly rolled her eyes. “But what’s he like? What’s his name? Does he work? Does he live—sorry unlive in the City of the Undead?”

Oh!

She—they—thought Casey was another vampire. Would make sense. Since I was at the Bloodsuckers in Business conference.

“He’s human,” I said to universal gasps. “He’s a familiar.” I didn’t mention whose, not that Holly or Joey ever knew anything about Killian. “But before that, he was some sort of sportsing guy. Wingball, actually.”

“Oh my gods, who? What’s his name?” Goldie said. He and Mal were big followers of wingball.

“Well, here’s where my problems start. He told me his name is Sean—”

“No! He fake-named you!” Joey’s hand shot up over her mouth.

I nodded grimly, didn’t need to explain why he fake-named me. “Yes, he did. But I know his actual name is Casey Freckle—”

Goldie didn’t let me finish my sentence before leaping to his feet. “Casey Freckleman?! You fucked Casey Freckleman?!” He started laughing. “Shit! You fucked Casey ‘The Temper’ Freckleman.” He put extra emphasis on ‘The Temper’. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, tapped on the screen and after a few moments, a video appeared on the TV where the racing game pause-screen had recently been. “This him?”

The video showed a pitch —court?— with an enormous blue and white Bordalis Barracudas logo in the centre. Men, a mix of species, floated around the space on some kind of winged hoverboards. They wore blue jerseys, with huge white numbers on their backs.

Okay, so it wasn’t the first time I’d ever seen an image of a wingball game, but it was the first time I’d paid attention to it.

“Oh, there he is!” said Holly, pointlessly bounding over to the screen and pointing to the guy in the dead centre withFRECKLEMAN 42on the back of his jersey.

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