Page 9 of Impromptu Match

“You think I don’t know how depressing my life is?” I was on a roll now, breathing hard, my skin clammy with sweat. “I iron my underpants, for fuck’s sake. I eat the exact same thing for lunch every day. I haven’t had ice cream in years. I haven’t been invited to any orgies—”

“What?”

“I got BBC iPlayer so I could watch every episode of EastEnders. Do you know how long that show has been running? Since 1985, dude. A new episode every fucking night for over thirty-five years, and yet somehow, I’m already halfway through them because when I’m not at work, I do nothing but sit there and watch them. All evening. Every weekend. I can’t even fucking understand what they’re saying half the time, and it’s possibly the most depressing show ever. Someone dies almost every Christmas. Did you know that? It’s like a fucked-up British tradition. But I watch it because somehow, it’s still less depressing than my own life.”

I finally stopped talking, my chest heaving. Holt was staring at me in mild horror and alarm. After a few seconds, he slowly rose from his seat.

“So you’re… not the stripper?”

Fucking finally, he gets it.

Trying to claw back some semblance of dignity, I cleared my throat and lifted my chin. “No. I’m not the stripper.”

The elastic of the party hat I’d completely forgotten I was still wearing chose that moment to snap. The hat pinged up off my head and into the air as we both stood there in agonising silence, before the pointy end of the cone hit the floor with a sad, anticlimactic tap.

Chapter Five

Lemon Cake and Uneven Testicles

“Well.” Holt broke the painful silence and cleared his throat. “If that isn’t a metaphor for your life.”

My nostrils flared with outrage. “Fuck you. I don’t need some stranger telling me how sad my life is. I’m already perfectly aware.”

“Clearly.” He stood there uncomfortably for a few seconds, before rounding the desk. I quickly averted my eyes from the prominent bulge in the front of his suit pants.

He was hard? He had a boner from listening to me list all the details of my miserable life? What kind of sadist was he?

And why the fuck was it kind of hot?

“I think there’s been some… If you’d just wait here for a minute.” Holt skirted around me and opened the door, slipping out of it swiftly.

But it didn’t close all the way, so I inched closer. I may have wanted to get the fuck out of here, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t desperate to find out what the hell was going on down in the basement.

“Larkin,” Holt was hissing. “He’s not the fucking stripper.”

“Huh?”

“He’s not the stripper. He said he works in the building. Upstairs.”

“What? No, no, that’s just part of his act. He told me he works for HotSex Corporation. I mean, come on, bro. It’s just the backstory he’s come up with. Honestly, I’m impressed by the level of—”

“Larkin, you fucking dolt, it’s not a fucking act. I don’t think he’s even a lampyr.”

Lampyr? What was a lampyr? Was that some fancy new term for sex workers or dancers or something?

“If he works upstairs, you know what he is.” Now Holt sounded furious.

“What?” Larkin’s voice grew a little panicked. “No way. He can’t—”

“Did you even check?”

“I sniffed him! He smells like lemons! That’s what lampyrs smell like!” After a pause, Larkin blurted, “Seb smelled him too. He didn’t notice either!”

“Well then, let’s get Seb in here to see if I only hire incompetent morons, shall we?” Hard-soled shoes tapped over the floor before I heard a door open. “Seb. In here.”

“Yes, boss?” The deep, rumbling voice of the giant bodyguard outside joined the conversation.

“Please explain to me how you didn’t notice that the ‘stripper’ Larkin brought in here is not, in fact, the lampyr I hired for the night?”

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