Page 6 of Fangs with Benefits

He says this last part like it’s a joke, but he’s not lying. When Ryan is assigning tickets, mine are consistently the more unwieldy, time-consuming ones. I just knew you’d do it right the first time, and we really needed this one done right, he said when I last complained about the phenomenon.

‘She’s going to be your buddy here, which means she’s going to get you started today and then you can always go to her with any questions at all.’

The man–Elijah–stands abruptly from his chair and looks at me with steady, assessing eyes.

‘Molly,’ Elijah says. His accent is nothing like mine. I might’ve guessed British, but then again, I’ve always had a hard time telling apart accents. He offers a slight smile, then belatedly thrusts his arm out in my direction.

I take his hand, shaking it; his skin is frigid, so I guess he really did need all the layers now slung over the back of the office’s second chair. Maybe he has a blood flow condition?

‘I am so grateful for your help.’

‘Right,’ I say. Ryan clears his throat, and I stretch my lips into another closed-mouth smile. ‘Welcome to Drummond.’

Chapter 3

Elijah

The tiring man leaves me alone with the woman who I realise now, together in a small space as we are, smells unbearably good. I can smell her blood brimming beneath her smooth, freckled skin, and that smells good too, but it’s something else.

‘Have you just eaten a grapefruit?’ I ask, so overwhelmed by the citrusy sweetness of her. She’s tall for a woman, made taller by her sensible boots, but she still must look up to meet my gaze with her own confused one.

‘No?’ She pauses, looks away from me. ‘I washed my hair this morning. It’s, uh, my shampoo.’

‘Ah,’ I say. We stand quietly together for another moment, me looking at her, her looking elsewhere, vaguely uncomfortable. I am off-putting to her. Dylan says women sometimes don’t like to be alone with men, but being alone is no longer the ripe breeding ground for scandal it once was. I attempt to soften my expression and tone. ‘It’s nice. I like grapefruit.’

‘Cool,’ she says, which sounds more positive than her tone denotes. ‘Let’s get started with the onboarding.’

Molly gestures haltingly to the dubious chair I just vacated. Dylan has one similar, the spinning, swivelling thing he swears is comfortable. It’s unnatural, I’m not accustomed to my seat moving beneath me as I try to sit stationary, the wheels bumping into toes or pieces of furniture as it moves.

I swallow and return the gesture. ‘Why don’t you take this one?’ I don’t leave any room for argument as I pick up the smaller, more stable chair from the other side of the desk and place it on the same side, both now facing the door.

She looks like she’s just bitten into a lemon, and I fear that she didn’t want to sit by me and now I’ve forced her hand. Have I inadvertently made myself more off-putting?

Molly shrugs, sits, and starts clicking buttons on the computer before I can fret further.

Maybe we’re all right, then.

I should trust my instincts–I know how to act around humans. I was once mortal. I once wooed several women, and at least two men.

‘Did you set up your login after you got the onboarding information?’ she asks as I slide into the chair next to her.

I don’t have to hesitate; I know for a fact I didn’t do what she speaks of. ‘No.’

She blinks those light brown eyes at me. Along with her refreshing scent, Molly is quite striking, with round pink cheeks and a shapely nose. She has a handsomeness about her that I believe would make her rather desirable if I was in the market of desiring. (I am not.)

‘We can do it now,’ she says. ‘Did you do any of the onboarding?’

‘Some,’ I say, though which part I could not report. Dylan had some documents forged for me so I could get paid and have a bank account to get paid into. Apparently, the one line on my ancestral bible notating my birth is not proof enough of my existence; I need to have a birth certificate and a social security card, among other things.

‘None of the tech stuff, though?’

‘Correct.’

Molly’s shoulders sag a little before she types more. She’s much faster than Dylan, who I believed to be very quick. Turns out he is proficient at laptop, whereas Molly is professional.

It’s not that I am incapable of using a computer–I have used them before in my long life–it’s only that computers have become exceptionally complicated in these last decades, and I did believe for a time that if I ignored them they would exit the world’s favour. Either that or I would meet my end before needing to use one.

Obviously, neither has proven to be the case, and now computers are so complicated I think it would take me a year to learn how to really use them, and by then they will all have changed again. Even so, I’m determined to pick this up quickly as my other options for employment have dwindled. I can make this work. I will.