Page 4 of Only Fangs

She’s already in the kitchen, making us drinks when I push the front door open. “Hola sweetie!” she calls. “Just check the thermostat will you?”

A few years ago the house developed a hideous mould issue because Clara never put the heating on. It is after all a total waste of energy given we don’t mind the cold, but apparently it’s necessary from a building maintenance perspective. “Eighteen degrees,” I reply as I slip out of my coat. Again another unnecessary item, but you get very odd looks if you walk around Exeter City Centre in a vest top in January.

I remove my boots and head towards the kitchen in my socks. Clara is sitting at the breakfast bar with a martini in front of her and her iPad on a stand facing the other martini she has made for me. She clears her throat and a feeling of icy dread shimmers down my spine. I know that throat clearing. That’s the very specific one she reserves for presentations. And normally presentations about the sorry state of my life. A few months ago she delivered a half hour talk about my single status, although she termed it “unnecessary celibacy”.

“No,” I say, putting as much authority in my voice as I can, only slightly undermined by my simultaneous reaching for one of the martini glasses.

“Yes.” She grins, her smile lighting up her face.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.” This time I cock my head slightly. I can do this forever.

She narrows her eyes and we lock stares, neither of us wanting to be the first to look away. I don’t notice her hand creeping to the iPad, but I can’t help but look as the screen bursts into light. “Only fangs,” she whispers theatrically and then waves her hand in front of the screen like an old school mystic.

She’s designed a logo, all reds and blacks with a set of upper teeth, blood dripping from the comically pointed cuspid. You really could kill someone with those teeth.

“You like?” she asks.

I sip the martini and lean forward for a closer look. Because yes, I do like. In fact I more than like. “I love it,” I tell her truthfully.

“So you’ll do it?”

“Start a dating app?”

“Obvs.” Clara rolls her eyes at me in a parody of a bored Gen-Z-er.

I sigh. “I can’t.” Who the hell am I kidding? I have no experience in building an app.

Clara stares at me and waits for me to say my concerns out loud. She knows this is the only way to get me to open up.

“I have no clue where to start. All I have is a concept and a brilliant name,” I tell her.

“And now you also have a bloody amazing logo.” She does this weird jazz hands thing in the direction of the iPad.

I smile. “And a bloody amazing logo.”

She smiles. “So why not give it a go?”

“I—” But I’m saved by someone pressing their entire body weight against the front door bell, the sound reverberating through the house.

“Oh goodie, the cavalry has arrived.” Clara jumps off her stool and hustles towards the front door.

“You invited Ivan to gang up on me?” I call to her back.

“Of course,” she replies, throwing the words over her shoulder. She sounds far too pleased with herself.

An hour later and we’re on our third martinis. That’s another popular myth, that we don’t consume anything other than blood, and it’s absolute dog shit. Just imagine how awful our lives would be if we couldn’t eat or drink anything else? We’d all be cranky as hell and killing humans left, right, and centre just to quell the hangry demons.

Ivan and Clara have been trying to convince me to set up Only Fangs for the whole time. I’ve tried to tell them that if they think it’s such a good idea they should launch it themselves. But that just made them roll around laughing. They are both total luddites and would probably break the entire internet if they even tried. I, however, am at least vaguely tech savvy.

Eventually they wear me down. “Look, I appreciate what you’re doing,” I say, trying to keep the emotion out of my voice. “But I can’t. It isn’t that I don’t want to.” All they’ve managed to do this evening is made me realise just how good the idea is and now I feel even more shit that I can’t do it.

“You’d make a killing,” Clara says softly.

I don’t talk about my money problems with my friends. They have no ideas the depths of the issue. And they definitely don’t know about the loan, or the price I’ll have to pay if I can’t pay it back. And soon. But I guess they’ve figured out I’m in a bit of a bind, I doubt they were convinced when I said I was moving to the other side of Exeter because I wanted a change of scenery.