Page 147 of Clean Finish

His pierced brow quirked as he glanced over at me. “Not all IT guys are nerds.”

No laugh. Not even a smile. Well, this guy was going to be fun to have around.

I pushed up off the doorframe and gestured at the office. “Like it?”

“It’s fine.”

Holt admittedly hadn’t bothered making it anywhere near as nice as Taylor’s—was that what nepotism was?—but we’d still made it comfortable and inviting for him. It had the obligatory neon Goliaths of Wrestling sign on the wall, and there were a couple of bright purple velvet armchairs in the corner with a coffee table. The desk was a decent size, with two brand-new monitors. Why didn’t I get two monitors? I could game and work at the same time. I was going to bring it up with Holt as soon as possible.

I kind of wanted to abandon this guy here and go find Seb, but Holt had asked me to introduce him to everyone. Holding back a sigh, I said, “I’ll show you around.”

Rafe shrugged as he took off his suit jacket and draped it over the back of his desk chair. “Okay.”

He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled his sleeves up to the elbows, revealing forearms completely covered in tattoos. Well, someone was getting comfortable straight away. Although, I couldn’t really say anything. I never bothered to look all that neat and tidy at work.

Sliding his hands into his pants pockets, he looked at me expectantly. Well, kind of. He looked like he didn’t care one way or another, but was waiting for me to move.

“Uh, have you met Taylor?” I glanced at the closed door opposite as we made our way back into the hall.

I’d decided that it was never, ever safe to enter Taylor’s office if I didn’t already know exactly where Holt was, but he was in his upstairs office with Seb doing what he called his “boring work”—whatever it was he needed to do to maintain the buildings he owned. I always zoned out and stopped listening if he talked about it.

“No,” Rafe said shortly.

Holding back another exasperated sigh, I walked over to the door and knocked. “Taylor? Our new IT guy is here. Taylor’s human, by the way,” I added to Rafe, who finally displayed a hint of true emotion as his pale green eyes flared with intrigue.

But then he just nodded once, still standing with his hands in his pockets.

Oh my god, this guy sucks.

Taylor opened the door a couple seconds later, already smiling cheerfully. “Hi, Lark. Hi,” he added to Rafe, taking a step forward and holding out his hand. “Taylor. The marketing guy. Nice to meet you.”

Rafe pulled a hand out of his pocket to briefly grasp Taylor’s, then immediately tucked it back in. “Rafe. Nice to meet you.”

“I think you’ve got your work cut out for you.” Taylor chuckled. “Right now, we still take all our bookings over the phone. It’s through a third party company—run by lampyrs, I think. So it’ll be good to bring everything in-house.”

“I can handle it,” Rafe said smoothly. “Won’t take long to get a secure online booking system up and running.”

Taylor nodded. “Holt talked to you in the interview about his concerns, right? Like keeping a website from being discovered by humans and stuff.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Rafe said, his tone only somewhat polite.

I tried not to frown at him as Taylor paused, looking a little taken aback by his curt tone. But he just nodded and smiled, this time hesitantly.

“Great. I’m sure you do. Well, I better get back to work.” He and I shared a brief look. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

“See you later, T-bone,” I said cheerfully, then pointedly asked, “What time are you and Holt heading home tonight? He mentioned earlier that you’re cooking something nice for him for dinner.”

Rafe stiffened almost imperceptibly beside me, and I fought back a smirk. Yeah, that’s right. You were just rude to the boss’s boyfriend, broseph. Better watch that d-bag tone in the future.

Taylor chuckled. “Usual time, I think. I’m making him moussaka.”

“Noice,” I said, even though I didn’t know what that was. “Well, I’m gonna show Rafe around and introduce him to everyone.”

Taylor looked at him, fighting back a smile. “You haven’t met the wrestlers yet?”

Rafe tensed a little more, no doubt wondering what that expression meant. “No.”

Taylor and I exchanged another look. Then he cheerfully said, “Well, have fun. Bye, guys.”