Page 8 of Santa's Wish
"Seriously, is this your version of flirting?" My tongue felt too large for my overheated mouth.
"Is it working?"
He laughed again, and my chest felt light.
"Yes," he continued, "I live in the building, along with three other vampires and ten humans. Two humans work for the council. The other eight work at the club. One vampire is an overnight dock authority for Massport. The other two work at another vampire club in town." He paused. "You're too quiet."
"I'm still trying to process a two-hundred-year-old vampire flirting with me." I didn't know where those words came from, since they managed to bypass every fucking filter I'd ever put in place.
"Do you have a car?"
"No."
"Trains take forever and vampires are an impatient lot to work for. Didn't anyone offer to find you housing when you got the job?"
"They were fine with me living at home."
"You haven't met your vampire employers yet." Santa's statement implied he had met them, and that they would have a different story from the human recruiter who said I could live at home.
"I haven't."
"When is your last final?"
"Thursday at two."
"Come to the bar around seven. I'll buy you a celebratory drink and introduce you to Colette. She's a regular and a manager at Imperial Accounting."
"Please don't mention drinks," I said as my stomach lurched. "It will be awesome to meet someone from the office before I start, though."
"Don't worry about the trains. I'll drive you back to your dorm."
"Thanks," I said. "And thanks again for last night. I don't know what I would have done."
My friends had taken my wallet under the ruse of keeping it safe while I was in the VIP room, and then they'd left with it, along with my bus pass, my credit cards, and everything else. I still had access to my ride share apps on my phone, but getting a ride from Boston to Cambridge in the middle of the night was bound to cost more than I could afford, at least for the first few months.
"I need to get my wallet back from Jared," I said.
"Which one is he? Fauxhawk or flattop?"
"Fauxhawk."
"Good luck with that. You might want to cancel all your credit cards and scrub your information off the dark web, if he had your wallet."
Wow, and I thought I was paranoid. "I don't know anyone who has access to the dark web."
"What are they teaching you at that brainy school of yours?"
"Business Analytics," I reminded him. "Not hacking."
"I know a guy. What's your full name?"
I laughed. He was persistent, I'd give him that. "Blaine Bostwick."
"Blaine?" Santa laughed. "Yep, I'd go by Boz, too, if my parents had graced me with that shit stain."
My parents and professors called me Blaine, but they were the only ones. I'd taken the job at Imperial Accounting because they never once called me by the wrong name, even when I'd included my full name on my resume.
"Your parents didn't name you Santa," I said, fishing for a returned favor.
