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Vi rolled her eyes, continuing like she hadn’t been interrupted. Ouch, what a blow to the ego. But, I could see it for what it was—a tease.

Ren seemed to catch it too, scrubbing a hand through her hair that way she always did when a hot girl was around that she wasn’t sure how to talk to.

“And Idoneed the money, so…”

“Sooooo,” I echoed, almost a little disappointed that I wasn’t going to have to put the charm on her after all. “You’ll take the job?”

“Yeah,” Vi said with a little shrug that made the hollow of her collarbone more prominent. Wildly, I wondered what it’d be like to slurp blood out of it.Her blood.I was so focused on my owntotally inappropriate fantasy that I nearly missed what she said next. “I’ll take the job.”

My mind strayed immediately to my… daydream? Vision?

At the way she’d looked at me when I caught her and Ren together.

Like she wanted me to. Like sheneededme.

It’d been so fucking long since I’d been needed.

I swallowed, pushing the thoughts aside to focus on the task at hand.

“Praise and virtue!” Ren cheered, putting her hand over her heart. Her tattooed fingers dug into the front of her shirt as she leaned back against the counter as though she’d faint. “Finally, acompetentbartender.”

“Hey, Blondie is perfectly capable,” I reprimanded my covenmate.

Okay, maybe that was a bit of a stretch. Hard to be competent when you’re always an hour late, if you showed up at all. But Cole—Blondie to everyone inside of the club—filled a very important demographic for us that Ren and even Vi couldn’t.

The twink market™.

There was a reason he was popular at the club—head—and I wasn’t talking about foamy beer tops.

“Picking favourites already?” Vi teased, pulling her lip between her teeth to stifle a laugh, which only made me want to pull it free with my own. To tug her reddened lip into my mouth for a suck that brought the blood to the surface before I?—

Dana, you’renot fucking your employee.

And why not?a little voice that sounded an awful lot like Cherie asked.Ren does it all the time.

I shoved the thought aside.

“Depends,” Ren tossed back, leaning into Vi’s space. If it bothered her, she didn’t show it, the opposite really. Swaying towards the vampire like they were magnets. Attracted to eachother by some external force. “You won’t leave me hanging, will you, Vi?”

The human shook her head, wavy hair bouncing as her eyes tracked along the bare hollow of Ren’s inked throat where her shirt was unbuttoned. “Not a chance.”

“You’ll need a stage name,” I said, mostly to remind them that I was there. And only a little jealously. “You know, for safety.”

“Safety?” she asked, brows furrowing as she turned her head to look back at me.

“All the humans have them,” I assured. “We had a bit of an issue a few hundred years ago with a patron stalking one of the—” I cut off at the anxiety flashing across Vi’s face. “Anyway. The process stuck, so… stage name.”

Babydoll breezed through the curtain that led to the back, her sparkly pink duffle bag slung over her shoulder and golden hair pulled into a sloppy bun at the top of her head like she’d been waiting for the right moment to make a grand entrance. “Call her Striker.”

“Striker?” Ren repeated with a laugh, cutting a confused glance between the girls. “Are you into bowling or something?”

“Baseball,” Vi said, her chest puffing proudly. “Season’s tickets to the Nightwalkers for the last five years.”

“And she played in college,” Babydoll added.

I had to cover my laugh with a cough at the predatory gleam in Ren’s eyes. If she wasn’t crushing on the new girl before, being obsessed withherbaseball team would’ve definitely sealed the deal.

“It was only a partial scholarship,” Vi said, waving her friend off dismissively. “No biggie.”