Page 38

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Holt muttered under his breath, then held up his tablet and raised his voice to put an end to the bickering. “I’ve sent the line-up to the group chat, and Hogbody and I have come up with some new storylines to launch Goliaths Online with a bang.”

“Ooh, like what?” Susan asked eagerly.

“Like Gabe and Biff having a lover’s tiff and duking it out in the ring.”

“Hot,” Gabe rasped, smirking at his gargoyle boyfriend.

“And Chris secretly teaming up with Vince to betray Dan during their match,” Holt added, referring to my unicorn buddy who I rode down the walkway for my entrance. He sometimes got into the ring with me for an illegal tag team, which always drove the crowd wild.

Vince cackled and got me in a headlock as I chuckled. “Nice.”

“So please, for the love of god, just act professional this week, huh?” Holt looked around at all of us. “This could be huge for us.”

“Totally,” Taylor piped up enthusiastically. “Pay-per-view could be a massive revenue stream, which opens up a lot of opportunities. More performers on the docket, bigger and better shows, investing more back into merch…”

“God, I love it when you go all corporate marketing speak,” Holt muttered throatily, eyeing his human boyfriend with a lusty gleam. “I think I might have some boxes that need moving in my office. Care to join me, Mr. Hough?”

Taylor blushed and fiddled with his tie. “I—Yes, of course. Whatever you need, Mr. Hector,” he added politely.

“You little minx,” Holt murmured, then strode after him with intent when Taylor turned and hurried from the room.

“Aren’t they just the cutest?” Susan said.

“Honestly, I’m just surprised anything still gets done around here,” Mads said dryly.

“I don’t blame him,” Vince drawled, standing up and stretching. “Taylor’s ass looks fantastic in those dowdy grey slacks.”

Crossbody huffed, his lip curling into a sneer as he shot Vince a disdainful look before spinning and striding back over to the treadmill.

Ignoring him, Vince turned to grin down at me. “Want to go start practising some moves?”

I hesitated. For some weird reason, I actually kind of wanted to go see Rafe. He was the reason all of this was happening—his hard work was going to give us Goliaths a bigger stage, a far larger audience, a thousand more potential opportunities. It felt kind of shitty that he wasn’t even here to take part in all the excitement, although I got the sense that he would’ve hated being the centre of attention.

I wanted to go tell him… I didn’t even know what. That we were all grateful, and excited, and we appreciated his hard work. I’d already seen how stressed and tired he’d been this weekend while he’d been testing out the live feed.

I’d made sure to give him a show each night to try and take the edge off for him. I was selfless like that.

Then I remembered that our nightly post-nut meetings on our back decks had come to an abrupt end after I fixed his fence, seeing as there was now a barrier between our yards again. So I didn’t actually know if he was still watching me give myself some neck every night through the window.

I hoped he was, but I doubted Rafe would be at all receptive to seeing me at work, anyway, so I nixed the idea and grinned back at Vince. “Sure.”

But when I went to rise from the couch, my hair got caught on something. A sharp tug had my head jerking back, and my blood began to boil when I heard a creepy little snicker from behind me.

“That’s it,” I barked, yanking my head free from Frank’s grip and shooting up to spin around and point at his weird little face. “I’m talkin’ to Holt about this.”

“Don’t be such a baby.” Frank sneered as Beans popped up beside him, watching me with terrifyingly blank eyes. “We’re just messing around.”

“Stop trying to steal my fucking head,” I roared, then turned to stride for the doors. “I’m lodging a formal complaint. This is harassment.”

“Snitch,” one of them yelled after me.

“Not saying you shouldn’t, bro, but you will definitely see something you don’t want to if you barge into Holt’s office right now,” Vince called.

“Don’t care.” I shoved the door open and marched down the corridor, past all our dressing rooms until I reached the part of the building I rarely visited.

The waiting room attached to Holt’s office was empty, reminding me to stay away from the storage room for a while, so I strode right up to his office door and pounded my fist on the wood. “Holt? Get decent. I need to talk to you.”

Frantic shuffling sounds came from inside. About thirty seconds later, the door opened. Holt’s hair was wildly mussed, but at least he was fully clothed.