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I discreetly fanned my face when Brian pinned The Optometrist, their legs scissored and groins breathtakingly close together. Look, it wasn’t that I would ever, ever want Brian to sleep with someone else—I would probably go on a rampage and burn down this entire building if he did—but that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy my beefcake of a boyfriend getting all sweaty and grunty as he wrestled with another beefcake. I was only an incubus. It couldn’t be helped.

Brian won his match, because of course he did. He was the best. I mean, of course I knew it was all scripted and fake, but… still. Obviously Brian had to win, because he was the best.

He looked straight at me again when the ref called the match. This time, he grinned wide, his muzzle stretching and showing off those long fangs. I beamed back and blew him a kiss, wanting to puff up like a peacock when the ghoul lady in the next row noticed, peering over her shoulder to give me a shocked and mildly pissed off look.

The two wrestlers left the ring, and the commentator announced a short break before the headline match. I peered over in the direction of the bar, and when I saw Nat standing there, looking directly at me and waving with a big grin, I waved back and quickly stood to edge my way out of the row.

Nat had met Corey, The Tasselled Tussler, at the Goliaths’ team-building day at the Heracles Community Centre, and the two of them had hit it off. The next day, Corey had gone back to the centre and asked Nat if he would be open to considering a career change—namely becoming Corey’s PA.

Of course, Nat had enthusiastically agreed. Getting to work as the assistant to a glamorous, flamboyant orc wrestler? I couldn’t have thought of a more perfect job for my best friend.

He was only a few weeks away from moving into our house now, too, and I couldn’t wait. I mean, sure, it had been nice for me and Brian to have the place to ourselves, but I was excited to live with Nat too. Brian hadn’t moved in or anything, but he was over a lot. A lot.

We struggled to spend much time apart, to be honest. He was as clingy as I was, and I adored it.

I was jittery with excitement about getting to see him after his match, when he was still all sweaty and out of breath and maybe a little riled up. I beamed at Nat as I met him by the bar, and he leaned down to kiss my cheek.

“Enjoy it?” he asked, leading me toward the entrance as the crowd began to converge on the bar before the headline match began.

“Lucifer, yes, it was so much fun. And Brian looked so hot.”

“There’s certainly something to be said for two muscular men writhing together half-naked on a mat,” Nat said dryly. “One could even call it somewhat homoerotic.”

I laughed and pretended to smack myself in the forehead. “Right. Duh. Do you think that’s why I liked it so much?”

He grinned down at me and tucked his arm through mine. “Okay, let me give you a quick tour.”

We made our way out of the arena and into the cold, concrete-floored hallway, its walls lined with professional posters of all the wrestlers. I resisted the urge to blow a kiss to Brian’s as I passed it. It was hard though, because he looked all fierce and snarly and sexy on it. Nat led me past the entrance staircase and down the other hallway. We passed a corridor shooting off from this one and kept walking until we reached the end and turned a corner, revealing a single doorway up ahead.

“This is my office,” Nat said proudly as he opened it, revealing a panelled room with a huge, glowing Goliaths of Wrestling sign on the wall, washing everything in pink and lime green. There was a seating area with a blue velvet sofa and matching armchairs, as well as two desks, one on either side of a door marked Holt Hector, Owner & General Manager.

“This is where Larkin sits.” Nat pointed at the messy desk to the right of the door. I knew Larkin was the manager’s assistant and that he was dating Holt’s bodyguard. I also knew that Holt didn’t really need a bodyguard, he just liked having one.

It hadn’t taken Nat long to gather as much gossip as possible about his new workplace.

“This is me.” Nat gestured at the other desk which already screamed my best friend’s personality—pink fluffy pens, puffy glitter stickers lining the edge of his monitor, and one of those metal pin art toys from the nineties that you’d push your face into. It currently displayed a crudely drawn outline of a cock and balls. Nat saw me looking and explained, “Larkin. Took him all morning, sweet boy.”

“I’m really proud of you, cat,” I told him, because I was. He seemed to really like this job, and he had been working harder than I’d ever known him to work. Ever. I mean, seriously, ever.

Nat flushed with pleasure and threw his arms around my neck, tugging me into a squishy hug. “Thanks, mouse.”

We both had family, but for the most part, we were each other’s rocks. Each other’s support systems. And while Nat’s parents were around and they would always help him out, they weren’t exactly super warm and loving. His mom was some insanely clever academic who often got so absorbed in her work that she forgot to eat or sleep. His dad was a clothing designer and the owner of a small but expensive and ridiculously chic label that made clothes heavily inspired by vampire and shadowperson culture. He was just as work-obsessed as Nat’s mom. I was pretty sure neither of them had taken a day off in all the years I’d known Nat.

So I always made sure to tell Nat that I was proud of him and tried to bolster his self-esteem with certain things. He was outwardly confident and self-assured, but that wasn’t always the case inside.

“Okay, let’s go find your hunky werewolf.” Nat pulled back and fiddled with my curls, trying to right them after our hug had mussed them up. “And I’ll show you some more stuff on the way.”

We left the office and went down the other corridor we’d previously passed. It was just as nondescript, cold and echoey with concrete floors and bare white walls. That made sense, I supposed—we were in a giant basement.

“That’s Holt’s private viewing box,” Nat whispered as we walked past a door with a little plaque on it. “He and Taylor are in there right now.”

“Oooh, the human?” I whispered back excitedly. “I wish I could see him.”

It wasn’t like humans were rare or anything. I saw them all the time, every single day. But seeing a human in a supernaturals-only space was incredibly rare, which made it a fun novelty.

“He is so adorable,” Nat told me as we kept walking. “He says ‘geez’ all the time and talks about the weather so much. And oh my gods, he does this thing every time someone buys donuts for the office where he jokingly asks if they’re the fat-free kind but makes a big show of taking one anyway.”

“Awww, so cute. Humans love getting all weird about food.”