I’d stood in the middle of the living room, arms wrapped around my chest, trying not to feel quite so smug, but Gary had met up with a platoon of nut-jobs after forbidding me from scaring off the normals so I went easy on myself. The smugforce was strong in this one.
“I almost wish you’d been around to see them off,” he muttered and the smugforce grew for all of one millisecond until I realised it was a bit of a backhanded compliment.
“Hey, wait a second. I’m just a normal—”
He snorted.
“—person who does his job, comes home and…”
“Yeah? What do you do, Kit? I mean, aside from watching Supernatural DVDs on your laptop when you claim you’re ‘working’.” He made air-quotes with his forefingers, the pretentious little twat.
“I like to break up my hours when I work from home by putting my feet up and—”
“Cracking one off to Jensen Ackles?”
“Pfft. Please. That’s just…you…I don’t…yeah, anyway, what I don’t do is try to recruit you into Beelzebub’s Dark Army, so be thankful for that at least.”
“I reckon you’ve set me up with all these weirdoes as revenge for banning you from the vetting process.”
“Now, would I do something like that?” I only wished I’d thought of it just to punish him. “And anyway, I don’t give a damn about the vetting process as long as it’s someone mostly human, not clinically insane, and who isn’t a complete knob.”
“The complete opposite of you, then?”
“I hope you end up signing someone who looks normal on the outside and turns out to be even worse than me. That’ll learn ya.”
“You’ll have to live with him too.”
“Sod that—I’ll just retreat to my room, watch some DVDs and wait to see the result of the last man standing bout downstairs. If that doesn’t work, I’ll just come on to him ‘til he freaks out and bolts. The next time around? I do the interviewing.”
“And what if he likes it when you make a pass?”
“I wouldn’t be so lucky as to end up living with a good-looking gay guy.”
“Okay, what if he’s gay and ugly?”
“Look, would you just stop it? You’re freaking me out now. Just get us an ugly straight guy, not clinically insane, no criminal record, IQ above his shoe size, not in league with the devil, preferably not given to lighting his own farts and making balloon animals and…” I shrugged. “We’re golden.”
“Right. And where the hell am I gonna find one of those in this town?”
“More fucking chance of that than finding a good-looking gay man,” I threw back.
So there I was on the way back from work, struggling to remember the prospective housemate’s name—Stuart or Simon Something—and resist the urge to growl at my boss down the phone.
“I know tomorrow’s your day off, but—”
I knew what was coming, and my footsteps slowed. I didn’t want to meet this new guy—well, it wasn’t that. I just didn’t care as long as he was sane and halfway normal. So, I didn’t care to meet him, and I wanted this shit with Bill dealt with as soon as possible.
“I’m gonna need you to flush out the bugs in the software and iron them out.”
“You want me to”—I frowned at his interesting mixed metaphors—”iron out the bugs?”
“Yeah, we need the beta software ready to show the client on Friday and—”
“Why can’t Scott do it? He’s—”
“He’s claiming some man-flu bullshit so you’re the only one left to deal with it.”
Besides you, you mean? I wanted to ask out loud. “I haven’t had a day off in ages.” I stopped walking, indignation nailing me to the same pavement square, and for once I thought of others, and lurked to one side of the path so I didn’t get in anyone’s way. “And you expect me to come in tomorrow?” Not that I’d had anything planned.
“I assumed you wouldn’t have much on anyway.”
Bastard. “You assumed wrong.” You’re a bastard and I’m a liar. Unless loafing around on the settee being a couch potato all day constitutes ‘plans’. “If I get another migraine because of all this crap…” And with such words, I more or less agreed. Or at least allowed myself to be steamrollered.
“As you’re coming in tomorrow—”
“I’m working from home.”
“—I’ll give you a day off in—what? If there’s any problem with the software I’ll need to know immediately.”
“That’s why God invented the telephone and email. I’m working from home.”
“Jesus, Kit.”
“Take it or leave it.” I probably sounded like I was trying to put the blackmail thumbscrews on him, but one of the advantages of being a selfish, anti-social, bad-tempered, insular little shit was I didn’t care. “Oh, and I want two days off in lieu.”
“Fuck.”
“I’m working from home as the office is too full of distractions for me to be able to concentrate.” Namely that fancy piece in accounting with the green eyes and narrow hips. “And I’m getting two days off in lieu because this is a bit last-minute. I’m just on my way home on the day before I was supposed to be getting a lie-in.”
“Fine, fine, two days off. It’ll take some re-jigging of the schedules but I’ll let you know what days are available.”
“I’ll let you know what days I’m taking off,” I said. I could tell him which I wouldn’t—whichever was moving day for the new guy.
Gary and I had enough cash to tide us over for a month or two, but we needed to find someone quickly. If today’s guy didn’t work out, we’d be reduced to taking in Ex-Convict Man and sleeping with knives under our pillows. Still, on the upside he could probably organise a bank job for extra cash. Being banged up if caught wouldn’t be so bad. I’d have a roof over my head and a pretty good chance of getting laid if I kept dropping the soap in the showers.
But, whoever moved in, he’d be doing so on his own, or with Gary. Moving one’s shit into the now-spare room wouldn’t take more than an hour or
