Chapter Three

Classic Teabag, Bro

Rafe

When I got home from work that evening, Ewen's car wasn't in his driveway, which meant he was probably still at the office doing whatever it was the wrestlers did on the days they didn't have shows. Rehearsing, I guessed, or working out.

Whatever. I hadn't cared what he did as a job before, and I wasn't going to start now. Luckily, I hadn't seen him at all for the rest of the day. My office wasn't particularly close to the backstage area, and I'd stayed in there during my lunch break, getting absorbed in my work.

I made some dinner and texted my friends while I ate. We'd already arranged to move our game night from Saturdays to Mondays because of my new work schedule, which I appreciated. I was pretty sure I'd lose my mind if I didn't have that. Especially now that I was working in the same building as Dan fucking Ewen.

Because I'd started a new job today and was, as expected, exhausted, we'd decided to just game online for a while tonight. After dinner, I took a quick shower and pulled on my PJs—pants with UFOs abducting cows on them, and a baggy Humandatory tee. Then I grabbed a soda and got comfortable at my desk, settling my headset over my ears and joining the voice call I could see already underway in the app we used to talk while gaming.

"Hey," I said once Reece had stopped describing the burger he was eating.

"Hey, ghoulfriend!" Teresa piped up. "So work wasn't too bad in the end, huh?"

"Nah, it was fine."

"Are any of the wrestlers we saw when we went that time still there?" Abed asked with interest. "Your neighbour wasn't working there then, was he?"

My lip curled. "No. He moved in next door a couple years after that, so I guess he started then. And I think I recognised a few of them. I didn't see the orc, though."

"Oh man, he was fucking amazing," Teresa chimed in. "I know we all felt hella awkward there, but you gotta admit, that orc was entertaining as fuck."

"I think he's still there. I saw a poster of him." I recalled seeing the poster of the Tasselled Tussler in his little pink cape and panties staring down at me from the wall.

"He was hot." It sounded like Teresa was eating something, her voice muffled. "Wish he'd been the orc I found passed out naked on my back deck that time."

"I still think you're bullshitting us about that," Abed said doubtfully.

"I'm not a liar, bro," she drawled. "I saw his balls and everything. They were enormous."

Neville chuckled and joined in. "I saw those texts on my lunch break. I think if any of us were fortunate enough to find a naked orc by our backdoor, it would be Tee." He paused. "Well, and Rafe, but Rafe wouldn't be interested. Such a waste."

"A waste?" I snorted. "Are you telling me you'd fuck the naked orc you found on your back deck, Neville?"

"Uh, yeah, dude. Once he was awake, obv. And if he was down. Which he would be. Look at me."

"Did Teresa fuck the naked orc?" Suki asked hesitantly.

"Um, obviously not then ," Teresa said. "I covered him with a blanket, then brought him inside and gave him coffee when he woke up. He said he'd gotten hammered the night before and thought he was in his own yard. He offered to take me out to dinner to make up for it." There was a pause as she crunched on something, then slyly added, " Then we fucked."

She and Neville cackled as Abed chuckled. I rolled my eyes with a fond smile, reaching for my soda and cracking open the can.

A loud knock at the door made me pause and glance back at the entrance hall.

"What was that?" Abed asked.

Reece cracked up. "A door, bro. A visitor. Not used to it, huh?"

"It was mine," I said woodenly, sighing when I heard another knock.

"Someone's knocking on your door on a Monday evening? Weird, dude," Neville muttered. "Are we playing or what?"

"You guys get started. I'll be back in a sec." I tugged off my headset and stood, shifting into my human form before making my way across the living room to answer the door.

When I tugged it open, my gut bottomed out.

Because Dan fucking Ewen was standing there.

"Howdy, neighbour." He smirked at me. My nostrils flared, face tightening.

Goddamnit. I'd just started to relax.

My mom had always told me I could be pretty curt and blunt. I had to make an effort not to come across as rude a lot of the time. It was particularly hard with this asshole.

Hand clenching tighter on the doorknob, I gritted out, "Hi."

He held up a six-pack. "Thought we could celebrate you becoming a Goliath."

What? I stared at him blankly. Why the fuck would we do that? Together? We weren't friends. We barely tolerated each other.

"I'm busy," I said shortly, then shifted when a tendril of guilt snaked through my gut. He wasn't actually being a dick right now. I was being the dick right now. "Uh… thanks, though?"

Ewen huffed in amusement and gave an easy shrug. "Maybe another time, then. Oh." His smirk returned. "And don't worry about that little embarrassing moment earlier. You know, when you pressed your face against my tits."

Heat crept up my neck and prickled my skin. All traces of guilt fled as I narrowed my eyes at him, but before I could stop it, my gaze darted down to his chest. At least it was covered by a T-shirt this time. A stupidly tight T-shirt. With his own bare chest printed on it. The words ‘Dullahan Dan' were painted over his chest hair in gooey black ink.

"Eyes up here, handsome."

I stiffened, nostrils flaring again as my seething gaze shot back up to his smirking face. His grin widened, becoming a little lopsided, and he held out the six-pack to me.

"Welcome gift."

"Keep it."

"Well now, that wouldn't be very neighbourly of me, would it?" He tutted and rattled the six-pack, making the bottles clink. "Save it for when we can have those drinks together."

I gritted my teeth and reluctantly snatched the six-pack from him. "Maybe once you've fixed my fence," I got out in a tight voice, giving him a sharp smile.

He chuckled. "It's on my list, handsome."

"Stop calling me that." My hand clenched too hard around the six-pack's handle, squashing the cardboard. "Don't call me that at work."

His mouth twitched as he folded his arms. "Then what should I call you at work?"

"Nothing. You don't need to talk to me at work." I gestured vaguely at my front porch. "In fact, you don't need to talk to me here, either. Unless it's to tell me you're fixing my damn fence."

"I said it's on my list, didn't I?"

"It's been on your list for six fucking months," I hissed.

"I'm a busy man." He waved a hand, infuriatingly calm and relaxed.

I gritted my teeth and took a step back, making it absolutely clear that I was about to slam the door in his face. "Thanks for the beer. I'll take it as an apology for you taking so fucking long to fix my fence."

He shrugged. "I mean, it's not. It's a welcome gift. To welcome you to the team. But fine. I was just tryin' to be nice."

No, he wasn't. He was trying to rankle me. Get under my skin. He had a whole new way to do it now, and I already knew he was going to take full advantage.

If he wanted to be nice, he'd fix my fucking fence and stop blaring country music at night and keep his endless rotation of guests from screaming and laughing at 4 a.m. on his back deck.

"If you want to be nice, leave me alone at work and stop being such an inconsiderate ass of a neighbour," I said through gritted teeth. I hated how much he worked me up. How angry he made me when he was standing there all cool and calm and unfazed.

Stoking my rage further, Ewen just let out a husky laugh and finally turned to leave. He grinned at me over his shoulder. "See you in the morning, neighbour."

I slammed the door, put the six-pack on the console table and stomped back over to my desk. When I shoved my headset back on, no one was talking, so I testily asked, "We ready?"

After a few seconds of silence, Neville slowly spoke. "Uh… you shoved your face in your neighbour's tits, bro?"

I froze, heat blooming under my skin. "What?"

"You didn't mute your mic." Teresa snickered.

I wet my lips and hoarsely asked, "You heard all that?"

She snorted. "We're ghouls, bro. Superlative hearing. Of course we did."

"That accent is so fuckin' hot," Neville muttered. "All drawling and shit. I legit popped a boner when he called you handsome, Rafe."

"He doesn't seem that bad, man," Abed piped up hesitantly.

"Yeah," Teresa added straight away. "Honestly, Rafeo, you were a huge dick during that convo. Not him. He was fine."

I clenched my jaw. "You don't get it. He's just… He does it to piss me off. Trust me."

"Circling back," Neville said lightly, "why'd you shove your face in his tits, bro? And how was it? Like finding nirvana? Did you have gay thoughts?"

I huffed and slouched lower in my chair, clicking my mouse to open the game—an MMORPG called Black Oasis. "There are these two wrestlers there. Goblins or something. Little guys. One of them ran into me and knocked me over."

Teresa cackled. "Directly into your neighbour's big, meaty man chest? Nice."

"His fucking chest hair got in my mouth," I muttered, which made her crack up again. "Look, are we playing or not?"

Everyone oooohed and started laughing, which made my head feel like it was going to explode.

"Come on," I pleaded. "I don't want to think about that asshole anymore. Or work. Can we just play?"

Reece snickered. "Yeah, bro, let's play. I wanna find those death crystals in the Murk Valley."

To my relief, we started playing without any more said about my douchebag neighbour. We chatted aimlessly as our little team traversed the map on screen until we reached the big, shadowy valley nestled between two rock faces. My character was an archer, so I led the way and picked off the low-level monsters that leaped from behind rocks.

Then I took damage from something. "Huh?" I frowned, spinning my archer around. "Did one of you just accidentally hit me?"

"Nope," Reece said, just as another arrow sailed through the air and my archer grunted at the impact. My health bar decreased by another chunk.

Suddenly, we all heard a snicker over the in-game chat.

"Guess there are some other players here," Abed said, his mage running past my archer clutching his glowing staff.

I spun my archer again and finally spotted two players standing at the top of a rocky peak. They were crouching repeatedly and for some reason finding it hilarious, because we could hear two male voices snickering over the game's VOIP now.

"Yo, Hans, use those tainted arrow things you found," a voice said.

A voice I… thought I recognised?

One of the players drew their bow again, and I saw them equip their "tainted arrows" as the arrowhead turned glowing red.

I huffed and pressed the button to turn on my mic in-game. "Bro, there's like six of us. You won't take us all out."

They ignored me. The player loosed their arrow, and I didn't get my archer to dart out of the way in time. He grunted, and my health bar dropped sharply, then kept dropping in tiny increments, quickly draining it.

"The fuck," I snarled, hearing my voice echo through my friends' headsets. "Don't be a dick."

The pair snickered and started scaling the rock face to reach us. Abed threw some orbs at them, and Suki drew her daggers, but they weren't deterred.

"We're just messing around, bro," the voice replied, and it was definitely familiar, but I couldn't place where I knew it from.

"Hey, Lark," the other player said, and my spine shot straight as I stared at the screen. "Take this."

"Lark?" I echoed in disbelief. "Larkin?"

The elf character with bright pink hair flung a noxious gas orb at our group before that familiar voice returned. "How'd you know my name, bro?" His voice got fainter. "Seb, this dude in the game knows my name. You might have to protect me from a stalker with your big werewolf muscles."

I clenched my jaw. "It's Rafe. From work."

"Rafe?" There was an excruciatingly long pause. "Oh, shit, new guy? IT guy?"

"Yes," I gritted out.

"Oh shit, man, didn't know it was you! Oh… oops. Hans, bro, you prob shouldn't have hit him with that—"

My archer suddenly dropped dead on the screen, the tainted arrow having depleted all my health while I was distracted.

"For fuck's sake!" I snapped.

Was this it now? Goliaths had me trapped in its maw, and it was going to infiltrate every part of my life. I wouldn't be able to escape.

"Sorry, bro," Larkin said sheepishly. Then, after a pause, as my buddies' characters watched on in silence, his elf stepped forward and began crouching repeatedly, directly over my dead archer's face.

His friend Hans cackled. "Noice. Classic teabag, bro."