Page 27 of Best Served Cold

“And I wish I could draw. I’m decent enough at it, but for me, painting is easy.”

He gave the phone back and sat on his stool. “I’m glad I met up with you tonight.”

“Yeah?” I tried to ignore the happiness tickling my chest at not only his words, but his expression. He meant it, and it had been a long-ass time since anyone had looked at me that way. Maybe ever?

“Yeah… I was hiding out so I could put off telling Zane I got stood up again and feeling sorry for myself. Now my night is better than it would have been if my date had shown up.”

“You think so?”

“Definitely. First dates are soooo awkward. I’ve been on a ton of them, and it’s always the same. Some small talk, lots of trying to figure each other out, then you go home and wait to see if they want to do it again. I’ll take having a beer with a friend and talking about art over that any day of the week.” He beamed at me.

I grinned back. His enthusiasm was infectious and it meant a lot that he considered me a friend. We worked together, and we’d ended up at a few of the same parties over the weeks, but I’d figured he thought of me as a casual acquaintance at best.

“I feel better too,” I admitted. “Tonight, this weekend… I wasn’t in a great place when I left my apartment, but now I’m good. Like I hit reset on all that shit.”

River nodded vigorously. “Exactly! I wasn’t looking forward to tomorrow, but now I’m ready for a new week.”

I finished off my beer as River did the same.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” He slid the pencil into the coil binding of the sketchbook.

“Did Zane talk about what happened at the bar?”

River’s expression went oddly blank. “Yes.”

“Did he tell you about what…happened?”

He nodded.

“Oh.” Was I blushing? I hoped the fuck not.

“We tell each other everything.”

“I figured.” I didn’t look up from where I was staring at my glass, not really seeing it.

“Zane is… He’s… He’s not a bad guy,” River said carefully. “I know he comes across as angry and volatile, and he can be if you cross him, but he’s not an asshole. He won’t tell anyone else because it’s not their business.”

“That’s good to know.” I looked up to find him studying me. “Another? Or do you need to go?”

“I should go.” He glanced at the clock. “Try and get some sleep and all that jazz before work.”

“Yeah, same.”

“What’s your number?”

“Sorry?”

“Your number. Like for your phone,” he teased, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

“Oh, right. Can you tell it’s been a long weekend?” I rattled off my digits when he was ready.

Jerry had been promising to get me a list of everyone’s numbers in case I needed to call in or contact someone outside of business hours, but he’d been dragging his ass so I only had Pops’s number since he was the foreman.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

“There, now you have mine too.”

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