Page 2 of Best Served Cold

“Sorry.” Gray elbowed me. I passed it on and elbowed River. “Warn a guy before you say shit like that.”

River leaned back on his hands. “I don’t have a small dick, FYI.”

“I’m well aware.” Gray winked at him.

Rath looked between Gray and my brother, confusion clouding his features.

Gray, River, and I worked on the same construction crew now, but that wasn’t how we met. That happened a year ago when we’d started working as dancers at a strip club. Seeing each other naked was old hat for us at this point.

Rath didn’t know about our other jobs. I didn’t give a fuck who knew I stripped but respected that Gray and Riv preferred to keep that info close to the chest.

“I thought you had a boyfriend?” Rath asked Gray.

“I do.” A blush stained his cheekbones.

“And I thought you were straight?” He looked at River.

“I am.”

Rath opened his mouth, then closed it.

“You look like a fish when you do that. Sound about as smart as one, too.”

He flicked his eyes at me. “Blub blub motherfucker.”

“Moron,” I muttered as River guffawed.

“What’s that?” Rath cupped his hand over his ear. “Something you want to share with the class?”

I leveled a glare at him.

He smirked, one corner of his lip curling obnoxiously.

A rush of irrational anger moved through me. I didn’t know what it was about Rath, but everything about him rubbed me wrong. His deep voice, the heavy, dark scruff he perpetually sported. The way his nearly black hair always looked fluffy and a bit wild even after wearing a hard hat for hours in the sweltering heat. We were the same height, but with his broader frame and the extra thirty or so pounds he had on me, he looked way bigger.

But more than that, his cocksure attitude and the devil-may-care way he seemed to waltz through life made me want to put my fist through the drywall we’d been installing.

He was infuriating. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why and that only pissed me off more. No one else on our crew seemed to be bothered by him.

“Do straws have one hole, or two?” River peered down the straw of my water bottle.

“One,” Gray said.

“Two,” Rath answered at the same time.

River looked at me to break the tie.

“One hole with two openings,” I said.

Gray snickered. “Hole.”

River chuckled.

Rath grinned at him. “Here’s something to bend your noddle—if you think about it, social anxiety is just having conspiracy theories about yourself.”

“Oh, that’s a good one.” River sat up straighter. “How about this one—the number of people older than you never goes up.”

“That’s dark, dude.” Gray punched my shoulder. I passed it on and punched my brother’s.

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