Page 33 of Best Served Cold

“Stop.”

“Or what?” She poked me again. “What are you gonna do about it?” Poke poke poke.

A big hand closed over her wrist. “He said no.”

She whirled on Noah. “Let go of me.”

He did, then squeezed between us. “Go, now.”

The pounding of my heart echoed in my ears as my vision went hazy around the edges.

Then Noah’s stupid face filled my vision. “Follow me.”

“Why?” I snapped.

“Because you’re about five seconds from blowing a gasket and I’m guessing you don’t want to do that in front of so many witnesses.”

I wanted to tell him to fuck off but had enough control left to realize he was right. I needed to get away from the crowd before I lost my shit.

I let him lead me outside and to the side of the house.

“You okay?”

“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “Why did you do that?”

“Stop you from going postal in the middle of a party?”

I nodded curtly.

“Because she was trying to get a rise out of you. She wanted you to snap so you’d be the bad guy.”

“I wouldn’t put it past her.” I drew in a breath, my anger still bubbling dangerously close to the surface.

“Why does she seem so focused on you?”

“What do you mean?” I flexed my hands. Open, closed. Breathe. Calm.

“She’s only like that with you.” He crossed his arms. “There seems to be more to the story, that’s all.”

“I may have embarrassed her last year. But she had it coming.”

“What happened?”

I blinked at him. “Most people run when I get like this. But you want to have a conversation?”

“I’m not worried about you hurting me.” He looked me up and down. “I could probably bench you without straining myself. So what happened?”

“A case of mistaken twin identity.”

“Like she mixed the two of you up? What else? That can’t be all.”

“It was right after she broke up with Aaron.”

“Mason’s brother?”

“Yeah. She got shitfaced at a party and was hanging off River. He was trying to be nice about it and let her down gently, but she kept groping him, even when other people were telling her to leave him alone. He ended up going off for a bit and she thought I was him and started rubbing up on me.”

His eyes widened.

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