Best served cold, p.1
Best Served Cold, page 1
BEST SERVED COLD
CRIMSON CLUB 3
WILLOW DIXON
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Editor: Michelle Morgan
Proofreader: Virginia Carey
Cover Artist: Lori Jackson
Photographer: Michelle Lancaster
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
This book was created entirely by humans and contains no AI content.
Copyright Willow Dixon © 2023
CONTENTS
Author Note
Useful Terms
1. Zane
2. Noah
3. Zane
4. Noah
5. Zane
6. Noah
7. Noah
8. Zane
9. Zane
10. Noah
11. Zane
12. Noah
13. Zane
14. Noah
15. Noah
16. Zane
17. Noah
18. Zane
19. Noah
20. Zane
21. Noah
22. Zane
Epilogue
Books By Willow Dixon
About Me
AUTHOR NOTE
This book contains scenes that some readers may be sensitive to, including:
Religious trauma
On page mental health strugglers (diagnosed depression and undiagnosed ADHD)
On page pot/marijuana use (used sparingly for self-medication and it is legal in the state the book is set in)
Neglectful and emotionally abusive parents
Mention of past death of parents and allusions that one may have been intentional
Mention of financially abusive extended family
Mentions of past bullying
If you are sensitive to any of the above subjects, please proceed with caution.
USEFUL TERMS
Ace/asexual: someone who feels little to no sexual attraction
Demi/demisexual: someone who needs an emotional connection in order to feel sexual attraction
Aromantic: someone who feels little to no romantic attraction
1
ZANE
“It’s hot as balls today.” River, my twin brother, sat beside me on the dusty floor of the house that was our current jobsite and swiped my water bottle out of my hand. “Ahh,” he exhaled. “Thanks, bro.”
I waited for him to guzzle another mouthful then snatched it back.
“For real.” Gray, one of our best friends, flopped down on my other side. He pushed his blond hair back from his forehead. “I’m drenched.” Tipping his head back, he dumped a healthy amount of water onto his forehead.
River snickered. “Well, now you are.” He reached around me and snagged Gray’s bottle. “Thanks.” He winked then took a long drink.
Gray waited for River to finish before he grabbed it back. “How much time do we have for our break?”
“Another ten or so.” I took another drink then let River finish mine off.
“You really need to start remembering to bring your own water,” Gray said to River.
He elbowed me. “It’s his fault for not reminding me.”
“I did remind you,” I said, a hint of affection creeping into my voice.
“But you only reminded me once. That’s on you, bro.” River grinned at me in his usual, happy way.
I stretched out my legs, my lips twitching with a smile. “My bad.”
While my brother had a terrible memory for some things, his mind was a steel trap for others. He regularly forgot where he put his keys, if he brushed his teeth that day, and even to eat, but he could remember the exact location of his favorite pencils in his disaster zone of a bedroom or recall a conversation we’d had four years ago. Word for word.
“How does your brain remember that you forgot something, but it can’t remember what you forgot?” River wondered.
“Do you actually remember that you forgot something, or is it your subconscious picking up on your anxiety around the missing memory?” Rath asked, settling his big body onto the floor a few feet from Gray.
“Wouldn’t realizing you have a missing memory be the same as remembering you forgot something?” I asked, unable to stop myself.
Normally I tried to keep my mouth shut whenever Rath joined in on our conversations. He seemed to make it his life’s mission to counter everything I said or try to start stupid arguments.
Rath’s gaze shifted to me, his stupid face twisting up in a big grin. “Is it, though?” Here we go. “Think about it. How many times have you walked into a room and gotten that ‘oh shit’ feeling and you stop and think ‘why did I come in here?’”
“All the freaking time!” River nodded enthusiastically. “Like today. I totally blanked that I was getting my water and stood in the kitchen for like, two minutes, trying to remember why I was there. Like, I knew I forgot to get something, but I couldn’t remember what.”
“Exactly,” Rath said. “So were you actually remembering that you forgot something, or did you realize a memory was missing and that triggered the thought that you forgot something?”
“That’s deep, dude.” River toasted Rath with my water bottle.
“As deep as a puddle.” I swiped it from him.
River gave me a look that told me he knew I’d only taken it back because he’d used it to give Rath props for something.
“You can drown in a puddle.” Rath’s sly smile melted into a sweet one. “Doesn’t have to be deep to be effective.”
“That’s what she said.” River wagged his eyebrows.
Rath grinned at my brother. “Is that really something you want to advertise?”
River paused and looked up, like he was doing some mental math. “Dude!” He barked out a laugh. “You just reverse Unoed me into saying I have a small dick.”
Gray snort-laughed and ended up spitting water all over Rath.
“Charming.” Rath wiped his cheek.
“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
“Kinda like how they say we’re getting older, but we’re actually just slowly dying,” Rath said.
“Exactly!” River practically cheered.
“What about when you’re being chased by a murderer?” Rath asked. “Wouldn’t both of you be running for your life?”
“Zane,” Gray said my name solemnly, “I think we lost control of the conversation.”
“Do we ever have control of things with those two around?”
“Fair point.” Gray half-shrugged. “At least they keep things interesting.”
“Thank fuck Jerry put you on our team.” River got up on his knees and leaned over me, his fist out for Rath to bump.
“Awww, you’re just saying that because I’m tall enough to hold the sheets up while you do the ceilings.” Grinning, he bumped River’s fist.
“You’re the same height as us,” I said before I could remind myself to not engage with him.
“Am I?” He shifted his gaze to me, that big, dumb smile still on his annoying face. “I keep forgetting because you’re so scrawny.”
“Oof. Shots fired.” Gray elbowed me. I didn’t pass that one along.
“Scrawny?” River pulled himself up to his full height and squared his shoulders. “How much do you weigh?”
My brother and I had the same build as Gray, and none of us were scrawny. At six-two and just over two hundred pounds, we had the same wide shoulders, thick legs, and broad chests that Rath had.
We were also more heavily muscled and cut than Rath, but he was stronger.
Fucker.
“Two-forty.” He grinned.
“And it’s all in your ass.”
He tossed a grin at me. “Jealous?”
“Of what?” I schooled my expression into my usual bored neutral.
“Of my bubble butt.”
“You mean your giant ass? There’s nothing bubble about what you’ve got going on behind you.”
Rath just grinned wider. “Hey, Gray?”
“Yeah?”
“As a guy who likes guys, what do you think of my ass?”
“I wouldn’t kick it out of bed for eating biscuits.”
River dissolved into laughter. “What? How can a butt eat anything?”
“Tell me you don’t do anal, without telling me you don’t do anal.” Gray leaned around me and flicked River’s knee.
“I mean, some girls are into that too, so are you sure you’re the only butt bandit here?” He reached over me and smacked Gray’s thigh.
“Butt bandit?” Gray and Rath asked together, both shaking with the effort of not bursting into laughter.
“Sounded good in my head.” River grinned and leaned back on his hands. “Point is, I’m not the buttsex newbie you ASS-ume I am.”
Gray swiped a few drops of condensation off his bottle and flicked them at my brother. They splattered onto my cheek.
“Children,” I said calmly. “Do I need to separate you two?”
“Sorry, Daddy.” Gray batted his eyelashes at me.
“Brat.” I pinched his thigh.
“Does Rath really have a better ass than me?” River asked, twisting so he could look behind him and check his butt out.
“Yes,” Rath and Gray both said.
“Bummer.”
“This is all fascinating.” I got to my feet and brushed off my hands. “But we have work to do.”
River shot me a look that said he knew exactly why I was so eager to get back to hanging drywall. I ignored him.
“I mean, if you want to check out my ass, you just have to say so.” Rath stood, angling his body so his ass was on full display for us.
Before I could stop it, my gaze traced over the swell of his admittedly generous ass and impossibly thick thighs.
His pants were the same cut as mine, but because of his body type, they were tight like skinny jeans rather than the slim fit they were on the rest of us.
Another of those ripples of anger detonated deep in my stomach. I tore my gaze away, scowling. “No one is checking out your ass.”
“I totally am,” River said.
“Speak for yourself.” Gray tilted his head to get a better look.
“Do I need to tell Caleb you’re drooling over Rath’s ass?” River asked with a grin.
“Considering how much of an ass man Caleb is, I think he’d understand.”
Rath shifted so his ass was out of view. “Looks like you’re the outlier, Z.”
I pulled in a deep breath at the nickname.
Our crew loved giving each other stupid nicknames and everyone had been calling me Z since my first day. It wasn’t especially clever, and I didn’t hate it or anything, but didn’t like how it sounded coming out of Rath’s mouth.
“Or I’m the only one with taste,” I argued.
“Turn around.”
“Excuse me?” I pinned him with a glare.
Rath made a ‘turn around’ motion with his hand. “I need to see what I’m comparing myself to.”
“Not happening.”
His eyes went to River. “Help a guy out?”
Grinning, my brother spun, then struck a pose, his hip cocked and his ass popped out.
“Traitor,” I grumbled.
My brother and I were mirror twins, which meant we were completely identical except the few birthmarks we had were on opposite sides of our bodies, making us look like reflections when we faced each other.
If Rath wanted to see my ass, all he had to do was look at River’s.
“I mean, I’m not much of a butt guy, but it’s not terrible.” Rath squinted at River theatrically. “Not the masterpiece that I have the privilege of sitting on, but not bad. A good starter ass.”
Gray snickered.
“Are you done waxing poetic about your ass?” I asked Rath, irritation creeping into my voice.
“For now.” Rath spun his hard hat in his big palm and plopped it onto his head.
“Hey, Smiley!” one of the other guys on our crew shouted from the other end of the house.
“What?” River hollered, cupping his hands around his mouth.
“Incoming.”
“Huh?” River blinked at me.
“Hi, Riv!” an excited female voice said a moment before Chanel burst into the room in a blur of pink and yellow.
“Hey.” He grinned, cutting his gaze to me. I clearly saw his ‘what the fuck’ look but doubted anyone else would. “Careful. It’s really not safe for you to be walking around… like that.”
Gray facepalmed himself. Rath curled his lips inward and stifled a laugh.
Chanel pouted. “You don’t like what I’m wearing?”
“No! I mean, yes. You look amazing, but you shouldn’t be walking around the site without protective gear.”
Her eyes narrowed.
I knew what River was trying to say. This was an active construction site. Strutting around in sandals, tiny shorts, and a top that barely covered her tits wasn’t safe. She could easily get hurt, but of course she wouldn’t bother to read between the lines and see he was being his usual kind self. Instead she took it as an insult.
“Zane likes what I’m wearing, right, Zane?” She smiled slyly at me.
Gray covered his laugh with a cough.
“It’s not safe for a jobsite. Better watch where you step.” I motioned to a nail near her left foot. “I hope you’re up to date on your tetanus shot.”
“You’re such an asshole.” She shot River an annoyed look. “You too.”
“What’d I do?” River asked, completely bewildered.
Chanel smiled at Rath, her flirtiness back. “At least you’re not mean like them.”
He smiled back, but it was forced and uncomfortable.
“What about Gray, he didn’t do anything,” River wondered.
