Working Stiff(87)

Arthur’s rich baritone didn’t even sound sleepy, and his British accent was as sharp as cut crystal.

She said, “Hey, Arthur. I was seeing if Maxence was up?” Because she had assumed that Arthur would be sleeping off his drunk for hours yet.

“Oh, no. His Holiness Pope Fuckitall is still asleep.”

“You sound, um, okay?”

“Of course. Slept it off like a champ, as usual.”

“That’s impressive,” she said.

“I deeply appreciate the water and salts this morning. That helped a lot.”

“If I had been that wasted, I would have needed an I.V. and an exorcist.”

Arthur laughed. “How is our lad doing on his first day back at work?”

“Fine. He’s alpha-maling everyone else in the office, as usual.”

“He’s going after other women?” Arthur sounded confused.

“Oh, no. He’s just reestablishing his place in the pecking order. He’s already challenged two other guys to a game of basketball on the parking structure’s roof after work. Do you and Maxence want to meet us for a late supper?”

“He’s challenged two blokes? Does he play two-on-one?”

“Oh, no. He and Draven play two-on-two against the other guys.”

“Tell Draven to switch teams. I’ll roust Sleeping Moody out of bed, and we’ll play three-on-three, just like old times.”

“Okay. I’ll tell him.”

And then she would tell all the women in the office to get their butts up to the roof.

This was going to be epic.





FUN AND GAMES





Oh, and it was.

Rox and the other women and a few of the gay men stood around the makeshift basketball court and watched the glorious display of manflesh in the setting sun.

Because all that is holy was smiling that day, Cash lost the coin toss, and so Cash, Arthur, and Maxence were the “skins” team.

As the three men stripped off their shirts, revealing rippling muscle stacked upon rippling muscle, Rox thought that several of the women in the audience were close to having seizures.

Cash and the other guys played hard, sweat glistening on their bodies. Tattoos flashed. The ball slammed into the asphalt and through hands and swished down the hoops as the men turned and jumped, blocking and ducking, for an hour.

Every striation of muscle was visible on Maxence. He had truly burned down to zero percent body fat. Maybe he still had a few cells’ worth far deep inside, but none was showing.

The onlookers were relatively sure that Cash and his guys won the game, but the scorekeeper got distracted and lost count twice, so no one really knew for sure.

And no one cared.

Rox was distracted as heck because every time that Cash, Maxence, or Arthur raised their hands over their heads to shoot, she could see the matching tattoo that they all had on the insides of their right arms: three shields joined at the tops around a Celtic knot.

She had to corner Cash and ask about that.

And other things. Man.

Afterward, Cash, Arthur, and Maxence went to Cash’s gym around the corner to shower, and Rox waited at the office for them to come back so they could go out to supper.

About fifteen minutes later, Rox spotted Wren walking back to her cubicle, and she herded Wren into the ladies’ room, whispering, “I need to talk to you.”

“I can’t believe you guys kicked Valerie Arbeitman out of a meeting,” Wren whispered and started to reapply her cherry lip gloss. “She fumed all the way to her office and slammed the door.”

“I need to ask you about Cash,” Rox said.

“Oh?” Wren’s gaze turned wary.

“When you were going out with Cash—”

“Why?” Wren asked, holding her lip gloss aside.

“Just a question. No reason.”

“Are you involved with him?”

“Maybe a little,” Rox admitted.

Wren dropped her lip gloss and scrambled to grab it before it dropped off the counter. “But you’re married!”

“I’m actually not. I kind of made that whole thing up.”

“What do you mean, kind of made that whole thing up?”

Wren was a damn good paralegal. Rox should have known that she would define the terms before anything else. “It means that I totally made Grant up. The pictures are headshots from a friend of mine who’s an agent. The vacation pics were photoshopped. I’m not married. I’ve never been married. Grant doesn’t exist.”

“But I met him!” Wren exclaimed.

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did! At the barbecue last summer!”

“Nope. Must have been someone else.” Rox had never brought a date to anything.

“I met him, and he told me about auditioning for something.”