Page 68 of Ash Fall

"Pass."

Kara makes a choking sound beside me.

I stare at my grandmother. "Are you rating them?"

"Pass."

"Gigi."

"What? We're just standing here. Why not?"

A younger guy with a baseball cap steps around the back of the truck.

"Pass."

Kara presses her fist against her mouth.

"This is not the time," I whisper.

Gigi slides her sunglasses lower down her nose. "There's always time."

The charter bus door finally folds open with a pneumatic hiss and a man steps down first, maybe in his late thirties, wearing jeans and a work jacket. He stops at the bottom and looks toward Anders and the others.

"Pass," Gigi says.

The next man down is older, maybe late fifties or early sixties, tall and broad through the shoulders. He has thick silver hair, a matching mustache, and a weathered face that belongs on a billboard for expensive whiskey.

Gigi perks up, then pushes her sunglasses back up.

"Oh, my. Hellooo, Smash."

My mouth drops open while Kara explodes into laughter.

"Gigi!"

"What?"

"That's so inappropriate!"

She rolls her eyes and pats my arm. "Sweetheart, please. You know my middle name is Inappropriate."

I look toward the men across from us in horror, praying none of them heard her but Gigi isn't finished hammering her point home.

"Never forget, you owe your existence to a drunken threesome that resulted in your mother."

My brain stops working entirely.

"What?"

Beside me, Kara doubles over. I can only stare at my grandmother while the full horror of that sentence fights its way through. "What do you mean a drunken threesome resulted in my mother?"

Gage's head turns toward us slowly, Torrin does the same from my other side, Reid's mouth falls open, and even Jules blinks. All four of them stare at me.

"Why are you looking at me?" I demand. "I didn't know!"

Jules is the first one to recover. His gaze travels over me, one corner of his mouth rises, and he gives me a slow, cocky wink. Heat floods my entire face.

Torrin bites his bottom lip fighting a smile. Gage looks ready to scrub the last thirty seconds out of his brain, and Reid has suddenly become fascinated with a crack in the pavement.