Page 8 of Of Snakes and Men

So I wasn’t afraid of male anger, knowing that no matter what form it took, I could defend myself against it.

That meant I didn’t jolt or shrink or feel like I was going to cry when someone was in my face and screaming.

Instead, I kind of just focused on how ridiculous their actions were. How they reminded me of the emotional regulation of a five-year-old instead of a fully grown man.

Mike, he always got red.

Liam kind of spat a little when he was yelling.

Elijah cursed so often when he was pissed that I actually started a mental ticker when he started talking.

It was only Vane’s anger that I even remotely worried about.

Unlike our other coworkers who ran hot and emotive, Vane was a cold sort of fury. Quiet. Unpredictable.

Or maybe I was just reading too much into shit, given our history, given the fact that we barely spoke since… well… all that shit went down.

I was sure he wasn’t happy that the biggest client we’d landed in six months wanted me, and only me, on the case. But he wasn’t about to break his silent treatment to grumble at me about it.

I often wondered what this group of men was like outside of work. Outside of their obvious hatred and resentment toward me.

Were they kinder to other women? Did they save their misogyny just for me?

Objectively, they could all get laid whenever they wanted.

Mike was probably the most hard-up, aging a bit like bananas left out on the counter.

But Liam was tall and fit with a full head of shiny, coppery hair that he pulled back into a bun.

Elijah had the pretty-boy blond thing going for him.

And Vane, well, Vane had the tall, dark, dangerous vibe to him. The scar on his face and his limp in no way dulled that.

So did they recycle cheesy pick-up lines in bars? Did they have creep vibes? Or predatory ones? Were they charming?

This was the kind of shit I thought about in my head while I let them burn through their anger by screaming at me for a while.

“Well?” Mike barked, making me realize he must have asked me something.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you, Mike,” I said, shrugging. “Maybe he’s more comfortable with me because he’s… friendly with some of my friends and family. I don’t know what to tell you. He and I have barely ever spoken. And anytime we have, it’s been icy.”

On my part, admittedly.

For all intents and purposes, Andres Alcazar was very… laidback. I might not even know if the man was pissed at me. He just had a very even temperament. If anything, it ran toward amusement more easily than anger.

Which, I had to admit, kind of rang true for any of the people I knew who had experienced really hard, eventful lives. I guess when shit had been really bad for long enough, you kind of learned to let all the small stuff roll off your back.

“Right,” Liam scoffed, rolling his eyes at me.

“What did he say to you?” Mike demanded.

I wasn’t about to tell him about that whole The fuck you let them talk to you like that for thing.

Because I didn’t even want to think about that. Partly because it was embarrassing, because I would never let anyone else speak to me that way. And I didn’t like anyone, not even A, thinking of me differently because I did allow my coworkers to do it.

But also because, well, something about his gaze then, about the way his voice seemed to shiver across my skin, made me have this weird as fuck twisting sensation in my stomach.

I mean, no.

It was probably not his words or his voice or his eyes, but rather the fact that the only thing I’d consumed in sixteen hours was coffee, and my stomach was upset about it.

I damn sure didn’t get a strange, you know, pulsing sensation at the way he’d said mama at the end of that sentence, either.

Because I loathed that term.

Hated it, even.

The little pulsations were clearly from lack of sleep. And, well, lack of sex.

My friends teased me about it relentlessly. How little I dated. Or, at the very least, got laid.

I was busy.

That was what I always told them. And there was truth in that. Most days were long and tedious and all I wanted after them was some food and a decent night of sleep.

But what I wouldn’t tell them was that I was just very… disinterested in guys. I mean, let’s face it, even if I wanted to go to a bar and find a guy to take home, what were the chances that I chose right and he would even be willing to look for my clit, let alone be able to work it and make me come?

Experience—and eavesdropping on conversations I heard other women having—told me that most guys wanted to pump and dump and go home.

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