That was another reason I’d canceled our practice sessions. My system was messed up. I was sorely regretting running out on my potential threesome with Jay and Dean. Fuck me. Dean wasn’t even going to touch me. It was gonna be Jay and me and a silent observer. I was an idiot.

It was nine o’clock on a Thursday night. The air was brisk, and the wind blew through my winter jacket like it wasn’t there. It was March for crying out loud. Was spring never coming?

I shivered as I stared at the numbers on the gas pump, listening to the steady tick as the tank on the SUV filled.

The woman inside the vehicle was animated as she talked on her phone. She had no idea how clear her conversation was despite the closed windows. I bet her husband would have been thrilled to hear she planned to meet up with her old high school fling in an hour at his bachelor apartment downtown.

I rolled my eyes and bounced on my toes, trying to encourage circulation into my frozen limbs. Winter sucked.

The handle released, stopping the flow of gas. With practiced skill, I tapped the lever, rounding to an even sixty bucks, and hung the nozzle on the side of the pump before knocking on the driver’s side window.

“Sixty,” I called through my scarf.

She held up a finger, telling me to hold on while she kept chatting about wine and the lingerie she’d put on under her clothes.

Really?! It’s below freezing, you wench.

She started the car and adjusted the heat vents so they blew on her face, making her hair fly around. She giggled at something the guy on the phone said while my testicles crawled up inside my body for their own safety.

I tapped on her window again, reminding myself to be nice.

Aggravated, she lowered her phone then the window, handing me her credit card. Correction, her husband’s credit card. Poor bastard.

I took it inside and rang it through before venturing out into the cold again, head down. I tapped the window to give it back. She lowered it an inch and accepted it before revving her engine and shooting out of the station, narrowly missing driving over my toes. Bitch!

I hated my job. Hate. Hate. Hate.

I checked the time on my phone for the hundredth time. Twenty more minutes and I could walk back to the house of hell and try to do some homework. It was a crapshoot on whether I’d get anything resembling peace and quiet.

I was about to return inside to absorb some warmth and thaw my toes when a familiar silver Jaguar squealed into the station and pulled up to the pump that the cheating skank had just abandoned.

Asher.