The Silver Fox (Red's Tavern 3)

I sure didn’t feel hot in this thing.

“Nobody cares if your ankle is messed up when you’re horizontal in bed with them,” Red said.

“What if I wanted to pound someone up against a wall, though? What if I wanted to lift them up and fuck them mid-air? What if they had a fetish for guys doing lunges naked—”

“Enough, enough,” Red said. “I already get enough of this from my bartenders, I don’t need it from you, too.”

Red rolled his eyes, but I caught a smile on his face as he got out of the cab of the truck. I was still staring out the windshield, watching as the happy couple walked off into the night together, arms around each other’s waists.

It had only been a few months since I’d broken up with my last girlfriend, but it seemed like years. It’s funny how being single always kind of felt like that. Like you’d be on your own forever, cursed to watch from the sidelines as everyone else found the loves of their lives.

Red opened the squeaky old passenger side door before I’d gotten my seatbelt off.

“Shift started five minutes ago, let’s get a move on,” Red said.

“You were the one acting like a living heart-eyes emoji over there, staring at your phone,” I said. “Don’t blame me for your lateness.”

He held his hand out for me, and I clenched my jaw instinctively.

“I can open a door on my own,” I said. “My ankle is the body part that’s fucked up, not my hands.”

I swung myself out of the truck, refusing to grab Red’s outstretched hand as I brought my feet down onto the asphalt. My ankle ached a little inside the boot, a ghost of the pain I’d had there for the last month flaring up.

“Quit acting like a sour princess when I try to help,” Red said, shutting the door to the cab.

“Sour princess,” I said. “That would be a good name for a cocktail. Or a porn star.”

“I want your ankle to heal,” Red said, ignoring my comments. “So stop the stubborn shit.”

“I’m just glad I’m done with the crutches,” I said, shimmying my leg a little in the boot, trying to find a vaguely comfortable position in the tight confines.

“First time in thirty-six years you’ve ever had to slow down for anything,” Red muttered. “You can handle it.”

He wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t slowed down in thirty-six years of life. I hated how my injury changed the way people treated me. I was used to being the hero, the savior, one of the guys who swooped in and solved problems rather than needing people to dote on me.

I had become a firefighter because I thrived when I was helping other people, and because I knew I could. Since I was a teenager I’d been hitting the gym six out of seven days a week, every week. Physical fitness was my fuel. I loved feeling like my body was prepared for anything, like I was capable and strong and useful.

Okay, sure—half of the station calls I responded to back in Kansas City were more along the lines of microwave popcorn fires than ten-story infernos. Sometimes the only “heroic” thing I got to do was unplug a toaster oven. But before I got hurt, at least I had always been able to walk properly.

I was sure my injury was supposed to teach me some lesson about taking life easy and smelling the roses, but damn, I just wanted to move. The doctor told me I’d be better within two months, but to me it sounded like an eternity.

We pushed through the front doors of the tavern. I was hit with the familiar wave of music, chatter, and, right now, a ridiculously delicious scent of ripe, fresh peaches, for some reason. It was only eight o’clock, but half of the booths were full. There was a huge group of people playing pool in the corner, and the big, long bar was filling up.

I loved my brother’s bar. He’d started Red’s Tavern years ago, and it had grown into something that he was deeply proud of.

“Oh, that can’t be good,” Red said, nodding behind the bar as we approached it.

I glanced up and got an eyeful of silver fox. A flare of excitement ran through my chest.

Perry, the tavern cook, was standing in front of the shelves of liquor with a bottle of tequila in one hand and a shot glass in the other. His swoop of hair matched the silvery label on the bottle.

I watched as he took a shot of tequila, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he downed the liquor. He had a good few days’ worth of grey stubble on his face, making him look even more grizzled. I was struck by how good he looked, like some sort of guy-next-door Hugh Jackman lookalike.