The Silver Fox (Red's Tavern 3)

He scoffed. “Typical,” he said. “Those are fake rock and roll. I listen to legit stuff. Yesterday I was playing riffs from Mayhem.”

I had no clue what he was talking about. But the distraction was working, and Rachel definitely wasn’t talking to Lilly anymore.

“I can’t remember the riffs,” I said. “Would you go ahead and play them now?”

He was off like a rocket, going to retrieve his guitar from the other side of the garden. Soon he’d plugged it into the amplifier, and the distorted tones rang out.

“I hate that,” Rachel said loudly. “Why’d you have to ask him to play again?”

“Oh, believe me, I hate it too,” I said.

Already it was hard to talk over the annoying sound, and Rachel looked like she’d given up.

“I’m sorry, guys. I’m a little tired after all the action. I’m going to head up to the room.”

“No problem, Rach,” I told her. I gave her a sympathetic look, then reached over to hug her. “And try not to smoke, at least when the kids are around?” I whispered near her ear.

When she pulled back she had a guilty look on her face, nodding once. “I know,” she said softly.

No matter how bad it was that she’d told Lilly about the divorce, I couldn’t actually stay mad at Rachel. I’d grown up with her. I still loved her like a sister, and I probably always would. She was a good person, no matter how weirdly fucked-up everything felt right now.

“I’ve got to admit, this is kind of awesome,” Rock said, nodding his head to the riff Cursehound was playing.

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

“A little bit,” he told me, a small grin appearing on his face.

“Oh no,” Cam said. “You two are already disagreeing on music, huh? What kind of stuff does Rock play around his house?”

“Uh,” I said, trying to quickly think on my feet. I’d never even been to Rock’s house, let alone heard what music he listened to. “Stuff like this, I guess.”

“I blast it,” Rock said. “Perry always yells at me, but he loves it, deep down.”

I shrugged. “Guilty as charged.”

“He loves it because he loves you,” Cam said, tipping his beer at us and taking a sip. “Cheers to that.”

“He’s right,” Rock said, heading over to me, still bobbing his head to the music. “You love me. And that’s why you’ll always let me play dark, progressive metal music in the house when we move in together, right?”

He put his arm around me, pulling me in close and pressing a kiss to the side of my head.

A bittersweet mix of pain and desire rolled through me. Why did it hurt, now, to feel him kiss me? For the last few nights we’d fallen asleep cuddling and kissing, and it had felt absolutely fucking incredible. But now something as simple as a kiss made my heart ache like hell with longing.

It was the feeling of knowing I’d never actually have him.

I watched as Lilly laughed, smiling over at the two of us. Regardless of whether anything happened between them, she was the kind of person Rock really belonged with. The kind of person he’d probably end up with, after this reunion was over and he had his choice of any woman in the world, again.

It hurt to be so close to him, now that I’d felt just how good it could be. I knew he wasn’t perfect, because no person was, but that didn’t change the fact that everything in my head was screaming it over and over.

He sure seemed perfect to me.

13

Rock

“Will you get this strap for me?” I asked, tapping the side of my walker boot.

Perry glanced over at me from the other side of the room, where he’d been getting ready. He looked adorably bedraggled, his hair still going in every direction after being messed up by him pulling his sweater over his head.

“Sure,” he said. He couldn’t hide how surprised he was.

All morning I’d had a growing pit of despair in my stomach. We were in our room for the last time together. It was the morning of the last day of the reunion, and late this afternoon, all of us would be parting ways. Lots of the international folks had already left to hop on red-eye flights last night.

I didn’t want it to end. And I hadn’t realized how badly until this morning, looking over at Perry doing his morning routine for the final time.

“I just need a little help tightening it,” I said, swallowing past my own pride. Truthfully, I didn’t want any help tightening my walker boot. I’d rather not have had Perry thinking about it at all. But I couldn’t think of any other excuse to make him get close to me right now.

“Right,” he said, coming to the side of the bed. He knelt down fiddling with the strap. “This okay?”