by Tawna Fenske
“She’s hot.” Jimmy grinned and waved the women over. “They’re all hot. Which one’s yours, Grady?”
He glared at the younger man. “They’re not property, asshole.”
“Brunette in the black top,” Tony supplied. “She’s the reason we’re not calling this a date.”
Jimmy looked confused. “She boiled his bunny or something?”
“For fuck’s sake,” Grady muttered and started toward the women. Toward Willa.
Her eyes found his before he got halfway across the room, and a slow smile spread over her face. “Hey,” she said. “Got a table?”
“Over in the corner.” He hooked a thumb toward the big booth he and the guys usually nabbed after a show. “Can I get you something at the bar?”
“Beer,” Willa said, and Grady liked her even more. “I’ll come with you to help carry.”
“Let me give you cash.” Aislin dug through her purse and pulled out a twenty. “You want beer, too, Kayla?”
“Yes, please.” Kayla’s attention was fixed on Tony, and Grady couldn’t tell if her response was for the beer or for the tall smokejumper with rumpled black hair and dark eyes that seemed to make women crazy.
Good. Maybe if their friends were distracted, he could spend more time chatting up Willa. She’d already started for the bar, making a beeline in that direction, tempted to put his hand on the small of her back. They’d been naked together, so physical contact wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.
But something in her posture had him shoving his hands in his pockets. Something about the way her eyes swiveled back and forth, surveying the bar like she expected a pack of zombies to leap from behind the jukebox at any moment.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, great.” Her response was a little too bright. “This place used to be something else, didn’t it?”
“Years ago,” he said, surprised she remembered. “Some kind of lottery machine dive bar, I think. More dive-y than it is now, if you can imagine.”
“It’s not so bad. They’re obviously trying to spruce things up with the fresh paint and flowers on the tables.”
Her voice had gone tense and brittle. Grady watched her face, trying to understand the shift. Did she remember this place?
She must have read the question in his eyes. One bare shoulder lifted in an odd little half shrug. “My dad used to come here when I was little,” she said. “I had to wait in the car when my mom went in to get him.”
Which would have made Willa tiny, since she’d mentioned losing her mom when she was young, and he knew for a fact that this place ditched the lotto games about twenty-five years ago. The tension in her shoulders was a good indication these weren’t happy memories she was dredging up here. “We can go if you want,” he said. “Find someplace else.”
“No, it’s good.” She straightened her back. “Let’s order.”
They stepped up to the bar, and Willa leaned in, studying the tap handles. “I’ll have three of the Boneyard IPAs, please.”
“Make it six,” Grady said. “Keep it simple and hoppy.”
He pulled out a credit card while Willa handed over Aislin’s cash and some of her own. She left a generous tip, which impressed him again. She might be a self-professed tightwad, but she didn’t scrimp when it mattered.
“Did you put this on?” she asked.
“Put what on?”
She nodded to the jukebox. “‘Light My Fire.’ The Doors, right? Seems like a smokejumper kinda song.”
He laughed as the bartender handed them two trays—one for him, one for Willa. “We’re usually more interested in putting them out,” he said. “But I get your point. You’re talking about the Springsteen song we did back at Boyton?”
“Right. ‘I’m On Fire.’” She grinned. “I guess it takes on a different meaning when you’ve got a bunch of smokejumpers playing it.”
“You’re giving me ideas for a set list,” he said as they started toward the table, each of them carrying a tray. “Maybe ‘Light My Fire’ by The Doors, followed by ‘Sex on Fire’ by Kings of Leon.”
That earned him a devilish grin from Willa. “How about ‘Burning for You’ by Blue Oyster Cult?”
“I like it,” he said. “We could kick in a little country with some Johnny Cash, ‘Ring of Fire.’”
“Or embrace your feminine mystique with Barbra Streisand’s ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,’” she suggested. “Maybe follow that up with Diana Ross’s ‘Fire Don’t Burn.’”
“I don’t think I have that kind of vocal range, but I admire your faith in us.”
They’d reached the table, and everyone shifted around to make room. Kayla was cozied up to Tony in the middle, while Jimmy straddled a chair he’d stuck at the head of the table, chatting up Aislin.
There was an open gap on one end of the round booth, so Grady slid in first to make room for Willa beside him.
“Nice,” Willa said as she took a seat. “Letting me have the end so I have unrestricted access to the jukebox and bathroom.”
“Who says chivalry is dead?” He handed out beers as Tony accepted a heaping basket of Cajun tots he must have ordered from one of the circulating servers. He set them in the center so everyone could reach, then stuck his hand out to Willa.
“Tony Warren,” he said. “Kayla was just telling me you do web design?”
“That’s right,” she said. “I own Frank Solutions. I’ve been running it for about six years.”
Tony whistled. “Impressive. We’ve been thinking about doing a website for the band. You have samples we could check out sometime?”
She smiled and pulled a business card out of her wallet. “There’s a whole gallery you can browse,” she said. “I offer friends and family discounts, too.”
“She did mine for my photography business,” Kayla put in. “She figured out more than seventy percent of my web visits were coming in from mobile devices, so she did this whole mobile optimization thing and presto—bookings are going through the roof.”
Tony pocketed Willa’s card. “I’ll check it out.”
Willa smiled and took a sip of her beer. “All three of you are smokejumpers?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jimmy grinned, laying on the small-town charm as thick as he could. “I was a Hotshot for five years out of college. Got an opportunity to join the smokejumpers last year, so I jumped at the chance.”
“Pun intended?” Grady put in dryly.
“Right.” Jimmy directed his aw-shucks smile at Aislin, whose focus was still half on her phone. “I’m technically a snookie this year.”
“Snookie?” Aislin cocked her head. “Like Jersey Shore?”
Jimmy laughed. “Second-year rookie. There were only three of us brought in last year. It’s pretty competitive.”
Aislin looked appalled rather than impressed. “There are that many guys lining up to jump out of planes into fires?”
“You’d be amazed.” Jimmy shrugged and lifted his beer. “And we’re not actually jumping into fires. Just near them.”
Tony grabbed a tot from the basket. “’Course, all it takes is a shift in the wind and—”
“We do a lot of training,” Grady interrupted, noticing Willa had gone pale. “To prevent accidents. The safety precautions we all take are pretty over-the-top.”
A little color returned to her face, but she still looked unsure. “How long have you two been doing it?”
The question seemed directed at Tony and him, and since Tony had just shoved two tater tots in his mouth, Grady took it.
“We’ve worked together more than a decade,” he said. “Four years on a Hotshot crew, then this.”
“I spent an extra year with the ground crew,” Tony added. “Got a little brother who spent two years with the Hart Valley Hotshots, so I stuck around to make sure he got settled in.”<
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There was more to that story than Tony had shared, but Grady knew better than to offer it up. It wasn’t his place.
Aislin picked at a tater tot. “So all the guys in the band are smokejumpers?”
“Yep,” Tony said. “Pete, the other guy on guitar—he’s the base manager—he’s been there the longest. Coming up on fifty and still jumping.”
“And Ryan’s the drummer,” Grady put in. “This is his third year jumping.”
Tony took a drink from his beer. “There are other guys who fill in when they can,” he said. “Bobby McKillop wasn’t there tonight—he’s out on a fire in Nevada—but he plays stand-up bass. He’s usually there when I can’t make it, or sometimes we’re both there for an extra thumpin’ show.”
“Impressive.” Willa looked at Grady. “So you all just happen to be musical, or are musically inclined people just drawn to smokejumping?”
“I never really thought about it.” He spun his beer on the table, wishing they were alone together. Maybe in her living room with her dog and a pizza and her bare feet on his lap while he stroked his hand up her thigh. “I guess it’s one of those things that helps break up the tension,” he said. “Gives us something to occupy our minds while we’re waiting to get called out.”
“Beats knitting?” Her smile told him she was kidding, which meant she didn’t know how smokejumpers really spent most of their downtime.
“Come visit the base sometime,” he said. “We’ll show you our needle skills.”
“Oh?” Her smile was flirty. “Is this like showing me your etchings?”
“Pretty much.”
There was still tension in her shoulders. He suspected it had something to do with what she’d said earlier, about her mother dragging her dad out of this place. What kind of memory must that have created for her as a kid? He wanted to ask, but now didn’t seem like the right time.
“You guys come here a lot?” she asked.
“Whenever we play Boyton,” Grady said. “Which is pretty often. This was sort of an anniversary for us.”
“How so?” she asked.
“Our one hundredth time playing there.”
“Oh shit.” At the head of the table, Jimmy blanched. “Fuck.”
Grady frowned at him. “You okay?”
“A-Anniversary,” he sputtered, jumping out of his chair. “Shit, today’s my one-month anniversary dating Baylee.”
Tony cocked his head. “You mean Braylee?”
“Braylee,” Jimmy amended, shoving in his chair. “Fuck, I’ve gotta go. I promised we’d do something.”
If Aislin was annoyed, she didn’t show it. Instead, she grabbed the mason jar of flowers off the center of the table and waved to a passing waitress. “How much are these?”
The waitress blinked. “They’re not really for sale.”
“Twenty bucks?” Aislin nodded to Jimmy, who obediently took out his wallet.
“I’ll give you forty if I can keep the jar,” he said.
The waitress shrugged and pocketed the cash. “No skin off my nose,” she said. “It came from The Dollar Store, I think.”
“You’re a lifesaver.” Jimmy grabbed the vase and offered a sharp salute meant for all of them. “Good meeting you. Grady, I’ll see you at the base next week.”
“See ya.”
And then he was gone, leaving Grady with one less wingman.
Tony laughed and went right back to chatting with Kayla. Aislin picked up her phone again and started typing like crazy, so Grady turned his attention back to Willa.
“How’s Stevie doing?” he asked.
Willa smiled, her face lighting up at the mention of her dog. “He’s great. Had his annual vet visit yesterday. He knocked over a bowl of biscuits and ate about twenty of them before the vet tech got him corralled.”
“Atta boy.” Grady stretched his arms out over the back of the booth, aware of Willa’s hair brushing his hand. “I never did get to meet your cats,” he said. “Earmuff and Barrow?”
She smiled and sipped her beer. “Meeting cats is a big step,” she said. “Meeting the fish is even bigger. Really more of a second-date thing.”
“Which this isn’t,” he reminded her. “This doesn’t count toward your two-date rule.”
“Noted,” she said as she set down the beer.
It occurred to Grady that the rest of the table had tuned them out. Aislin’s thumbs were still flying over her phone, texting someone less boring than them. Kayla was practically on Tony’s lap, talking intimately about music and favorite bars and the normal getting-to-know-you stuff.
Grady smiled, recalling how he and Willa had flipped that practice on its head. Such an epic first date. Was it any wonder he wanted another? And another and another and—
Willa shifted, and her hair brushed his hand like silk. She leaned close, and Grady leaned, too, so near he could smell her perfume. “Is Tony single?” she whispered.
“Yeah. As far as I know.”
“Because obviously the other guy—”
“Jimmy?”
“Right.” Willa cleared her throat. “Jimmy turned out to have a girlfriend, so I wondered about Tony. He’s a good guy?”
An unexpected bubble of jealousy wiggled up through his chest. “Yeah,” he said. “The best.”
He tried not to picture Willa out on a first date with him or a second—
“Seems like he and Kayla are hitting it off,” she whispered. “So I wanted to make sure.”
Oh.
Dumb-ass.
He picked up his beer and took a slow sip. “Tony’s great,” he said. “I’d trust him with my life.”
“Good,” she said. “That’s good.” She glanced at Aislin, who was still fiddling with her phone. “Kayla—uh—got pretty burned.”
Aislin snorted but didn’t look up. “Might have to clarify there, Wills. You’re talking to a firefighter.”
“Burned by love,” Willa added, shooting a sheepish look at Grady before glancing at her friend. “So I want to make sure Tony’s not going to pull some dick move like stringing her along and ghosting her or something.”
“He’s one of the nicest guys I know,” he said. “She’s in good hands.”
“Good hands,” Aislin repeated, still staring at her phone but clearly following the conversation. “That’s a selling point for Kayla.”
Willa smiled and grabbed a tater tot from the basket in the middle of the table. Her gaze shifted to Grady’s hands, which were wrapped around his glass. She stared for a moment, and Grady wondered what she was thinking. Did she remember the way his hands had felt gliding down her body, moving between her legs—
“No way!” Across the table, Kayla shot up straight in her chair. “You’re not serious.”
“Dead serious,” Tony said. “They’re playing at the Polka-Dot tonight. They’re going on late, maybe nine?”
“How did I not know this?” she said. “They’re, like, my favorite band.”
Willa frowned. “Who?”
“Polydactyl Pumpkin,” Kayla said, shaking her head at Tony. “I’ve been following them for years. They’re seriously in town tonight?”
Tony glanced at his watch. “We could hurry and make it.”
Kayla glanced at Willa, biting her lip. “I don’t want to ditch everyone.”
“We’ll be fine,” Willa said. “It’s not like we need a babysitter.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“Go,” Aislin said, glancing up from her phone. “That’s been your bucket list band for years. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
“Come on,” Tony said. “The owner loves me. I’ll bet I could get us backstage if you want to meet them.”
“Holy crap, I can’t believe this.” Kayla jumped up, and Tony followed, looking downr
ight joyful.
He glanced back at Grady. “Catch you at the base later?”
“See you there.”
And then they were gone. Willa stared at the door for a moment, then looked at Aislin. “Everything okay with you?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Well, no. It’s my sister.”
“Ugh. Sorry.” Willa made a face, which told Grady everything he needed to know about that relationship. “What does she want?”
“To stay with me tomorrow,” Aislin said. “Which means I should probably get home and clean.”
“Wait.” Grady sat up straight. If Aislin left, he’d be alone with Willa. He liked the idea in theory, but wouldn’t that make this a date?
He was just getting to know her. Even if this had no chance of getting serious, no way was he ready for Willa to walk out of his life.
“We haven’t even been here thirty minutes,” he pointed out. “Can I get you another beer?”
Aislin frowned. “What?”
“Another beer, or how about some french fries?” He tried to catch the server’s attention, but no dice. Shit, Aislin couldn’t leave…
“Tell me about yourself,” he said to Aislin, conscious of Willa exchanging a baffled look with her friend. “Willa said something about skincare?”
“Yes,” Aislin said slowly. “Did you want to make an appointment for a facial?”
If that would keep him from wasting date number two like this, he’d subject himself to any manner of services. “Uh, sure—that sounds…great.”
Willa grinned. “Maybe you can do a firefighter special.”
Aislin quirked an eyebrow and studied him appraisingly. “I do have some special soap made with volcanic ash,” she said. “I also offer a pedicure called Fire and Ice.”
“He can make it a spa day,” Willa said, grinning like she was enjoying this way too much.