Chapter 1
Bryn
“Swallowit.Takeitall. You can do it. Atta girl, that’s it, all the way.”
Leave it to Quinn to make this as dirty as possible.
Gasping for breath as the last drops of liquid hit the back of my throat, I slam my glass to the table seconds before Jordan. The brunette wipes the corner of her mouth, careful not to smudge lips painted the color of sin, as a sigh of defeat billows out.
An arm hooks around my neck and drags me halfway out of my seat as Quinn, my teammate in this ridiculous drinking game, lets out a victory cry.
The object of the game? Chug a boilermaker quicker than your opponent.
The occasion? Hailey’s birthday. Too bad the poor girl was easily beaten by Quinn while I took on Jordan.
“If Quinn hadn’t made me choke with her choice of encouragement, I would have been faster,” Jordan grumbles.
“Is that what you say to Liam?” Quinn asks, releasing her grip on me.
Jordan lifts her chin, a smug smile gracing her lips. “Fast or slow, that man has no complaints.”
“Nate loves it when I ch—”
Jordan slaps a hand over the mouth of the only one who didn’t do a boilermaker. “Donotfinish that sentence, Savanna.”
A chorus of laughter erupts at the table, and I adjust myself back into my seat. Given that Savanna is married to Jordan’s brother, it’s no wonder that she doesn’t want to hear a word about it. I don’t blame her. The guy has been my boss for years, and I’ve looked at him like a brother for a number of them. I don’t need to know anything more than I’ve already seen and heard.
“I’m sure Nate also loves it when she gets out the whips and chains,” Quinn pipes up.
Shaking her head from across the table, Hailey asks, “When are you going to let that go? You do remember they didn’t confirm that, right?”
“And we never will,” Savanna retorts, lifting her beer to us.
The camaraderie between us fills my heart with joy. Before Savanna came into the picture a little over a year and a half ago, I’d never experienced a girl gang like this, but she became the magnet that pulled us all together. Slowly at first, when Savanna and Jordan lived together after Savanna’s apartment burned down. And then she and I became quick friends, working the bar that Jordan and Savanna’s husband, Nate, own. Throw Hailey and Quinn into the mix, longtime best friends and paramedic partners in the same firehouse as Nate and his crew, and we were a recipe for a tribe.
“Your lack of confirmation is confirmation enough in my mind, Sav,” Quinn says, blowing her a kiss.
A dysfunctional, unhinged tribe at times. But a tribe, nonetheless.
I don’t always—usually—come out when they ask me, but on special occasions I make exceptions. It’s not that I don’t love being part of the group, but life is busy when you work two jobs and take care of your Gran in between.
Gran swears she doesn’t need the help, but I’ve been doing it for so long I don’t know any other way.
Rubbish, she would say, claiming I do it because I was told I had to.
Never mind that I like to.
Clapping her hands beside me, Quinn pulls me back to the table. “Bryn, you’re the only single one at the table with me. That officially makes us each other’s wingwomen. Let’s find you a cowboy to marry and a toy for me to play with tonight.”
I sputter in the middle of taking a sip of beer. The more preposterous the idea, the more likely it comes from the raven-haired woman at my side. “Why are you marrying me off, but you only get tonight?”
She shrugs as our server comes by with another round of shots. Straight whiskey this time, no additional beers in sight for a boilermaker. Thank God. The first one was almost too much. A second one this quickly would do my stomach in for the night.
“Because you seem like the type,” Quinn responds, helping distribute the shots around the table.
“How do you figure?” Savanna asks. “She’s always working.”
“Exactly,” Quinn says as if it’s obvious. She humors us, though, and explains, “Look at all the guys that hit on her at 10-42. It’s constant. You ever see this girl go home with one of them?”
