Series: Smokejumper #2
Publication date: October 26th, 2020
Synopsis:
After a night of too many drinks, smokejumper Tony Warren and his best friend, photographer Kayla Gladney, come to the realization that they're both bad at love. They even tried dating each other, but that crashed and burned, too. Now he's got the hangover from hell and the certain conclusion he's just a shit boyfriend. But Kayla thinks he's a straight-up commitment-phobe.
So they make a bet--they're going to hunt down his exes and decide once and for all why he's so unlucky in love. Terrible boyfriend or commitment-phobe. Why does either answer feel like he's still losing?
But between roadside burgers and late night detours, they discover some fires never burn out--like the one slowly smoldering between them. And suddenly losing feels a whole lot like winning again.
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Excerpt
They kept going, with Tony flipping again and Kayla calling it wrong, then right on the second flip. His turn to ask a question.
He hesitated. "Did you ever think--" Shit, no. That was dumb.
"What?" Her eyes searched his as she spun her glass on the bar.
Hell. He'd started this. "Did you ever think we maybe gave up too easy? You and me. Together, I mean."
God, he was going to regret this in the morning.
Kayla's eyes filled with emotion. Good emotion? Bad? He couldn't actually tell. "I don't know," she murmured. "I know I love having you as a friend. And I'd never want to mess that up."
"Got it. Same." He cleared his throat. "Call it in the air."
"Tails."
Tony peered at the coin in his palm. "Heads. Please take a photo of your thumb and post it to Facebook with no explanation."
Kayla laughed. "You're so weird." But she did it anyway, snapping the image and toggling to the app.
They went a few more rounds, with each of them winning and losing a few. Tony had to send a tweet he liked to chew his toenails. He also took another shot of Fireball, this one burning a lot less than the previous one.
On the next round, Kayla had to post something. "Text the twentieth contact in your phone and ask if they have any Grey Poupon."
Kayla scrolled through her contacts and laughed. "An ex-boyfriend. Chris, that guy I dated last fall."
"Is he the one who forgot to tell you he had a girlfriend?"
"No, that was Nicholas. Chris is the one who kept blowing me off to watch football."
What was it with Kayla dating such idiot guys? Of course, that probably said something about him. "You don't have to text him if it'll be awkward."
"Nah, it's fine." Her thumbs flew over the screen. "We've stayed friends. He's the least asshole of my asshole boyfriends. I'd almost call him a nice guy."
Now why did that sting? Her friends ribbed her all the time for the long string of losers she'd dated, and he kinda prided himself on being the one decent dude in the bunch. Maybe he'd been wrong there.
He glanced at the shot glasses. There were two left, but he'd lost interest.
"Want some water?" She didn't glance up from her phone and didn't wait for his answer. Just shoved her glass in front of him.
"Thanks." He drank gratefully, draining it to the bottom. He was going to feel all that whisky in the morning. He set the glass down and looked at her. "You ready to head out soon?"
"Sure," she said. "I can drive you home."
"You don't have to do that. I can call a cab."
She smiled and signaled the bartender for her tab. "That's what friends are for."
Tony stood up, feeling the ground tilt beneath him. Kayla put a hand on his arm and looked in his eyes. "You okay?"
"Never better."
He turned and strode toward the door, conscious of Kayla's eyes on him, of the possibility that he might live to regret this evening.
That if he thought too hard about it, he might have a helluva lot more to regret.
When Tawna Fenske finished her English lit degree at 22, she celebrated by filling a giant trash bag full of romance novels and dragging it everywhere until she'd read them all. Now she's a RITA Award finalist, USA Today bestselling author who writes humorous fiction, risque romance, and heartwarming love stories with a quirky twist. Publishers Weekly has praised Tawna's offbeat romances with multiple starred reviews and noted, "There's something wonderfully relaxing about being immersed in a story filled with over-the-top characters in undeniably relatable situations. Heartache and humor go hand in hand."
Tawna lives in Bend, Oregon, with her husband, stepkids, and a menagerie of ill-behaved pets. She loves hiking, snowshoeing, standup paddleboarding, and inventing excuses to sip wine on her back porch. She can peel a banana with her toes and loses an average of twenty pairs of eyeglasses per year. To find out more about Tawna and her books, visit her website.
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