The Contractor (Red’s Tavern #8) Read Online Raleigh Ruebins

Categories Genre: M-M Romance Tags Authors: Series: Red's Tavern Series by Raleigh Ruebins
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Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
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So even though I needed to be back home in Colorado, and I knew it was the right decision, there was always going to be something missing. Because Jack wouldn’t be there, and he felt like home to me, too.

If only I really could bring him back home with me, too.

“I hope you know it was adorable this morning when you had your sleepy-head hair,” I told Jack a couple of hours later, after we’d been sitting at the bar for two hours and had been putting back beers like it was our job.

We could both hold our alcohol like pros, but I could tell we were both more than a little tipsy right now.

“Oh, shut it,” he said. “I’m never adorable. Not like you.”

“You think I’m adorable, huh?” I said, reveling in the compliment. “Adorable enough to come out on that dance floor with me right now?”

“I never should have told you I did that while you were gone,” he said, lifting an eyebrow at me. “Like hell you’re going to get me out there again. Especially right now. There are only four other people dancing.”

“So what? We can do whatever we want. And I want to dance with my best friend.”

“Nice try,” he said, swigging down the rest of his beer in one big gulp.

“You wouldn’t do it? Even for me?”

“Don’t guilt me just because you’re leaving town and you know I’m fucked up about it,” he said, leaning back a little on his stool as he looked at me.

Oof. An electric wave of guilt shot through my body.

“Shit,” I said. “Now I know for sure you’re getting drunk, because you’re actually talking about my move instead of ignoring it.”

“And I know you’re getting drunk because you’re doing things like calling me adorable,” he grumbled, still holding eye contact with me.

I rolled my eyes. “I’d call you adorable even if I were sober as a church mouse.”

He snorted. “Sober as a church mouse? What the hell? The phrase is ‘poor as a church mouse.’”

I couldn’t help but start laughing. “Well, if the church mouse was poor, he was probably also sober, right?”

“I don’t know, Tris,” he said. “I don’t think either of us are sober as any kind of mouse, right now.”

“So come dance with me,” I asked, again, reaching out to squeeze his forearm.

My heart was doing something weird in my chest, and I didn’t know how to fix it other than to get Blue out on the dance floor with me. It was a strange feeling, one I hadn’t really had before. But I knew some part of it was that I just wanted—needed—to be close to my best friend right now. And there was really nothing I could do to make that feeling go away.

“One song,” Jack said, cutting me that same intense, blue-eyed stare that I’d come to love so much.

“One song,” I promised. “And it can be Fleetwood Mac.”

“Stevie Nicks always makes me cry, though.”

“You won’t cry. You’ll be dancing with me,” I said.

“Knowing you’re going to be leaving town?” he asked. “I really might cry. Fucker.”

“I know. I’m awful. I’m ruining everything.”

He sighed as he got up off the bar stool. “You’re not ruining everything. Forget about me. You’re living your life, and you’re thriving, and I’m really goddamn proud of you, Tristan.”

My heart made a little thunk in my chest.

“And I’m proud of you for agreeing to dance with me,” I said, holding out my hand. “Now let’s go.”

3

JACK

How was I supposed to stop myself from being in love with my best friend when he was as goddamn perfect as Tristan Wood?

If there was any answer to that question, I hadn’t found it yet.

Luckily, he went easy on me and put “The Chain” on the jukebox, which we had fun stomping around and dancing to along with more people who came out to join us on the dance floor. If he’d played a slower song like “Landslide” or “Dreams,” I’d have been bawling like a baby out there in his arms.

As we danced, a few more people got the courage to head out onto the dance floor, too. Before long we’d made a tiny little crowd of at least a dozen people.

“Hey there, handsome,” I heard from the side shortly after the song had ended.

I turned to see a redheaded guy with cute freckles who was probably in his forties, fit as hell, and judging by his droopy eyes, more than a little drunk.

Of course someone was already trying to hit on Tristan. I knew it would happen at some point tonight.

“Unfortunately for all of us, he’s straight,” I joked.

Tristan lifted an eyebrow at me. “Pretty sure he wasn’t calling me handsome, Blue.”

I looked at the redheaded guy again and he seemed to confirm that he was, indeed, looking at me. The three of us moved aside toward the pool tables, breaking from the dance floor.



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