The lights in the off-strip funeral home couldn’t have been further from the clichéd glittering lights of Sin City. Already dimmed throughout my father’s afternoon showing, with night fast falling and every other visitor gone, I’d had the funeral home director take the lights even lower, as if that somehow would make it easier to accept that my father was dead. That the heart-clogging meals he’d been ingesting for fifty-plus years had finally gotten the better of him.

Christ, how long had I been after his ass to give healthy eating a try?

Not long or hard enough, judging by the sickening pallor of his skin and that his final breath had been drawn two days ago. Approximately one hour after I could recall laughing for the last time. Laughter I’d shared with Jack Dempsey, my best friend. The bosom buddy who’d been by my side for over two decades.

The man who wrapped his arms around my waist now, pressing his strength against my back and reminding me that I wasn’t alone but with a guy who knew exactly what I needed tonight.

“There’s a bottle of Bombay Sapphire waiting for you in the passenger’s seat of my truck.” The words left his mouth as a whisper.

But the deep timbre of his voice could never be mistaken for a true whisper--Jack’s voice was as solid as the rest of his big body. Perhaps from ten years of yelling to be heard over the chaos that ensued while fighting fires. Perhaps just because he was one damned fine-looking man--with thick, wavy black hair that matched his mustache and predatory blue-green eyes--and God had seen fit to gift him with a sexy-as-hell voice to match.

Whatever the case, he was offering what I wanted. A chance to drown the tension and sorrows I had amassed over the last two hellishly long days.

I turned in his arms, burying my face against the crook

of his neck and inhaling his familiar masculine scent. Normally

I had a serious loathing for letting my emotions show, even

around Jack. Tonight, now, I just had to say “fuck it” to

appearances and sniffle

I went with the need for a few minutes, blubbering into his neck, probably ruining his best dress shirt. Then I sucked back my grief, accepted the shitty hand fate had dealt me--first my mother walking out years ago and now my father gone as well. At least I still had my grandmother, irrational as her aging mind could be at times.

At least I still had Jack.

I stepped back from his embrace to offer up an appreciative smile. “What would I do without you?”

His own smile flashed; a touch of the cockiness coming through which--along with our mutual take on relationships being for others--made us such compatible friends. “Get shit- faced drunk, hook up with an asshole, then wake up tomorrow wondering who the hell the guy in bed with you is and where the hell are you anyway?”

Yeah, it was a damned good thing I had Jack. Just like that he refilled my laughter well w

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