Jerry shot her a look. “You haven’t. Keeping it all in-house.”

“Shut up,” she said quickly, taking another drink.

“Are you their pimp or something?” I asked.

Jerry’s laughter made his middle shake. “No! No. Just for them—the Alpines. They’ve come in here for a couple of years now. They’re all good guys. I just want everyone to be happy, I guess.”

“You know who’s a good guy, Jerry?”

He paused, waiting for my answer.

“You.”

His face lit up with an appreciative smile as he nodded once and walked away, seeming happy that he’d completed his mission to soften me up.

I finished my beer and then headed outside, taking in the not-so-fresh, smoky mountain air and lighting a cigarette. I pulled my phone from my back pocket to call an Uber when I noticed a few of the hotshots and Reese standing outside, some smoking, some not.

“Damn it!” one said, trying to get his lighter to work. “Is this the only one we’ve got?”

“Hey,” I said, tossing mine to the man next to him—the one Jerry called Zeke.

“Thanks,” Zeke said, handing the lighter to his friend. He looked back at me twice while they lit their cigarettes.

A group of men younger and rowdier than the hotshots passed by, heading for McCormack’s front door.

“Look at the tits on that one,” one of them said.

“Tater tots.”

“Anything more than a handful is too much.”

They all laughed.

“Now those I’d motorboat until I ran out of gas,” another said, referring to Reese.

“Hey, c’mon,” Zeke said, letting his hands fall to his thighs. He looked genuinely disappointed.

The new gang of men stopped, and one stepped forward. “What’d you say?”

“I said quit being an asshole,” Zeke said without hesitation. “You’re making the rest of us look bad.” His fellow hotshots perked up, but Zeke didn’t seem to need them.

“You calling me an asshole?”

Zeke looked around. “Who else would I be calling an asshole, genius? Of course I’m calling you an asshole. You don’t talk about women like that. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I do whatever the fuck I want.”

Zeke laughed once. “So what you’re saying is you’re not an asshole, you’re an unapologetic asshole.”

The man stepped forward again, just inches from Zeke’s face. They were about the same height, but Zeke and his colleagues were a solid month into fire season and leaner.

“Say asshole one more time,” the man said, nose to nose with Zeke.

“Kick his ass, Heath!”

“You don’t want to do this, Heath,” one of Zeke’s friends said behind him, a chuckle behind his words.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Zeke was apparently a bad ass, and I was about to see a show.