Fluff & Fold

A Silver Fox Laundry Romance

The Millard Laundromat has served Millard Falls for fifty years. It has survived recessions, a factory strike, and three generations of Russo women who did not take suggestions well. It will not survive a parking lot with four coin machines and no personality.

Unless Darla Russo has something to say about it.

She does.

Darla

Darla is thirty five, Sicilian, and runs the Spin Cycle like a small nation with better folding standards. She works fifty hour weeks, makes approximately forty seven facial expressions before noon, and has never once backed down from anything in her life. Her grandmother built this place. Her mother kept it alive. Darla will not be the one who loses it.

Her plan is simple. Hire gorgeous, tattooed, broad shouldered men of a certain age. Put them in Henleys. Let Millard Falls figure out the rest.

Within three weeks Silver Fox Laundry has a waitlist, a city council complaint, an Instagram following, and Jerome, who is always almost doing something right.

Darla is unmoved by all of it.

She has inventory to manage.

The only man who can get her to lock up early arrives with a bottle of Barolo, says approximately eleven words, and leaves before she can pretend she wasn't watching the door for him. Around the Foxes, Darla is five feet two inches of pure consequence. Around Wes she hiccups. Not nervously. Not adorably. Just hiccups. Every time. Without warning. Usually mid sentence. Usually the important one. The Foxes have noticed. They have been told not to mention it. Jerome mentioned it once.

Wes

Wes has watched the Russo family from across that parking lot his entire life. His father knew her grandmother. He knew her mother. And for the last several years he has known Darla specifically, in the way a man knows something he has decided not to think too hard about.

He is not a complicated man. He labels his whiskey bottles. He brings the right wine without being asked. He has approximately eleven words in his emotional vocabulary and has somehow used all of them on Darla without her noticing.

The Silver Foxes ask him for advice constantly. They find him across the parking lot, three at a time, in their Henleys, genuinely distressed about things Wes does not have words for. He listens. He hands them something from the top shelf. He watches them go back across the parking lot toward Deena and wonders how any of this became his life.

Deena

Deena is Darla's younger sister, Silver Fox Laundry's self appointed HR Manager, and the only person in Millard Falls having more fun than the customers. She did not interview for the position. She arrived with a clipboard one Tuesday and the Foxes voted unanimously. Darla has not acknowledged this. Darla is doing the books. Deena gives the people what they want. The people want gorgeous men in Henleys. Deena also wants gorgeous men in Henleys. This is called alignment and it is why Silver Fox Laundry has a five star rating and zero staff turnover. Jerome is her favorite. Jerome knows he is her favorite. Jerome mentioned the hiccup thing once and is currently on probation from Wonderland but remains optimistic.

*

Somewhere in the back of the Spin Cycle, between the commercial dryers and a fresh mountain of warm towels, Darla Russo is absolutely in control of the situation.

"Wes. I told you I really like you and maybe one day we canwhat are you doing.

"Negotiating," Wes says.

"No. You're in my personal space, you need toWes, we've known each other forWes, what are you

He kisses her on the neck.

Her hand moves up his back without asking her permission first.

"See," he says quietly. "We're coming to terms."

"Wes." She loses her balance. Falls into him. "That was completely uncalled for, you should really -- ohhh. Okay. Okay we're going there. We're going there right now."

He slides her toward the towels.

"We need padding," she says immediately. "This is nice, this is very nice, but we need -- NOT those towels. Those are dirty. The COLORS, Wes. Over there. Now. Hurry."

Wes, who has waited approximately six years for this negotiation, gets the right towels. He has always known which ones she meant.

*

If you've ever imagined a steamy romance in piles of warm blankets, fresh sheets, and soft towels, with some very handsome Silver Foxes keeping guard outside the door, this book is for you.