Food Truck Warriors #2
Can they fake it til Tate makes it?
Tate Ward is in a bind. His food truck hasn’t been the runaway success he’d always dreamt it would be. When he tries to join a new food truck collective to gain a larger following, his sales aren’t even high enough to win a spot. What he needs is a high profile endorsement—and he knows just the guy.
Tate hasn’t seen Chase Riley since high school. It’s been ten long years of watching from a distance as Chase conquers football fields and fans’ hearts.
Tate never wanted Chase to know that he had the world’s stupidest crush on him, because he always believed Chase was straight.
But desperate times call for desperate measures . . .
When Chase offers a tempting plan that could fulfill all his dreams, Tate knows he can’t say no. All he has to do is pretend that his very real feelings are actually fake.
But faking it with Chase, while leading to wild success and even wilder nights, is everything that Tate feared it would be. All it’s done is leave him wanting the impossible: Chase’s heart.
“I need to talk to you,” Tate said.
Chase had imagined, more times than he cared to consider, what it would feel like to finally be honest with Tate about his feelings. That he had feelings. He could admit that it had never looked like this, not in any fantasy he had ever had. But truthfully this was better than anything he’d dreamed up because it was real.
The people surrounding Chase, that he’d barely been listening to, melted away, several of them shooting him knowing grins. Chase thought he might’ve heard one of the guys even tell him he could get it.
They weren’t exactly alone, but close enough that they could talk frankly. And it really looked like Tate wanted to talk frankly.
“I kind of figured as much,” Chase said.
He felt shy, suddenly. Exposed, with Tate staring at him like he was seeing him for the first time all over again.
“You,” Tate said, suddenly crowding into his space. Chase’s heartbeat accelerated. Was he going to kiss him? Had he been waiting for Chase this whole time, and now that Tate knew, he wasn’t going to waste a minute?
Except no. That dreamy bubble burst, almost immediately, and with force.
Tate shoved a finger into his chest, and up close, his eyes were flat and gray, hard as stones. Just as hard as his voice. “You are a fucking idiot,” he said.
“Sadly, not the first or the last time someone’s gonna tell me that,” Chase said wryly. Hoping it would cover his disappointment.
What did you expect? You threw this out without talking to him, without even floating the idea. You totally suck at this.
“If you faked . . .” Tate said.
But Chase couldn’t let that stand. Tate didn’t think he was being honest? Tate thought he was lying now?
“No,” Chase said. “It’s true . . . I’m not straight. I’m . . . not sure what I am. But I know I’m not straight.”
Tate’s gaze softened. Not by much, but enough that it didn’t feel like Chase’s heart was being squeezed until it exploded.
“Okay,” he said. “Still, you should’ve told me,” Tate said in a low, angry voice. “You should’ve told me ten years ago. And now? You definitely should have told me first, before I had to find out with the rest of the world. Especially since we’re apparently dating now?”
That was rich. Chase had suspected about Tate back in high school—the flirting was kind of a dead giveaway, and that wasn’t even counting the way that Tate had looked at him—but it wasn’t like Tate had been honest back then either. And when he had been? Chase had had to hear about it from mutual friends.
However, Tate wasn’t wrong. He probably shouldn’t have suggested to his millions of followers that they were dating without clearing it with him first.
A lifelong Pacific Northwester, Beth Bolden has just recently moved to North Carolina with her supportive husband. Beth still believes in Keeping Portland Weird, and intends to be just as weird in Raleigh.
Beth has been writing practically since she learned the alphabet. Unfortunately, her first foray into novel writing, titled Big Bear with Sparkly Earrings, wasn’t a bestseller, but hope springs eternal. She’s published twenty-three novels and seven novellas.
Hit the Brakes #2
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