Drive Me Crazy #1
Summary:Lucas loves his job. Too bad he’s not allowed to take a bite out of the boss.
Considering all the crap Lucas Barnes has done to achieve self-employed independence, taking a job making fish tacos for a local food truck should be a no-brainer. In the off hours, he can even work on his dream business: health-conscious energy bars.
But it turns out the hardest part isn’t the long hours, the stifling heat inside the truck during a Los Angeles summer, or even the non-vegan menu, it’s his new boss.
Tony Blake is over-confident and an enthusiastic carnivore—and also one of the hottest, funniest, most charming guys Lucas has ever met. Even when Tony is driving him crazy, he’s completely irresistible.
Lucas knows hooking up with the boss is off-limits, but Tony is a tough guy to resist. And with the two of them spending the steamy summer evenings tucked in each other’s pockets . . . it turns out it’s not a question of if, but a question of when.
Hit the Brakes #2
Summary: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.
If they could stop arguing for a hot second . . . they might just fall in love.
Gabriel Moretti and Sean Cooper should be friends. They’re both passionate about serving delicious food to their customers. They both love to kick back with the other food truck owners at the collective they’ve joined. But maybe it’s possible to have too much in common . . .
Especially when they’ve chosen the exact same name for their food trucks.
Gabriel and Sean know that one of them will have to change the name. The only question is, who’s willing to give in first?
It’s inevitable that with such a difficult decision, their tempers flare. But to their shock, their deeply-buried chemistry ignites too. Could it be that for them fighting is actually flirting, and what they really crave is each other?
Drive Me Crazy #1
“Hey,” Tony said, leaning over the counter where Lucas was putting the final touches on a few plates of fish tacos. “Hey, I just thought of something.”
“Hmmm?” Lucas gave the tacos a final sprinkle of chopped cilantro and slid them onto the window ledge. “Fish tacos for Marcy!”
“How are we going to stake out the truck?” Tony said softly. He was clearly trying to keep their investigation from Jeremy, which Lucas was happy about. Maybe he didn’t think Jeremy was the problem, but it made sense to keep quiet about it.
“I don’t know,” Lucas said, sliding another serving of battered fish into the fryer for the next order. Fish tacos were a big hit tonight. “We stake it out?”
“How?” Tony hissed.
“What do you mean how?” Lucas asked. Tony was kind of weird, except it was in this endearing way that Lucas didn’t think he’d tolerate in someone who had shittier hair or was slightly shorter or even worse, had less natural charm.
“Like, I drive a motorcycle,” Tony said. “How are we supposed to stake out the truck on a motorcycle?”
Lucas glanced up. He didn’t know if he loved or hated the frisson of heat that sparked through him when he thought of riding with Tony, plastered to his back, the engine roaring between their thighs. “I have my car,” he said.
“Oh, I didn’t know you had a car,” Tony said.
“What do you think I do? Skateboard around town?” Lucas retorted. “Of course I have a fucking car.”
“Okay,” Tony said. “What about snacks?”
“Snacks?”
“Snacks and binoculars,” Tony said. “We need both of those things for a stakeout.”
Lucas actually didn’t know what they needed—he hadn’t thought this through any further than suggesting it. “Do you own a pair of binoculars?” he asked.
Tony appeared to be trying to figure out if he did. “Uh, no?” he finally admitted. “Do you think they’re a requirement?”
We’re not going to be catching anyone; only spending several hours pressed up together in my tiny-ass car, a situation which I am already regretting. “No,” Lucas said. Because the chance of anyone trying to break into the truck was so slim that getting a pair of binoculars just for this seemed silly.
“I think we can just look really hard, you know,” Tony said. “But the snacks, those are non-negotiable.”
“I have some of my energy bars,” Lucas said. “Is that snack-like enough for you, Mr. Stakeout?”
“I think so,” Tony said, nodding enthusiastically. “I’ve been wanting to try them.”
“Spin class and now energy bars. Give it a few more weeks, and you’re going to actually be . . .” Lucas gave a faux shocked gasp. “Healthy.”
Tony smacked him on the back as he turned towards the window and an approaching customer. It wasn’t quite low enough to be anywhere near his ass, but Lucas felt the sting, and wanted, even as he tried to push the temptation so far out of reach that it’d stop bothering him with everything he couldn’t have. Because even as he acknowledged that he shouldn’t have Tony, he slid further down the slippery slope of rationalization.
Maybe they were just fucking inevitable.
Hit the Brakes #2
“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.
On a Roll #3
“Someone’s name needs to change by September first,” Tony said. “That’s the first home game at the Coliseum,” he added, referring to the home football stadium of the University of Southern California—the lot was situated only a few blocks away from the stadium entrance, and they already knew on game days, they’d be overwhelmed.
“Alright,” Sean said. “We’ll figure something out.” That gave them a little over a month to either make a decision—or kill each other. Whichever came first.
Tony stood. “Good luck,” he said. “I’ll be around if you decide you need a referee.” And then he was gone, leaving the two of them alone.
Sean couldn’t remember a time they’d ever been alone. Their friends had probably gone out of their way to make sure of that. Not sure if anything would still be left standing if it was just the two of them.
“Not for this,” Gabriel said, and the underlying intensity—the intimacy—in his voice made Sean’s hand freeze on his beer bottle.
He glanced up, and Gabriel was staring at him, those dark eyes reflecting his tone. More than once during the last two years, Sean had been reminded of his very first reaction to Gabriel.
Tall. Big. Broad. Beautiful.
It had been the first time since Milo that he’d seen a guy and felt that instantaneous moment of attraction. Then Gabriel had opened his mouth, and the moment was gone, but it had existed.
Sean often remembered it at the worst possible times. Like right now.
“So,” Sean said, clearing his throat. Trying not to think of how dark the corner of the bar was, how the flickering candle on the table was reflected in Gabriel’s eyes. How the light turned his face into a Renaissance masterpiece. “How are we going to do this?”
“All business,” Gabriel teased, but the edge of his voice was almost . . . sweet. Like he thought Sean’s attempt to be professional wasn’t annoying, but cute.
Something that Sean never expected from Gabriel was sweetness.
“Did we have something else we needed to talk about that isn’t business?” Sean wondered.
“No, but we have time. Over a month,” Gabriel said, taking a sip of his beer. “What’s the rush? Maybe we’ll negotiate better if we get to know each other first.”
“You mean that you want to charm me first so that you’ll get the upper hand.” He didn’t really think that was true—Gabriel could be difficult and frustrating and slippery, but Sean wasn’t sure that he’d do something so underhanded. He wasn’t a bad guy. Sean had learned that much by watching his friendship with Tony and Lucas and Ash and Tate blossom.
Even their own relationship, while still combative, had lost the sharper edges in the last few months.
Gabriel shrugged. “The best negotiation is one where we both get what we want.”
“I’m not sure how we can do that,” Sean admitted. “We both want the same thing.”
“Do we?”
Sean made a frustrated noise. “You know we do. We’ve wanted the same goddamn thing for the last two years, and you even threw a meatball at my chest to try to get me to cave. So don’t start, okay? I’m not stupid. I know exactly what you’re after.”
“Do you?” Gabriel’s mouth curved into something dangerous. Or maybe that was the unwanted attraction to him blooming inside Sean.
“You want to win,” Sean said.
“Maybe we can figure out a way we can both win,” Gabriel suggested.
“Based on what I know we want, I find that hard to believe,” Sean said. Then hesitated. This was exactly why Tony hadn’t wanted to leave them alone. Had wanted to play referee. He hadn’t thought they could do this on their own. Maybe he was right. But then, they’d never actually tried either.
Gabriel drained the rest of his beer and set it on the table with a decisive click. “I need more alcohol for this,” he muttered, standing up. “You want something?”
Beth Bolden
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.
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