by Frankie Love
Dating Sondra. Agreeing to shitty movies I didn’t care about. Signing on to product placements that I didn’t vouch for. Everything about me had become a fucking advertisement and I didn’t want what I was selling.
I had lost myself.
It’s better this way. The studios owned me while I was alive but they can’t own me in death.
It felt like the only goddamn way out.
If Cal knew the truth, it would tear him up.
Which is why he’ll never know. The truth of my parents will wreck him more than it has hurt me.
Which is why I keep driving.
Which is why I feel like a fucking monster, tormented by demons of my own making.
I want more, but I fucking lost the man I was.
Sawyer is dead.
And the truth is, I don’t know what’s left.
Small Town F*ck Club Chapter 1
When I decided to fake my own death, I knew it was a drastic choice.
But sometimes drastic situations call for exactly that.
Drastic, irreversible measures.
For a long-ass time, my life hasn’t been mine. And after the scandal broke out at the Fuck Club, I knew that the person I allowed myself to become was no longer the person I wanted to be.
Maybe it makes me sound like a selfish bastard. Maybe I should have drawn hard lines in the sand that I could abide by.
But I know my strengths. I also know my fucking weakness.
I’ve always been a sucker for attention, a sucker for accolades from people who mean nothing to me.
And I had let those very people dictate my life. The only solace here is, I’ll never have to take shit from them again. I’m dead, after all.
My hand’s on the wheel of the car I bought with cash. The windows are down in this classic Chevrolet, and there’s nothing in front of me besides wide-open land.
I just keep driving east. Because if I drove west, I’d be in the Pacific Ocean. Which is the very place my family and friends think I am. Dead on arrival.
But I don’t really care what my family thinks right now.
My parents have as much to do with this—my death—as anyone else.
And I can’t let anyone know that—ever. Ever. The only way I could face their truth is by killing myself. They knew it and I knew it.
No one else ever needs to.
I exhale, trying to get rid of the feelings of regret that have been tearing me up inside. Maybe I’m a selfish motherfucker. What kind of man allows his friends to believe he’s dead when he’s not?
A man who’s desperate, that’s what kind.
My family has put Cal through enough shit.... Being friends with me is only going to cause him more pain.
I pull in to a gas station, needing to refuel so I can keep driving through the night. As I step out of the car and stretch my legs, I run my hands over my beard. What was scruff a week ago is now the beginnings of a full beard and has helped with my disguise.
I reach into the passenger seat for my trucker cap and pull it on low. With my jeans and plain white T-shirt, no one is going to identify me as the Hollywood celebrity, Sawyer Bennett. Especially now that everyone on Earth thinks I’m dead.
With my fake ID, a trunk full of cash and an offshore bank account, I don’t need anyone or anything.
That gives me a hell of a lot of freedom.... The only problem? I don’t know where the fuck I want to go.
In the gas station, I pay for a Red Bull and shitty food that’s warmed by heat lamps. Before I go, I see a copy of the latest issue of Exposé.
Motherfucker.
My face is on the front of it.
Despite the fact that it is everything I hate, I find myself reaching for the magazine, lowering my eyes as I do, and handing the cashier a five-dollar bill.
I drive all night, sleep the morning away at a rest stop, and then keep driving. I’m in the fucking middle of nowhere, and if I was trying to leave the past behind, I’d say I goddamn have.
My eyes keeps shifting to the damn magazine beside me, and I tell myself I won’t cave in and read it, even though I want to know what has been said about me.
Is this sick? A fucking twisted game? I don’t know.
But my best friend, Cal, has already been through the wringer. He watched his parents die because of the fucked-up town we were raised in. I can’t let the same thing happen to me.
And I knew I was spinning out of control.
Dating Sondra. Agreeing to shitty movies I didn’t care about. Signing on to product placements that I didn’t vouch for. Everything about me had become a fucking advertisement and I didn’t want what I was selling.
I had lost myself.
It’s better this way. The studios owned me while I was alive but they can’t own me in death.
It felt like the only goddamn way out.
If Cal knew the truth, it would tear him up.
Which is why he’ll never know. The truth of my parents will wreck him more than it has hurt me.
Which is why I keep driving.
Which is why I feel like a fucking monster, tormented by demons of my own making.
I want more, but I fucking lost the man I was.
Sawyer is dead.
And the truth is, I don’t know what’s left.
Small Town F*ck Club Chapter 2
The moment I showed up in Resting Hollow, I knew it was a good place to fade to black. I couldn’t hack it in a city even if I wanted to. I’m a small-town girl through and through. Besides, my car broke down the moment I pulled into town and I took it as a sign.
I’m here until I get enough cash saved up to keep rolling west.
As far as the Pacific Ocean.
I’ll keep going and never look back.
For now, though, I got an easy job pouring cheap beer to sorry-ass fools looking for love in a dive bar. And I get to live in the cottage behind the bar owned by Dusty. Free rent so long as I do as I’m told. Possibly ominous words, but I have a furnished place so my lips are sealed.
I’ve had worse gigs.
And tonight? I’m certainly not complaining. I have no idea who this guy is who keeps checking me out. He sure as hell isn’t from here—,and while I can’t see his eyes hidden by that dorky trucker cap, I can see his smile. He owns a pair of perfect dimples, and his hands are clean. That might not seem like it matters too much, but I grew up with a stepfather who spent half his life working on his motorcycle. I swore I’d never be with a man who had greasy nails.
Though I may be getting ahead of myself. But considering the way he keeps looking my way, I don’t think I am.
“You like the nachos?” I ask, after serving a group of women who were fawning over this man like he’s Bambi. Well, a sexy as fuck Bambi.
Okay, that analogy is kinda weird. The point is, they were all over him. Then as I lean over the bar with my tits hanging out, I realize I’m doing the exact same thing.
Shameless, sure. But this last month I’ve been through hell and back. Honestly the chance to forget all that for a moment; to just close my eyes, spread my legs, and forget, sounds damn near perfect.
“They are the best tater-tot nachos of my life.”
I cock an eyebrow his way. “You’ve had them before?”
“Never.” He shrugs, finishing the last sip of his beer. I pour him another. He takes a drink. “Can’t say I’ve ever been out this way. I’m looking for a motel. You know of any decent ones?”
“Can’t you Yelp it?”
“I don’t have a phone.”
I eye him suspiciously. He may be dressed in casual clothes, but they’re nicer than the stuff Wal-Mart sells. Plus, he’s obviously ripped but not from manual labor. He has a body that has spent plenty of time in the gym. He has money, that’s for sure. His teeth are white, he’s polite, he isn’t like the Podunk boys who hit on me here.
So, the fact that he doesn’t have a phone is a red flag. A big one. The only other person I know without a phone is me.
And ther
e’s a reason for that.
“The motel in town is scary,” I tell him. “Too scary for me, and that’s saying something.”
He shakes his head. I wish he’d take off his ball cap. I want to see his eyes.
“I need to sleep somewhere other than my car tonight,” he tells me.
I bite my bottom lip, look at my watch. It’s nearly 1 a.m. The bar will be open for another hour.
“I bet there are plenty of women out on the dance floor who would take you home.”
I know. Shameless. I’m fishing, trying to figure out his game.
He bites.
“I don’t want to go home with any of them.”
“Anyone on the dance floor or anyone at all?” I lean closer, knowing I’m showing him everything I’ve got, but damn, I’m suddenly craving a sexual connection. Something that will let my head fall back, my shoulders drop, and my heart race. I want to escape my demons, if even for just one night.
He smiles slowly, running his hand over his stubble. “It’s the dance floor I’m avoiding. I’m not opposed to other offers.”
Just then another couple saddles up the bar, more out-of-towners. What the hell? I have no idea what Dusty is running here, but it’s starting to creep me out. At least thirty people have come in tonight asking for the Dusty Special.
“That’ll be 5.99,” I tell them. This time though, since the crowd at the bar have thinned out a little, it’s easier to watch them pass the bathrooms and turn around a corner.
“What the fuck is that all about?” he says.
“I have no idea.” I wipe down the counter, pursing my lips. “The only thing down the hall is a supply closet.”
“Well those fancy-ass people are not here to refill the deep fryer, I’ll tell you that.”
I laugh at that, appreciating his down-to-earth demeanor. “What’s your name, anyway?”
His Adam’s apple bobs and I swear to God he is coming up with an alias on the fly.
“Bennett,” he answers. “Now that we know who one another are, what do you say we go find out about Dusty’s Special ourselves?”
I duck my head, trying to see his eyes, but he seems intent on not revealing them to me. Before I can answer, another group of men—locals in their dirty clothes and greasy hair come up and order a round, hitting on me as they wait for me to pour their pints.
“Hey, honey, you wanna come home with me tonight?” one guy asks with a slurred voice.
“I’ll pass,” I say tightly. But he doesn’t drop it.
“Aww, you gonna make me get myself off at the thought of you? Wouldn’t you rather ride my big old dick all the way home?”
“Fuck off,” I tell them, raising my hands and stepping away from the bar.
“Oh, we won’t fuck off. We wanna fuck you,” another man chimes in.
“You wanna take this outside, boys?” Bennett asks, standing up from his stool. When he stands, I see how big he is. His biceps flex under his thin cotton tee, and his broad shoulders would intimidate anyone in this place. The guys, though, are too drunk to recognize what’s happening.
“No, we wanna take her right here, right now,” one guy laughs.
But before Bennett can throw one his way, the drunk lobs for Bennett, clumsily connecting his fat fist with Bennett’s chiseled jaw.
He isn’t having any of it. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” Bennett asks, not waiting for an answer. He pulls back and slams his fist into the guy’s jaw. He falls back, too wasted to throw a punch in return. I race around the counter, shocked at these men fighting over me.
From the ground, the drunk asshole laughs, looking up at me. “Aww, so you wanted to ride me down here on the floor, is that it?”
Bennett pulls the man up from the floor by the collar of his shirt. “You need to get the fuck away from here, understand?”
Before Bennett can toss this idiot to the ground again, Dusty is here, pulling the men apart. I haven’t seen a bar fight break out since I got this job, but it’s almost closing time on a weekend, so if there was a time for shit to go down, I suppose now is the witching hour.
Dusty’s a big man, and when he speaks, the people in this town listen. That much I’ve gathered in a short while. He may own a dive bar, but he has his finger on the pulse of a hell of a lot more in this sleepy town than people realize. My skin crawls thinking about his 5.99 special, and I wonder what else he has going on besides a strong read of Resting Hollow.
“It’s time you boys go home, understood?” he bellows. They scatter immediately, falling over their boots on their way out the front door.
Once they’re gone, Dusty turns to me. “You can call it a night, Sadie,” he says. “I’ll close up.”
I thank him, tossing my apron in the dirty washcloth bin, and stuffing my tips into my purse. The confrontation didn’t scare me, but it did piss me off. I didn’t leave my old life just to have to deal with more assholes in my new one.
I didn’t disappear so I could be treated like shit.
Ready to walk away, I turn and reach for Bennett. He may not be a sure bet, but he stuck up for me... and really, that is the number one thing I’m looking for in a man.
And even if it’s a one-night stand, I still know my line in the sand.
“You coming?” I ask him, tugging on his arm. He takes my hand and presses his own against it. His hand is heavy and warm. It pulses with a longing I understand.
He’s not alone in his loneliness, though; it’s a feeling I know all too well.
He looks down at me, and I see the darkness in his eye, but I know there is a lot more to see if only I could toss that cap aside and take a deep look at him. But for now, he won’t let me.
I don’t press; after all, there’s a lot I’m not willing to share, either.
Small Town F*ck Club releasing June 2017
Also By Frankie Love
THE ENTIRE FRANKIE LOVE COLLECTION
The HIS Collection:
HIS Everything
The Mountain Man’s Babies:
TIMBER
BUCKED
WILDER
HONORED
CHERISHED
The Modern-Mail Order Brides:
CLAIMED BY THE MOUNTAIN MAN
ORDERED BY THE MOUNTAIN MAN
WIFED BY THE MOUNTAIN MAN
EXPLORED BY THE MOUNTAIN MAN
An Arranged Marriage Romance:
COURTED BY THE MOUNTAIN PRINCE
CHARMED BY THE MOUNTAIN PRINCE
CROWNED BY THE MOUNTAIN PRINCE
Las Vegas Bad Boys:
ACE
KING
MCQUEEN
JACK
Los Angeles Bad Boys:
COLD HARD CASH
HOLLYWOOD HOLDEN
SAINT JUDE
THE COMPLETE COLLECTION
Stand-Alone Romance:
KINKY RESOLUTIONS
WILD AND TRUE
Stand-Alone Bad Boy:
BIG BAD WOLF
Stand-Alone Mountain Men:
MISTLETOE MOUNTAIN: A MOUNTAIN MAN’S CHRISTMAS
HEART OF GOLD: A MOUNTAIN MAN’S VALENTINE
HIS LUCKY CHARM: AN IRISH MOUNTAIN MAN
❤️❤️❤️
About the Author
Frankie Love writes sexy stories about bad boys and mountain men. As a thirty-something mom to six who is ridiculously in love with her own bearded hottie, she believes in love-at-first-sight and happily-ever-afters. She also believes in the power of a quickie.
Find Frankie here:
www.frankielove.net
[email protected]
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