Fox McHardy leads a charmed life. Puget Sound penthouse, gorgeous boyfriend, jet-setting job -- everything he’s ever wanted, he’s gotten, including the heck out of the small Iowa town he grew up in. Even the trip he takes to Miami to surprise his boyfriend Jeremy is something of a long-shot wish fulfilled. Until he arrives in South Florida. Once things start to unravel, they do so with alarming speed, and he finds himself riding shotgun in a rented convertible with his new sworn enemy faster than he can say, “I want my old life back.” During an unscheduled stop on the cross-country road trip From Hell, Fox passes up a perfectly good opportunity to keep his mouth shut and finds himself planning the town’s first legal gay wedding -- his own, to a man he’s pretty sure he should hate. But someone needs to set a positive example for the queer and questioning youth in this corner of Middle America and, after creatively arranging certain of the facts of his life more attractively, he is proud to offer himself up as a role model. Small Town, USA, steps up; the grooms are widely celebrated, and generous offers of food, flowers, and picture-perfect venues pour in. The only real challenge will be keeping the lies straight and the truth under wraps until they can get out of town.

Crazy Like Fox

Which made it even easier for me to feel sorry for myself, and so I forged ahead. “Got dumped, just got laid off, and I’m broke as a fucking joke.” After twenty years of high-gloss travel and adventure with Jeremy, not exactly the triumphant return to McHardy I would have envisioned.


“Honey,” she comforted. Then, quite unselfconsciously, she said, “Good. I heard down at the Hy-Vee that you’re in town until Monday. Maybe you can spend some time around Mikey this weekend.”


“And my assistant,” Bob-Gunnar told me. “Helps me out around the office, around the house when I need it.”


“At least someoneuses that gym,” Bitsy said. “Twenty-one years old, bright, cute, and he’s breaking his mother’s heart.”


“He’s breakin’ more hearts than just yours,” Bob-Gunnar teased.


“Well, exactly,” said Bitsy. “Let him hang around Fox for a few days, hear the sob story. Pushin’ forty, broke, single, gettin’ soused on Bob-Gunnar’s porch—maybe he’ll give up on this whole ‘gay’ thing.”


Chapter 42