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

I looked to Thumper, grinning like an idiot at the kitchen table. I raised an eyebrow and he nodded. “Mikey,” I began. “Thumper told me yesterday that you are a virgin.” Pink flamed to red hot. “Is that true?”


Mikey looked at his lover, struggling for a serious face. “You told him that?”


“What?” Thumper shrugged. “It was true at the time.”


Mikey dipped his face to examine his shoes—the same shoes he’d worn yesterday, I now noticed—face ablaze, smile so wide I was afraid his teeth might start falling out.


“No wonder you didn’t come looking for me last night!” I crowed at Thumper.


“I didn’t need to go looking for you last night,” Thumper assured me. “We went down to use the hot tub and it looked like the set of The Poseidon Adventure. Then we found your shorts here in the kitchen and we heard Bob-Gunnar’s bed frame thumping against the floor like a damn jackhammer. Mikey was all set to call Nancy Drew, but I told him not to bother.”


Chapter 56