Fred Munson likes his job as a traffic cop. He’s good at it. It’s his personal life that could use some improvement. With no friends, and being too shy to talk to anyone while out of uniform, when Fred is forced to use some of his vacation time, he has nothing to fill his days. At least not until he comes home to find his driveway blocked by a stranger with car troubles. A month after losing his father, Zen Zeppelin Cave has also lost his place in the world. The only thing holding him together is focusing on a charity junk car race to raise money for cancer research. And he's crossing that finish line even if he ends up replacing every part of the car along the way. Zen had planned on completing the race on his own, but a spur-of-the-moment decision changes that when he invites the adorable, blushing police officer whose driveway he’s blocking to tag along. Going with a stranger on a road trip is completely out of Fred’s comfort zone, so when he accepts the invitation, no one is more surprised than himself. Together, Zen and Fred head south. But will the old junk car hold together long enough to reach their destination? And will crossing the finish line mean the end of the road for a budding romance, or will they find there’s more to their journey?

Banger Challenge

Fred was shaking his head. Zen was talking nonstop. Even when they were brushing their teeth, he was babbling.


“Don’t you ever dream about being free?” Zen stretched his arms and tilted his face to the summer night sky.


Fred watched him with a melancholy smile, breathed in the sweet scent of a nearby honeysuckle, and sighed. He did want to be free, free to walk into a room, and not worry about what people would say or think, but he doubted it was the kind of free Zen was talking about.


Have everything in place? Fred liked putting things into the right place, you didn’t turn your living room into a jigsaw museum if you didn’t, but he suspected he was missing the point. “I’m not sure what you mean.”


Zen dropped his arms and looked at him. It was too dark to make out his expression, but it didn’t stop Fred from fidgeting.


Chapter 18