Book Title: Full Speed Ahead (Food Truck Warriors #4)
Author: Beth Bolden
Publisher: Beth Bolden Books
Cover Artist: AngstyG Book Cover and Media Design
Release Date: June 3, 2021
Genre: Contemporary gay romance
Trope/s: Bodyguard, found family
Theme: Hurt/comfort
Length: 84 000 words
It is book 4 in the series.
The author recommends that readers read at least one of the other books first.
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Lennox’s favorite escape is the Food Truck Warriors . . .until it needs his protection.
Blurb
Ash isn’t running from his past—he’s already left it way behind. He’s built a business from scratch, using all the lessons that his father taught him, and every day at his food truck is a challenge he was born to tackle.
But when a stalker appears, hinting that he knows the secrets Ash has tried so hard to bury, he needs more help than his food truck friends can provide. He needs a professional.
Lennox is a mystery. He’s been coming around the Food Truck Warriors for months now, and nobody knows if that’s even his real name. But Ash knows he’s fascinated by the man, and the feeling seems to be mutual.
When the threat to Ash becomes a little too real, Lennox intervenes, and finally, the electricity between them transforms into something very much like love. But now their safety—and their hearts—are on the line.
Still—instead of clarifying that what he was after was just friendship or even companionship, he’d fucking run.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Lennox grumbled under his breath as he went through his security sweep. The band was still playing on the stage at the front of the property, but as it grew later, the crowd was beginning to disperse. And none of them, as far as Lennox could see, were behaving suspiciously or lurking around in a way that pinged any of the many years of training he’d had.
Everyone here, he was fairly certain, was here for the right reasons, and had had nothing to do with the graffiti scrawled across the picnic table.
Which left Lennox nothing to do but make his circular pass, noting that the lights were shining on all the previously dark corners, and checking on his phone that the security feeds were all working properly.
And because everything seemed to be perfectly in order, it also left him with a whole litany of self-recrimination that instead of clarifying with Ash what he was after, he’d . . . bolted.
This time he couldn’t even blame Marcus’ voice in his head; this lecture was all on him and he deserved every second of it.
Ash’s truck happened to be the last on his pass, and when he’d designed the route, he’d thought at the time that felt fortuitous. If he wanted to stop and chat at the end, he always could.
When he turned the corner, he saw Ash leaning over, unlocking his bicycle from the heavy-duty stand that Tony had installed for him. “Hey,” Lennox said, because he knew how quietly he walked, and he didn’t need to scare Ash on top of everything else.
Ash glanced up. “Oh, it’s you, again,” he said.
He didn’t sound displeased to see Lennox, but he wasn’t smiling like he usually did, and Lennox would have to be stupid not to understand why.
“Listen,” Lennox said. “Remember what I told you earlier?”
Ash nodded slowly as he straightened, one hand on the handlebars of the bike. “Yeah.”
“It means I’m really terrible at this,” Lennox said. He wasn’t proud of how unsteady he sounded, because it went against the grain to admit, to anyone, that he wasn’t good at something. Especially someone who he liked as much as he liked Ash. Ash, who was terrifyingly competent and could serve a whole line of people by himself without breaking a sweat. Who made everyone feel welcomed, personally, and never like they were bothering him when they dithered over a selection, or like they were just another visitor.
“Terrible at what?” Ash wondered.
Lennox blanched. It was bad enough to admit this. It was so much worse to have to go into detail.
What was he bad at? Being friendly. Smiling. Making small talk. And even worse, flirting. And deflecting flirting. Absolutely fucking terrible at that.
Because he kept not doing it, even though he knew better.
“This,” Lennox repeated stubbornly, because fuck, he was not going to make this any worse than it already was.
“Being friendly?” Ash wondered. “Yeah, you kinda are.”
“And . . . other things, too,” Lennox said, embarrassed at his nebulous phrasing and wishing he could take it back from the moment it left his lips. Especially when Ash smiled knowingly like that.
Ash set the bike against the stand again, and walked closer. Lennox forced himself to hold his ground. You are not gonna run from this guy; not him and not now.
“That’s alright,” Ash said, sounding unconcerned. “Because I think I’m pretty good at it. Maybe I could teach you.”
“Teach me?”
Suddenly Ash was in his bubble, the space around him that nobody ever seemed to invade because they always sensed it would be a bad idea. But Ash pushed right through it like it didn’t exist. Like that invisible wall didn’t bother him in the slightest.
Lennox sucked in his breath as Ash leaned in, even closer. “Yeah,” he said, still smiling, “teach you. For example, when someone flirts with you, and invites you to a party, it’s only polite to give them a kiss goodnight.”
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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