How is your Summer going?
My summer has been filled with queer joy, book events, and writing. The biggest thing for me is having Watch Me out in the world, Enemy fully produced on Audiobook, plus writing Fruit and Flash!
Next week I’m heading to Connecticut for RomantiConn and I hope to see you there! I’m going to room with my friend, Marie Sinclair, and meet up with a bunch of Queer Romance authors. Hopefully you got a preorder in with me because I will have a limited supply!
Would you like an early look at my next novel? This is the unedited Prologue of Fruit and Flash, my sweet, second chance rom-com about a farmer and the flashy social media influencer who blew into town and blew Hayes mind. I may post more chapters on my Patreon for paid members, but the whole book comes out in 3 weeks!
The timeline is three months after Stand by Your Pride…three months before Kai comes back to town.
***
Hayes
After years on the farm, and my childhood spent picking fruit, harvesting peaches is a mindless task. With all the hassle of running the family ranch, you’d think I would be grateful for the mental break. The problem is a certain man who showed up on my doorstep a few months ago.
My mind wanders to him a dozen times a day. Kai was only here because his car broke down. I should be over him by now. Except I’m not.
Honestly, I keeping getting embarrassingly hard in my jeans at the memory of his sexy smirk wrapped around my dic–
“Nectarines next, Hayes?” Leon Vue, my part-time farmhand, calls out from the tree next to mine. I only have a few trees of each fruit, since I’d have too much to sell otherwise.
“Sounds good.” I glance at my watch and see it’s close to noon and we’ve been picking fruit and veggies since seven. “Then we can be done since it’s already close to a hundred degrees out.”
The farmstand covers most of my expenses, and I bring the rest to the Foggy Basin grocery store for them to sell. Today, Leon is taking the ones too close to overripe to the store since they can sell them faster.
“Gotta love California summer,” Leon teases while wiping his brow with a paisley handkerchief from the bottom of his ladder.
His big Hmong family has a farm on the other side of the interstate, but with six siblings, he prefers to get off their property and work for others to save up for his own land with a pond he can fish on. I get needing to be your own man, even if I only got a few years of that in college before my parents passed away.
“Makes for a longer growing season,” I point out as I make my way down my own ladder. I have an old tree shaker that would make this go a lot faster, but it’s not always good for fruits that bruise easily. We save that for the cherries, nuts, and olives.
When we’ve got the plums and peaches in crates on the back of my truck, we move the ladders over to the nectarines and my mind wanders again. It inevitably goes to Kai.
After my revelation that I like men more than just the admiration of their fit bodies, because a kiss and blow job from Kai was better than any sex I’d had with a woman in years, I accepted that I’m not straight.
One failed attempt to go to a gay bar in Sacramento reminded me why I am shit at dating in general. First, I went in June, not realizing the bars would be packed with Pride themed activities. Kai casually mentioned the show with drag queens, and I watched it, but it was different in person.
In college, I went to parties, got drunk, made out with women whose names I easily forgot, but I never liked the crowd and noise. A gay bar in June with a drag show was not my idea of a good time. I watched people go in and out for an hour from across the street until I saw a couple pointing at me with looks of suspicion and I realized I looked like some country hick judging them.
The weeks since have felt lonelier than ever. I’m not gay and don’t feel like I fit in with the community, no matter how many balls and death drops I learn about. Giving shade just felt mean, though it is oddly similar to the ribbing men give each other in the locker room.
Leon drives the truck away to unload some into his car while I finish up and returns with a sheepish grin. “I checked on the stand while I was over there and someone left a little something for you.”
Walking over to the truck window, since he didn’t get out, I lean on the frame to see a small, wriggling bundle of black and white fur on his lap. “A little something, huh?”
Puppies and full-grown dogs get dumped out here far too often. I usually bring them to the vet in town, because I’m too busy to take care of puppies.
“He’s super sweet,” Leon tells me and holds him up for me to take in the open window. The choice is to take the puppy or let him dangle in my face, and I am tempted to do the latter until he starts licking my face. “See, he likes you already!”
“He?” Taking the wriggly pup, he doesn’t look old enough to be fully weaned, so maybe six weeks old? He’s panting hard, though, and that’s worrying. “Grab me a water from the cooler.”
Leon pulls one chilled bottle out from the cooler in the middle of the bench seat and joins me as I put the puppy down. “Here’s the thermos lid, too.”
Taking the little cup I drank my coffee from, I crouch and set it down and pour the water in. The pup goes straight for the fluid and I struggle to add more around his licking. He is mostly white with black spots and looks like a spaniel, collie mix with medium hair. His black ears are big and floppy while his tail is docked. His fur is matted and full of stickers, so he’s obviously been neglected.
“It’s okay pup. We’ll make sure you get adopted,” I say, patting his back. He looks up at me with a sloppy, wet grin and launches himself into me. Falling back on my ass, I can’t help laughing. “You’re welcome, pup.”
“He sure likes you. I didn’t get jumped,” Leon tells me with mock pouting. “Good to see you laughing, boss.”
While I could remind Leon not to call me boss, since I’m only six or seven years older than him, his words make me pause. I gently push the puppy down and stand to dust myself off. Do I not laugh often?
Walking to the crates I filled while Leon was gone, I go to load them up and turn to find the pup at my feet. Stopping myself from tripping over him, I move to the truck bed and he follows along.
“Aren’t you a little shadow?” I ask the pup and he stops to sit right beside my foot, looking up at me in an eager-to-please way.
“You could use a buddy,” Leon tells me matter of factly. I narrow my eyes at the implication I’m lonely. “Maybe train him to help when the animals get loose?”
“That’s an idea.” If he is part collie, they are great with herding and farm work. “Let’s get Shadow here back to the farmhouse and I’ll rustle him up something to eat.”
On the drive back, I try to keep the puppy off my lap, but it’s a losing battle when he cuddles up and falls asleep. Petting him absently while I drive slowly from the orchard around to the front of my property, I remember the dog called Shadow in one of my favorite childhood movies.
This Shadow is a puppy and not an old golden retriever, but it still strikes me as nostalgic. Maybe I could use something in my life that loves me unconditionally. My sister hasn’t let up trying to set me up, and I like the idea that training a puppy is a good excuse to beg off dates.
Leon leaves and I take Shadow inside to find a good bowl to give him some more water. I don’t know if he’s old enough for hard kibbles, and I don’t have any to give him, so I mix up leftover brown rice and pork from my dinner last night. Shadow goes at the food like a velociraptor, so it must be alright.
“Let me shower off the sweat and I’ll take you to town,” I tell him and head through the living room towards the hall bathroom. Shadow is right at my heels the whole way, and whines when I try to close the door. “This is probably starting your training off wrong, but you need a bath too. Come on.”
Starting the day, all I thought about was getting my work done and not thinking about Kai too much. Again.
Now I have a new goal in mind, and it feels good.
***
I hope you enjoyed this sneak peek at the Prologue of Fruit & Flash! The prequel is available for .99cents on Amazon and other retailers.
To read what happens next in their second chance romance, Fruit and Flash, find it on Amazon, out August 7: mybook.to/FruitFlash
Small Town Romance
Lonely Farmer
Social Media Influencer
Ten-year Age Gap
Coming out later
One Farm-Stand to HEA
Mine isn’t the only small town romance coming out this summer! Foggy Basin Season 3 is full of amazing authors.
Stand by Your Pride, my Foggy Basin Pride, Small Town Romance short story is out now! These books are all standalones, but set in the same fictional town in Northern California. All of them are on Amazon and some like mine are also available with wide retailers, all .99cent short stories!
Watch Me: An MM Omegaverse Romance is out now!
Watch Me is the second book of the Shift MC series, taking place after Leave Me and Tentacles for Christmas. You don’t have to read the previous books to know what is going on, but there is a continuing cast of characters! The series is about a motorcycle club of wolf shifters set in the woods of Northern California, with ABO shifters and a small town of LGBTQIA+ characters. There is claiming and fated mates, but no mpreg on page.
Ricky and Clark are tasked with rescuing an omega from the bear shifters across the lake, and despite the age difference, they quickly learn you can’t deny chemistry for long.
Tropes:
- 20-year age gap w/friend’s Dad
- Coming out later in life
- Grumpy/sunshine
- Motorcycle club
- He wears lingerie
- Pack is family: Wolf shifters
- Omegaverse: Alpha/beta pairing
- Small town romance
A Daddy for Christmas, but with sports?
I know it’s almost summer in the Northern Hemisphere, but did you miss getting Holiday Daddies from me last winter? Well, I have good news! I’ve teamed up with the Daddies for Christmas authors again to bring you a pair of professional quarterbacks falling in love this December. Check out the gorgeous cover for my holiday story this year:
Can Dane be the Daddy that Hunter needs?
Hunter Hess is focused on making his career in professional football work, and on not letting anyone know his sexuality. If only the fine-as-hell starting QB didn’t treat him like he was irrelevant. A couple more decades of keeping his head down, and he would find his Daddy.
Dane Scott is a seasoned quarterback at the top of his game when an injury has the team switching to his hotshot backup. The two men have to work together, despite their animosity, but Dane finds himself wanting to protect the boy from the pressures of the job.
When the pair get snowed in on the road, their love-hate relationship comes to a head.
A Daddy for Christmas 4 is a multi-author series. Holiday tales of lost boys in need of Daddy’s love and in some cases, a firm hand. Naughty or nice, it’s all in Santa’s hands now. So why not dive in and read each standalone and enjoy the holidays alongside our boys?
Have you read Murder Talk?
Owen “Mac” MacKenzie is deep in the closet as a celebrity, but also because his main hobby is killing high-profile targets.
Call it hubris or confidence, but I never expected to get caught, and now I’m not sure if I want to kill the pretty boy or keep him as a pet…
~ Mac ~ I’m a household name for my TV show, “Murder Talk,” where I discuss big stories and unsolved crimes. What my fans don’t know is that I committed some of the murders I report on, and have no plans to stop…
~ E ~ As a struggling chef with an empty bank account who listens to crime podcasts to stay sane, witnessing a celebrity talk show host kill a billionaire CEO has me confused on whether to clap or run screaming for the hills.
When Mac’s assistant goes missing, and my father might be involved, we have to trust each other to find out who is to blame.
📚
Murder Talk is part of In the Spotlight multi-author collaboration, and is a standalone novel. Original stories of killers in the public eye, where everyone is dying to be in the spotlight. You can find them all here: https://mybook.to/inthespotlight1
🔗Read on paperback, eBook, or in KU! Tap the button or copy the link: https://mybook.to/murdertalk
Do you want more Dark Romance?
Check out Scars by Abrianna Denae and Leigh Kenzie!
Have you read Leave Me?
Taking place before Tentacles for Christmas, Leave Me introduces the main characters first, but both can be read as standalones!
Fowler is an Alpha wolf shifter, who was set to take over his pack and motorcycle club until he left for a decade after coming out as trans. His father’s funeral and a high school reunion bring Fowler back, and he finds the best friend he left behind…
🐺 Can the reluctant alpha go home again? 🐺
Click the link above or type in this link address to find Leave Me on KU, ebook, or paperback: mybook.to/LeaveMe
Want more books with Trans characters?
Living outside of the cis-het box makes life more challenging, but also more fabulous. Kinky Daddies and non-binary main characters in every book of this series, all on Paperback and KU!
Where do you meet like-minded kinksters in Boston? Aftercare at Randy’s is the story of three transgender kinksters discovering their chosen family, more than one love, and having a lot of fun along the way. Love beyond the binary: serving up low angst trans romances at Randy’s Diner!
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R.A. Frick 