Small Town F*ck Club: F*ck Club, #2

By Frankie Love

When I stop in a middle-of-nowhere town, I wanted to hide out for a few days.

Then I meet Sadie, a bartender with a smirk and enough sass to make me stay a little longer.

I'm in trouble. Sadie sees right through me.

Which would be a good thing, except the world at large thinks I'm dead.

My secrets run deep.

And so do Sadie's ... after all, she's on the run too.

The pair of us are nothing but trouble ... and then we discover the Small Town F*ck Club.

Scandal is determined to follow me, even in death.

And now Sadie's life is the one at stake.

I was so worried about being seen, I didn't think about what would happen if I was found.

But that was before I had someone to fight for.

This is the sequel to A-List F*ck Club! Enjoy, love!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frankie Love
• Release date: Sep 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201850807

Frankie Love

Frankie Love writes filthy-sweet stories about bad boys and mountain men. As a thirty-something mom who is ridiculously in love with her own bearded hottie, she believes in love-at-first-sight and happily-ever-afters. She also believes in the power of a quickie. Get ready to fall in love … you deserve it! **Frankie also writes under the name Charlie Hart!

Book preview

Prologue

When I decided to fake my own death, I knew it was a drastic choice.

But sometimes drastic situations call for exactly that.

Drastic, irreversible measures.

For a long-ass time, my life hasn’t been mine. And after the scandal broke out at the Fuck Club, I knew that the person I allowed myself to become was no longer the person I wanted to be.

Maybe it makes me sound like a selfish bastard. Maybe I should have drawn hard lines in the sand that I could abide by.

But I know my strengths. I also know my fucking weakness.

I’ve always been a sucker for attention, a sucker for accolades from people who mean nothing to me.

And I had let those very people dictate my life. The only solace here is, I’ll never have to take shit from them again. I’m dead, after all.

My hand’s on the wheel of the car I bought with cash. The windows are down in this classic Chevrolet, and there’s nothing in front of me besides wide-open land.

I just keep driving east. Because if I drove west, I’d be in the Pacific Ocean. Which is the very place my family and friends think I am. Dead on arrival.

But I don’t really care what my family thinks right now.

My parents have as much to do with this—my death—as anyone else.

And I can’t let anyone know that—ever. Ever. The only way I could face their truth is by killing myself. They knew it and I knew it.

No one else ever needs to.

I exhale, trying to get rid of the feelings of regret that have been tearing me up inside. Maybe I’m a selfish motherfucker. What kind of man allows his friends to believe he’s dead when he’s not?

A man who’s desperate, that’s what kind.

My family has put Cal through enough shit.... Being friends with me is only going to cause him more pain.

I pull in to a gas station, needing to refuel so I can keep driving through the night. As I step out of the car and stretch my legs, I run my hands over my beard. What was scruff a week ago is now the beginnings of a full beard and has helped with my disguise.

I reach into the passenger seat for my trucker cap and pull it on low. With my jeans and plain white T-shirt, no one is going to identify me as the Hollywood celebrity, Sawyer Bennett. Especially now that everyone on Earth thinks I’m dead.

With my fake ID, a trunk full of cash and an offshore bank account, I don’t need anyone or anything.

That gives me a hell of a lot of freedom.... The only problem? I don’t know where the fuck I want to go.

In the gas station, I pay for a Red Bull and shitty food that’s warmed by heat lamps. Before I go, I see a copy of the latest issue of Exposé.

Motherfucker.

My face is on the front of it.

Despite the fact that it is everything I hate, I find myself reaching for the magazine, lowering my eyes as I do, and handing the cashier a five-dollar bill.

I drive all night, sleep the morning away at a rest stop, and then keep driving. I’m in the fucking middle of nowhere, and if I was trying to leave the past behind, I’d say I goddamn have.

My eyes keeps shifting to the damn magazine beside me, and I tell myself I won’t cave in and read it, even though I want to know what has been said about me.

Is this sick? A fucking twisted game? I don’t know.

But my best friend, Cal, has already been through the wringer. He watched his parents die because of the fucked-up town we were raised in. I can’t let the same thing happen to me.

And I knew I was spinning out of control.

Dating Sondra. Agreeing to shitty movies I didn’t care about. Signing on to product placements that I didn’t vouch for. Everything about me had become a fucking advertisement and I didn’t want what I was selling.

I had lost myself.

It’s better this way. The studios owned me while I was alive but they can’t own me in death.

It felt like the only goddamn way out.

If Cal knew the truth, it would tear him up.

Which is why he’ll never know. The truth of my parents will wreck him more than it has hurt me.

Which is why I keep driving.

Which is why I feel like a fucking monster, tormented by demons of my own making.

I want more, but I fucking lost the man I was.

Sawyer is dead.

And the truth is, I don’t know what’s left.

1

After ten days of being on back roads, I’m ready for a real bed, and I need a fucking drink. When I see a sign off the interstate for a town called Resting Hollow, in bum-fuck Indiana, I turn on my blinker and exit. It’s ten p.m. and time for me to get wasted.

I know this town. Or have heard of it, at least. Cal’s girl, Jules is from here— a girl as wholesome as they come.

And I need some goddamn wholesome in my life.

Okay, maybe not wholesome—that feels like a fucking stretch—but people who are more concerned with their small town than Hollywood? Sure. And I see a bar right off the highway, a place called Dusty’s. The gravel parking lot is full of pickup trucks and motorcycles.

This is as good a time as any to see if I can get lost in a crowd.

With my cap pulled low, and my eyes lower, I put my keys in my pocket and head for the door.

My chest constricts, in a way only someone who has grown up with their face always being caught on camera understands. The reality that I can just walk in a bar, buy a drink, and do nothing but nurse it, is a fucking prize I don’t want to lose.

Hell, I don’t even know if I have it yet. All I know is, I’m in the middle of nowhere, and I need to get out of the fucking car before I go crazy.

The lights in the bar are so dim you can hardly see a soul, people are smoking in here too. Hell, I didn’t even think that was legal anymore. Country music blares with songs I don’t know shit about, but these people sure as hell do.

They’re moving to the beat, grinding against one another on the dance floor, and on the perimeter, there are pool tables lined with women in booty cut-off shorts and shirts tied high on the waist. Men reach around women, pulling them in for a kiss, for a feel, seeing how far they can go. And from this vantage point, they seem to be going pretty damn far.

I can’t help but smirk, realizing that you can take the boy out of the city, but no matter where the hell you go, people are gonna be looking for someone to fuck; someone who will let you forget. Even if it only lasts for one slow dance, one fucking game of darts. It doesn’t matter. This place is just like the A-List Fuck Club—people come here for a chance to feel alive. Deep down in their bones.

The only difference is, here there are no fucking diamond rings and martinis. Here there’s Bud Light and cigarette butts. Even if it doesn’t look like Cal’s club—it has the same feel. I’m drawn to the energy around me, maybe because it’s familiar. Sweaty. Sexy. Stolen.

We may be out in the middle of nowhere, but it’s clear that the people here are no different than the folks in LA. Everyone’s looking for an in, an angle, a hook-up. The lights are low in this bar and the desire is through the fucking roof.

I move to the bar and a bartender, who looks as rough around the edges as I feel, asks me what I want. His arms are snaked in tattoos and he looks like he’s a retired wrestler.

The darkest beer you got on tap, I tell him.

He doesn’t reply, just pours me a pint of Budweiser and sets it in front of me on a coaster. Alright. When I ask for a menu, not caring what they serve, just needing something, he grunts to another bartender down the bar, Sadie, get your ass over here. He says it like he doesn’t give a shit about her.

But she doesn’t seem to care. Doesn’t even seem to register his callous comment.

She’s fucking gorgeous, with her messy hair hanging past her shoulders, her thick eyeliner hiding her eyes, her lips in a permanent smirk as if she isn’t taking anything here seriously.

Her eyes flick over his, and his words don’t seem to penetrate her shell at all. They slide right off, and she simply reaches for a menu and hands it to me.

Here you go, she says. Just let me know what you want. Dusty’s the owner, though, so you’ve gotta be careful with what you say about this place. She cocks her head to the big ass guy who just poured me a beer and made me an enemy in one fell swoop.

Then she leans over the bar and points to the tater-tot nachos, declaring them the only halfway decent item on the menu.

I place an order and can’t keep my eyes off her.

You think you’re so funny don’t you, Dusty asks, pouring a shot for a customer, his eyes on her. Not so funny when your ass is out of a job.

My shoulders tense, and I expect her to... I don’t know, cry? Say she’s sorry?

Instead, she speaks with layered confidence, looking back at me. Dusty’s been here forever, or so I’m told. I’m the new girl. But everyone knows he has a thing or two to learn about women. She scowls, looking back at him. Besides, you wanna fire me, Dusty? Fine. But you know I’m here doing you a favor. She smacks her cute butt, lowers the front of her tank to reveal the tops of a perfect pair of tits, and doesn’t ask him for a goddamn thing. Least of which might be an apology.

Dusty just shakes his head at her and says she’s crazy.

Worse things than being crazy, she mutters under her breath as he walks away.

Which is surprising. Dusty spoke to her like he couldn’t stand her.

But as he walks over to her and leans close, smiling and shaking his head, I realize it might just be his way with people. He doesn’t seem to hate her in the least.

Guess people are rarely how they first appear.

Listen, he says to her. People are going to come in tonight asking for Dusty’s Special. You’re gonna tell them it will be 5.99. Understand?

I watch Sadie’s brows furrow in confusion. What? Is that a drink?

No drink, he says coolly. Just a price. Understood?

It’s not on the menu, is it? Sadie picks up the menu in front of me and scans it. Just then a group of four people that look far from home comes through the bar, eying Dusty. They wear suits