Trucker (The Good Guys #1) Read online

  TRUCKER

  THE GOOD GUYS BOOK 1

  BY

  JAMIE SCHLOSSER

  Angel

  I know what you’re whispering in the car as you pass me by.

  Hitchhiker.

  When you see me walking along the side of the road with my thumb out, you’ll probably keep driving without giving me a second glance. You probably think I’m foolish. Naïve.

  You might assume I’ve made some bad decisions.

  You might think I’m too young to be on my own.

  You might be right.

  Travis

  I love my job, but driving an eighteen-wheeler comes with a certain stereotype. When you hear I’m a trucker, a specific image might come to mind. Uneducated. Dirty. Perverted. Rough around the edges and a little bit dangerous.

  But the truth is, I’m not any of those things. In fact, I’m pretty far from it.

  You’d be surprised to find out I’m one of the good guys.

  Copyright © 2016 Jamie Schlosser

  All rights reserved. This novel is for your enjoyment only and may not be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted without permission from the author except for brief quotations in a book review.

  This novel is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to locations or incidents are coincidental.

  Due to language and sexual content, this book is intended

  for readers 18 and older.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  When I first decided to write a book, I had no idea I would need so many people to help me along the way. Thank you to my husband and kids for being so supportive of this new adventure. I couldn’t have done this without your encouragement, especially on the days when I felt like giving up. And a special thanks to my hubby for volunteering to be my cover model. (That’s right. The man on the cover is mine!)

  Thank you to my betas Brittaney, Carole, Christine, and Alice. You were the very first people to enthusiastically volunteer to read my book, and I appreciate you!

  Thanks to my Newbs. Writing a book was incredibly lonely until you came along. Your support, knowledge, and encouragement has helped me so much.

  Thank you to my editor Kim Huther, my cover artist Lori Follett, and my formatter Shari Ryan.

  Last, but certainly not least, thank you to my readers!

  DEDICATION

  To all the romance addicts out there who love to read about a good guy—this one is for you!

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FOURTY

  CHAPTER FOURTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FOURTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FOURTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FOURTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FOURTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FOURTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FOURTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FOURTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FOURTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  PREVIEW OF DANCER

  CHAPTER ONE

  TRUCKER PLAYLIST

  ANGEL’S SLOPPY JOES

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ONE MONTH EARLIER

  ANGEL

  My aunt’s fingers felt cool and smooth as I held her hand in mine. I softly hummed ‘Don’t Worry Baby’ by the Beach Boys as I filed her nails until the edges were rounded and smooth. Claire never wore nail polish. She said she couldn’t stand the smell. I wasn’t sure if the hospital would have allowed it anyway.

  I glanced up at her closed eyes, silently willing them to open, even though I knew—I knew—it wasn’t going to happen. The steady rise and fall of her chest generated by the machines was a cruel illusion.

  I squinted my eyes against the harsh lighting of the sterile room and continued shaping her fingernails while medical terms like ‘irreparable brain damage’ floated around in my mind.

  Brain dead.

  That’s what the doctors told me.

  But I still had a little bit of hope. Miracles happened every day.

  After I finished her manicure, I planned to read to her. I’d snagged a gossip magazine from the waiting room, and although it wasn’t the best option, it was better than nothing.

  Putting down the nail file, I decided to try reading, hoping the sound of my voice might cause some improvement. I picked it up and cleared my throat.

  “Okay, uhh…” I flipped through the first few pages, passing perfume ads until I came to the first article. “Who wore it best at the VMAs?” I announced the headline.

  Well.

  She couldn’t actually see the dresses, so I skipped ahead a few more pages. “Celebs dish their secrets to achieving—” multiple orgasms. I didn’t finish the sentence out loud.

  I’m not even touching that one.

  Then again, if anything could snap Claire out of it, surely it would be the opportunity to torture me with more awkward sex talks.

  I closed the magazine, then opened it to a random page somewhere in the middle. “Um… Something about a Kardashian, blah blah blah...”

  Oh my God. I really suck at this.

  I was willing to bet most of the stuff in there wasn’t even true anyway.

  Setting the useless gossip aside, I decided I would just bring a book from home next time. Probably Anne of Green Gables. My heart warmed at the memories of all the times we’d read it together.

  “Claire, please,” I pleaded quietly as I grabbed her hand. “Please wake up. You’re all I have left.”

  Was it possible to guilt-trip someone out of a coma? It was worth a shot.

  Needing something to do, I went back to filing her already perfectly-shaped fingernails.

  The door to the room swung open, and Claire’s doctor walked in with a nurse following close behind. I squeezed her hand one last time before turning away from the bed.

  Their somber expressions had me giving them my full attention.

  The doctor was a tall, thin man with wire-rimmed glasses. His salt and pepper hair indicated he was probably in his late forties. He quickly checked over the machines and tubes surrounding my aunt before turning to me.

  I felt numb as he told me the stipulations of Claire’s will—she didn’t want to be kept alive under these circumstances, and s
he was an organ donor.

  “Time is of the essence,” the doctor said as he explained what would happen over the next several hours. Claire’s healthy organs would be harvested, saving the lives of the lucky recipients. There was no emotion in his voice, no sympathy behind his eyes. He might as well have been telling me what he had for lunch earlier that day.

  After the doctor left, the nurse gently patted my arm and I barely registered the words she said. She kept saying things like ‘give you a few minutes to say goodbye’ and ‘social services’ and ‘foster care’.

  “Hon, do you understand what I’m saying?” she asked, but I couldn’t respond. “I’ll go see if the grief counselor is available.”

  With hurried footsteps, she left the room. I stared down at the little wooden nail file I was still gripping in my hand as I tried to process the fact that the only person I had was gone.

  PRESENT DAY

  TRAVIS

  Stereotype. That thing people did when they made assumptions about the kind of person I was, just because I drove a semi.

  When they heard the term ‘trucker’, they had a certain image in mind—usually one that included a beer gut and a bad case of BO.

  Rough around the edges and a little bit dangerous. Uneducated. Perverted.

  Much to their surprise, I didn’t fit into the mold. In fact, I was far from it. My sexual experience—or lack thereof—was probably the biggest shock of all.

  So, how did a guy end up still a virgin at twenty-one?

  The short answer was a combination of plain bad luck and standards.

  And bad dates. Lots of them. Much like the one I was on right now.

  Kendra’s grating laughter cut through the air as she drunkenly babbled to herself in the passenger seat of my pickup truck. I’d stopped trying to make sense of what she was saying an hour ago.

  When I’d agreed to go out with her, I didn’t realize her idea of a good time was main-lining tequila.

  Don’t get me wrong, I liked to party when the time called for it.

  But not on a first date. I could give her the benefit of the doubt—maybe she was just nervous. But it didn’t change the fact that I knew there wouldn’t be a second date in the future.

  The incoherent noises Kendra was making suddenly stopped as she clamped a hand over her mouth.

  “I think I’m gonna be sick,” she muffled against her palm.

  Now that I could understand.

  I slammed on the brakes to pull over and hoped she could hold it in long enough to make it outside. I followed behind her as she stumbled out of my truck, and I caught her around the waist to keep her from falling into the ditch.

  Wrinkling my nose in disgust, I looked away as she started to heave.

  My mind decided to take a trip down memory lane to escape the predicament I was currently in the middle of.

  I’d had my fair share of disastrous dates, and obviously tonight was no exception.

  When I was fifteen, my buddy Colton and I had a double date with a couple of girls from two towns over. Colton had just gotten his license and we thought we were hot shit for getting dates with girls who weren’t from our high school.

  To top it off, Amanda and Amber were twins. Twins.

  When we got to their house they showed us to their room and said they were going to the kitchen to get some snacks. Told us to make ourselves at home. Being the nosy pricks that we were, we decided to snoop around.

  On opposite sides of the room were matching twin beds with three shelves of collectables on the wall in between. Amanda and Amber seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with unicorns. Glass figurines and snow globes made up most of the collection.

  On the other side of the room was a TV. We found an old kickboxing workout DVD and decided to put it on. Mimicking the kicks and punches in such a small space was a bad idea. Because we were rambunctious ass-hats, things quickly got out of control.

  Colton sent a high kick to my chest and I fell backwards against the wall, causing all three shelves to collapse. Unicorn horns, broken glass, water, and glitter covered the floor.

  It was a unicorn massacre.

  Colton and I did the only thing we saw as an option at the time—we ran.

  I realized how shitty it was to break all their stuff and leave without even saying goodbye. I still felt bad about it to this day. We ignored angry texts for at least two weeks. Getting text-tag-teamed by twins was brutal. I liked to think that was punishment enough.

  When I was sixteen, I got the courage to ask Jenny Jenkins out to a movie. She was cute, smart, and willing to go out with me—all good things.

  I arrived at her house on time, just three minutes shy of 7 PM. Jenny must have been excited because she came out to meet me in front of her house. She said she needed to get her purse from inside and gestured for me to follow.

  What happened next was like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

  On her way up the steps, Jenny tripped and face planted on the porch. Hard. Between garbled sobs and lots of blood coming out of her mouth, she told me she bit her tongue and to call her mom.

  What followed was the shortest, most awkward phone conversation of my life.

  We made our way inside to the kitchen, where she grabbed a towel and some ice. I tried my best to comfort her, but she was hysterical.

  Her mom showed up a few minutes later and glared at me as if I had personally tried to rip out her daughter’s tongue. Jenny managed a “sorry” and something about the hospital and so I left, dateless.

  When I tried to talk to her at school on Monday, her face turned bright red and she mumbled something about needing stitches and another “sorry” before making an excuse about getting to class. She was obviously mortified, and the whole situation was so awkward we ended up avoiding each other for the remainder of our high school days.

  The summer before my senior year, I got a job with Colton’s dad, Hank. He owned Hank’s Auto Shop and I loved it.

  Around the same time, I started dating Ashley Peterson, one of the hottest girls in my class. We went to homecoming together, had a couple dates, passed notes to each other in the hallway between classes, and spent a few evenings fooling around in the bed of my truck. For a couple months, I thought I was the luckiest guy in the world.

  But while I’d been busy working, Ashley had been hooking up with the quarterback.

  I was pulled from my thoughts by the sound of retching, and I cringed as I realized Kendra had vomited on my shoes while I was holding her hair back.

  I could kill Colton for setting me up with his girlfriend’s best friend. But really, it was my own fault for agreeing to go out with her. Even before the date, I knew I didn’t have romantic feelings for her.

  She was attractive, with dark, shoulder-length hair and brown eyes. With the new summer tan she was sporting, she had a bit of an exotic look going on.

  Unfortunately, the girl didn’t have much going on upstairs, and there were times when I’d seen her be a pretty big bitch to Colton’s girlfriend, Tara, even though they were supposed to be friends.

  Tonight, Kendra had insisted on going to Buck’s Tavern where she was a bartender. Being friends with everyone meant free drinks, though I stopped after two beers. The amount of tequila she was able to put away might have been impressive if she could’ve kept it down.

  After leaving the tavern, Kendra begged me to take her for a drive in my ‘72 Chevy pickup truck.

  City folks might not see how driving around aimlessly in the middle of nowhere could be fun, but when you live in a small town, it’s necessary to get creative when it comes to entertainment. Country cruising was one of our favorite pastimes.

  And now, we were pulled over on the side of a country road while Kendra emptied the contents of her stomach onto my new Redwing boots.

  The icing on the cake? It was fifty-cent taco night at Buck’s.

  At least she didn’t puke in my truck.

  “I think I’m done now,” she half-sobbed.
r />   “I’ll take you home,” I said, patting her back.

  “Nooooo,” she moaned. “My parents can’t see me like this.”

  Shit. I forgot she still lived with her parents.

  I led her back to my pickup truck and helped her into the passenger seat. “You can stay at my place. I’ll take the couch,” I said as I buckled her seatbelt.

  “You don’t have to sleep on the couch,” she slurred. “We can share the bed. I can take care of your little problem…”

  “My problem?”

  She giggled. “Yeah, you know, your V-card.” She giggled again.

  Damn Colton and his big mouth. My virgin status wasn’t a secret, but I didn’t go shouting it from the rooftops either. I bet he told Tara and Tara told Kendra.

  I made my way around to the driver’s side and got in.

  “Kendra, I don’t think you’re in any state to be offering. You’ve had a lot to drink.” I made the excuse, but didn’t bother to tell her I wouldn’t take her up on it sober either. Ever.

  I didn’t think she’d appreciate that and I didn’t want to piss her off.

  “God, you’re such a tease!” she screeched.

  So much for not pissing her off.

  “Besides,” I went on, “I don’t see it as a problem. I’ve gone this long. When I’m finally with someone,” I paused, knowing I was going to sound like a complete pussy. “I want it to mean something.”

  I heard quiet snoring and looked over to find Kendra passed out, her head leaning against the window.

  I wasn’t surprised by her offer. I wasn’t conceited, but I knew girls thought I was good-looking. After joining a gym a couple years ago, my once-lanky six-foot frame was now filled out from weight-lifting. I noticed—and appreciated—the appraising looks girls sent my way.

  Kendra hadn’t exactly been shy about her attraction to me, either. Throughout our date, she had repeatedly complimented me on my dimples. Repeatedly. Plus, I wasn’t oblivious to ‘fuck-me’ eyes and she eye-fucked the fuck out of me all night long.