Honkytonk Hell: A Dark and Twisted Urban Fantasy (The Broken Bard Chronicles Book 1) eden Hudson (best book club books txt) 📖

“Tough,” I said. “Weird name.”

He cocked his eyebrow at me. Because Modesty and Temperance were such normal names for twins to have.

“I just mean, Tough’s one of those names like Gorgeous is for girls. One you can never live up to.”

He laughed, kind of. No sound came out.

“You can’t talk.” That just sort of popped out, so I tried to explain. “I mean, I guess I didn’t realize it before. I thought you were playing hard to get or…something.” Shut up, self, you’re drunk.

Tough lifted his hat enough to scratch his hairline, then tugged it back on. Then he grabbed my coaster and wrote something on the other side.

I’m not hard to get. Ask anybody here.

I put my hand in front of my mouth. “You’re not deaf and reading my lips are you?”

Tough laughed again and shook his head. He had “sexy comeback” written all over his face. If we’d had another minute to ourselves, I probably would’ve gotten to read it off the coaster.

“Tough!” A tanned blonde in a black halter-top and a slightly shorter, tanned blonde in a Catholic schoolgirl outfit pushed between us. “Who’s your friend?”

Schoolgirl was glaring at me with icepick gray eyes, but Halter-Top was the one really studying me. Like maybe she wanted to ask me what my intentions were with Tough. I could’ve told her throwing up my two shots and one beer would probably be the extent of my night, but Schoolgirl saved me the trouble.

“Tough doesn’t screw out-of-towners,” she said.

Until I opened my mouth, I didn’t realize I was drunk enough to think I could come up with something scathing and snappy on the spot. They were all staring at me. Even Tough. His eyes were so pretty with those long eyelashes. And his nose was just slightly crooked, like it had been broken before.

Probably a bar fight. Durr-Chevy-kid for you.

Crap, they were waiting for me to say something. Ample time for a comeback. Or anything. I could’ve said anything at all and looked less stupid. But it felt like I had something lodged in my throat.

“You can go now,” Schoolgirl said.

All I could do was stumble off my barstool and leave.

Tough

I tried to grab Desty’s arm as she went by, but I didn’t move fast enough and I guess she didn’t see me. She was halfway across the room before I could get off my barstool.

I threw my hands up at Scout. What the hell?

“You’re mad because I saved you from having to talk to some skanky tourist?” Scout snapped. “You don’t have to listen to them just because you can’t talk anymore, you know.”

“Shut up, Scout,” Harper said.

“What? She is skanky. Look, she’s throwing herself at Finn now.”

I followed Scout’s gesture across the floor. Desty wasn’t throwing herself at Finn. They were just talking. Not that you’d know that by looking at Finn. He was giving her his I’m-such-a-tortured-vamp-but-the-right-girl-could-save-me routine. I hoped Desty would set him back on his skinny-jeans-wearing ass for trying to sell her that tired bullshit.

But Finn nodded and Desty grinned like he was the answer to her prayers. They left together.

Son of a bitch.

“—way you busted out right under Warden Kathan’s nose,” Scout was saying.

“Seriously, Scout,” Harper said. “One night without your ‘Halo: Maximum Security’ bull and we will never ask you for anything ever again.”

“It’s not bull,” Scout said. “If you have to escape, it’s a prison, isn’t it, Tough?” She nodded like I had agreed with her. “If the only rights you’ve got are the ones they give you and your only options are to be somebody’s bitch or fight back like Co—”

Harper grabbed Scout by the back of the neck and jerked her close, but I could still hear Harper whisper, “I swear to God, I will bitch-slap you if you say his name.”

Scout shoved Harper off and leaned against the bar, glaring around the room like the whole world was stupid and unfair. I used to take that same attitude with Ryder. Maybe I had deserved some of those ass kickings.

Harper hopped onto Desty’s barstool and pointed at the tequila. “Set me up, Tough.”

I slid her the bottle.

“Yeah, drink up and bend over just like everybody else in this hell-hole,” Scout said. “Sell your soul for protection.”

Harper rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Scout.”

The tequila hit me pretty hard right then, so I sat down while Scout rattled on about life in prison and how much easier it was to be someone’s bitch than to fight the power or whatever. She sounded like Colt.

“Hey, Tough.” Harper touched my elbow next to the chain burns. “You okay?”

I’m pretty sure I nodded. I couldn’t believe Desty had left with that prissy dickwad. Why the hell were girls into guys like that? Finn even plucked his eyebrows—I’d seen him do it once after P.E., back when he was still human.

“PKR?” Harper asked, pointing at my shot glass.

I nodded. Jax, Harper, and I invented PKR. It’s a pretty simple game—pour, kill, refill. The object is to get shitfaced.

Scout looked over her shoulder at us.

“I want to play, too,” she said.

Harper and I knocked our shots back at the same time, then poured another round.

“You guys suck,” Scout said.

“Go pout about it,” Harper said.

I raised my glass to that.

After a few more, I got into the rhythm and pretty much forgot Harper and Scout were even there.

Desty hadn’t seemed like a vamp-groupie. They were usually pretty easy to spot, all Gothed-out or wearing fancy Romeo and Juliet dresses. She wasn’t like that. Or maybe that was just a month’s worth of self-service thinking for me. I tried to picture her again. Dark hair—short, but it looked like she was letting it grow out. Combat boots, so