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

of sick to my stomach to think that, while I was hunting down that dumbass Jason Gudehaus, Mikal had stopped the last one of us still fighting.

I offered Desty the other beer, but she shook her head.

“No, thanks.”

I had about half the can left, but I finished it off and opened the beer Desty had turned down.

“I went on the Dark Mansion tour yesterday,” she said. “I saw your brother. He’s still with Mikal.”

For a second the little-kid-me busted through, like when you take a picture of a vamp and their real age shows up, only in reverse and with some kind of retarded hero-worship complex. Colt had been kamikaze during the war, kicking ass like nothing could kill him. And after the war, not even Ryder would try to start crap with Colt. And Sissy—probably the smartest person who’d ever lived—used to ask Colt for help with strategy. This was probably just another one of his crazy-elaborate plans. If anybody could outlast Mikal—

Nobody can outlast Mikal, stupid. She’s immortal. And if Colt was so damn smart, then what was he doing killing her familiars? Would’ve been smarter to paint a target on his back and start yelling, “Come get me, bitch.”

Desty leaned her cheek on the edge of the bed.

I got the rest of the second beer down before she said anything else.

“When you look at someone like Tempie—someone who wanted to be a familiar—you must really… Is ‘contempt’ a strong enough word?”

She could call it whatever she wanted. The point was Tempie had volunteered to put her brain in the woodchipper, probably because she thought fallen angels were hot. It seemed like someone related to Desty should’ve been smarter than that.

Desty turned onto her back. I burped a really long, loud beer burp that made my throat feel better but popped my side.

“The way she was dressed tonight… If Tempie was calling the shots, she would’ve picked something a lot less classy, a lot more trashy. And she wouldn’t be some sycophant twee-girl—not to anybody. You should’ve met her before, back when she was all hunting-fishing-pink-camo.” Then Desty laughed and looked over the edge of the bed at me. “Did I just nail your type, Tough?”

I snorted and gave her one of those exaggerated Noooos. That got her laughing again.

It was too dark to tell if her eyes were on me, but there was just enough light coming through the window to watch her smile fade away. She took a deep breath and blew it out.

“Do you think about Colt all the time?” she asked.

I tried to shake my head, but it wouldn’t move.

“How do you…? Like, when you…”

I reached behind the nightstand. The Southern Comfort Hundred Proof was right where I’d dropped it. I spun the cap off and handed the bottle to Desty. She looked at it for a second, then back at me.

“Thinking medicine,” she said.

I pointed at her. Thinking medicine.

Desty

 

When I clawed my way out of the blood dream, I couldn’t remember where I was. At first I thought back in Tucson because that was the last place I had slept on a mattress, but this house wasn’t vacant. Beer cans propped the window open, clothes were piled up next to a laundry basket, and a guitar case stood in the corner.

The guitar case was what brought it back—this was Tough’s room, I was wearing his t-shirt—and the empty bottle of SoCo on the nightstand explained the nausea and the boozy spinning inside my head every time I shut my eyes. That bottle had been half-full the night before. There wasn’t any way I could’ve drunk that much by myself without throwing up. I reached my hand over the side of the mattress to see if Tough was still asleep on the floor. Nothing.

I closed my eyes and put the pillow over my face so my brain would know I wasn’t actually spinning.

Did I really almost have sex with him last night because he was going to let me stay here? Tempie would’ve laughed in my face for thinking I was so much better than her. And now Tough thought I was a homeless slut.

I groaned and I crossed my arms over the pillow, wishing I could smother myself. The pillow crackled. After a couple of seconds I realized what that meant. I took the pillow and the piece of notebook paper off my face.

Went to take care of some NP b.s. Stay as long as you like. Bathroom is down the hall, food downstairs. Ask Harper or Jax if you need anything. You look great without pants on. See you later.

-Tough

I pushed myself up and looked down the bed.

Sometime last night I’d kicked off the sheet, leaving my legs and underwear exposed. Low-rise briefs covered with some manga character. That pack had been the only one on clearance in my size at the last Wal-Mart I’d been to. A far cry from lingerie, but thank God they looked clean. I wondered if the underwear were included in the “you look great” or if Tough was just messing around.

Then I saw the towel on the foot of the mattress.

If Tough was there, I would’ve kissed him. One of the things I had started missing about home almost as soon as I left was feeling clean—forty-five-minute-shower, burn-the-top-layer-of-skin-off clean. Washing up in a gas station sink can’t even compare.

There was a smaller note on the towel, a piece torn off the bottom of the no-pants note.

Sorry, no clean towels. I’ll wash some when I get back if you want to wait.

I hugged the towel like a long-lost love, thinking a lot of things that were probably inappropriate for someone to be thinking about a linen, including sweet nothings about cherishing it for the rest of my life and intergalactic