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

Well, we did the tip jar thing for a little while, then Rowdy figured out it’d work better on his taxes if he took the tips and paid us per set. Makes it look like he’s losing money or something.

“You don’t do any work on the side?” she asked. “This is what you live on?”

It wasn’t like I spent a lot on gas or clothes. Just split the groceries and utilities with Harper and Jax, get a bottle of SoCo and a case of beer every couple days or so. People at Rowdy’s had bought me and the band enough drinks that our tabs were paid up for the next year.

Then I got what the Matchmaker was saying.

Oh, you mean banging chicks for money. No, I don’t gigolo on the side. I’m a one-vamp man-whore.

She looked back down at the paper and tried to change the subject. “Morning Fang?”

It’s a joke about screwing a vamp and morning wood, I told her. A classy, respectable chick like you probably wouldn’t get it.

“I wasn’t trying to say anything about who you are or what you do, Tough.”

Maybe she really wasn’t, but when you grow up to be the shittiest possible version of who you should’ve been it seems like all anyone’s ever trying to do is remind you. I leaned back in my chair. The Matchmaker propped the paper up in front of her computer screen. She clicked on something, then started typing.

After a while, I thought at her, You know I went to Nashville once before?

“I heard something like that at our class’s memorial service for Ryder,” she said.

I nodded. You go to the service when someone in your class dies, even if they were the biggest dick that ever lived. Jason would probably go when Colt died. Addison would go when I died.

It took the Tracker eleven weeks to catch up to me that time because I kept moving around. I slept on crosstown buses and played two or three different bars a night. I thought if I could make it big before he found me… But I talked to a guy from a label. They won’t sign anyone under eighteen without parental consent and since we never legally had a guardian after Mom and Dad died— I made the jacking-off sign and let my fist drop open.

“Makes sense, doesn’t it?” The Matchmaker said.

Can’t have a prison with just three walls.

She looked up from her computer for a second. “You’re pretty gloomy today.”

I shrugged. I got that way sometimes. Especially when I woke up early with an I’m-really-back-in-Halo hangover. That little story was just the first time I realized there was only one way out of this damn town.

“Contemplating suicide?” The Matchmaker shook her head. “That really won’t look good on your protector application.”

I snorted. She wasn’t as much of an NP bitch as she seemed like.

“And you’re not as dumb as you look.” She typed something else on her computer and waited. “You’re sure you won’t consider any of the fae folk?”

Faeries love music and they’re great singers, but there was a lot of other stuff about them that freaked me out. Like how even the guys shimmer. And how fae glamour can turn you on whether you’re into guys or girls. I didn’t want to take the chance that someone might misunderstand the arrangement with Jason and Mitzi and think I’d be cool doing stuff with a guy, even if he did sparkle.

The Matchmaker clicked on something, trying not to smile.

“Okay, no faeries it is.” She looked at the screen. “There aren’t any matches yet, but you’re in the system. I’ll let you know as soon as something comes up.”

I nodded.

The Matchmaker opened a desk drawer, found a folder, and pulled a piece of paper out of it.

“Now, Tough, about your payment.” She looked down at the paper in her hands, rolled her lips together, then handed it to me. “Because of your financial status, I thought we could come to an agreement based on your previous arrangement with the Gudehauses.”

Under Payment Due, it said, “services rendered.” It took me a minute to get what she meant.

Oh, shit, she wants me to nail her.

The Matchmaker half-winced, half-laughed. “If you find it that distasteful—”

No, I didn’t mean it like that. You’re pretty. I just sort of have somebody I like and I don’t want to fuck around on her.

That seemed to help a little. It made the Matchmaker smile, anyway.

“That’s sweet, Tough.”

Sure. So, if we could work something else out, that’d be great.

“The monetary price for my services is over a thousand dollars,” she said. “I was going to permit the exchange because I knew you couldn’t afford the payment.”

A thousand bucks? I couldn’t keep a damn bank account open, so I probably couldn’t even get near that kind of money.

“I could call Mayor Dark,” the Matchmaker said. “I’m sure he would agree to make the payment for you.”

Yeah, I just bet he would. Then I could spend the last couple weeks of my life sucking Mikal’s dick.

“This is serious, Tough. You agreed to payment.” The Matchmaker stood up and came around to lean against her desk in front of me. “I thought this would be easiest for you since you’ve already done this sort of thing before. If you have something else to offer—”

A crappy truck, a crappy house I didn’t own even half of, some crappy hand-me-downs from Ryder who this bitch had obviously had a crush on in school and who she’d said she thought I looked like. Why the hell hadn’t I remembered that earlier?

“If you’re so damn against this, you have guitars,” the Matchmaker said. “Shannon Colter’s tattooed acoustic alone—”

No way in Hell.

I took off my