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

I nodded. Like Redneck Revenge Barbie.

“She told Jason he wasn’t shit and at least Tough could’ve been someone if he could leave Halo. See, Tough ran away once to see if he could make it in Nashville. He would’ve gotten signed if his parents were alive, but the only people he ever told that to were me and Harper.” Jax rubbed his hand across his mouth. “She didn’t mean to say anything, but she let it slip how close Tough got. So, about a month and a half ago, Jason stole Tough’s voice and ran off to be on that stupid Country Idol show.”

“How did—”

“Magic. Actual magic, not witchcraft. In addition to being a fucktard, Jason was a mage. And now he’s Jason Gudehaus, country music sensation.”

A flicker—pre-SoCo—of the night before came back to me.

“A fallen angel at the Dark Mansion said Tough tried to kill a man and his wife in Nashville,” I said. “A mage and a vampire.”

Jax’s blond-brown eyebrows jumped.

“He tried to kill them?” He shook his head. “Nah, that’s probably propaganda bullshit. I mean…it’d have to be.”

For a few minutes the only noise in the house was the action music from Jax’s game clashing with the dry-bones sound of the guitar upstairs. As if it couldn’t take the heat anymore, the fridge kicked on.

“I didn’t mean to say that Tough would,” I said. “That’s just what—”

“You don’t understand,” Jax said. He cleared his throat, then stood up. “I need a beer—energy drink—something.”

I felt like I should follow him into the kitchen, but my feet wouldn’t move. Jax came back with a can of Red Hot.

“You can’t blame Tough if he did try to mess Jason up,” he said. “Really. He doesn’t have anything. Nothing. His parents are dead, sure—all of ours are—but Sissy and Ryder and Colt are gone, too. And Tough can’t leave Halo, ever. Not even for a day like the rest of us. He’s essentially a POW. And people are shitty. They act like they’re better than him sometimes—like bleeding for a vamp or raising cattle for a werewolf to hunt is so different from what he did.” Jax grimaced down at his Red Hot as if it had left a bad taste in his mouth. “Music was like… You saw. When Tough’s playing, he’s a rock star, and he sure as hell doesn’t live here.”

I looked up the stairs again, listening to the last dirty, sweaty growl of the guitar fade away.

Jax thought I didn’t understand, but I did. My dad thought he needed a girlfriend five years older than me and a vintage Charger to feel alive, so he left us. Mom stopped wanting to eat and talk and be awake. She couldn’t hold down a job and Tempie wouldn’t get one, so I did. And over the last two years of school, I’d felt Tempie pulling away until just her body was there. When Tempie finally physically left, Mom locked herself in the bathroom and downed a bottle of pills. It had been just one thing after another until things were so out of control that I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d done the only thing I could—chase Tempie down and try to make life livable again. Tough had done the same thing—tried to make his life livable again. That had to be why it felt like we knew each other so well.

I turned and jogged up the stairs.

I was in the hall when Tough started another song—the one he’d played the other night at the bar, but with a double-shot of bitterness today. Hearing it made me smile. It felt great to know that someone else was as angry, churning, life’s-not-fair ticked off as I was. I wanted to run into Tough’s room and kiss him on the mouth, but the sight of him stopped me in the doorway.

He was lying on the bed in just his jeans, hair damp like he’d taken a shower, banging on a beat-up acoustic guitar decorated with faded, old-school tattoo art. His lips moved along with the words and he rocked his head to the rhythm. An ancient mp3 player in a blue and black skin lay beside him.

Tough had the earbuds in and his eyes closed. It felt as if I’d walked in on him doing something really intimate. The shields were down, and I didn’t want them to go back up because of me, so I stayed still and listened.

Tough

Rowdy used to let me use the back room at the bar to record stuff I wrote. What I got done before the whole thing with Jason—sixteen songs—is on my old mp3 player under “Trash.” I’d been listening to “Trash” on repeat since I got back from the Matchmaker’s. With it turned up all the way, I could play and pretend to sing along and tune out the rest of the world, almost like I used to.

Then the song I wrote for Harper back when I was still pretty sure I loved her came on. This time, I didn’t play along, just thought back. I’d had it in my head that I could make her see how right we were together and how wrong her and Jax were, but I couldn’t. For a while I had been sure it was killing me, her not wanting me. Listening to “Harper’s Song” now just made me laugh. I was a really stupid teenager.

I raised my head up to spin the dial to the next song and stopped. Desty was standing in the doorway, watching me. I hit pause and took out an earbud.

“Must’ve been a funny song,” she said, trying not to look embarrassed that I caught her.

I nodded. I stood Mom’s acoustic up against the nightstand, scooted over and patted the bed beside me. Desty