How to Kill Yourself in a Small Town (5 page)

Desty

I
raked my bangs out of my eyes and snuck another look at the guy who had walked
off the dance floor and taken the barstool next to me.

Faded
jeans, Skoal ring, John Deere ball cap. The kind of durr-Chevy-kid that Tempie
and I used to make fun of in school. His skin was red-brown and every time he
lifted his shot glass, I expected to see the pale side of his farmer’s tan
under his t-shirt sleeve. Nothing. He was dark all the way up.

Must
be the kind of douche who usually wears cut-off sleeves,
I
thought.
Or no shirt at all to show off his abs.

John
Deere killed his third tequila and signaled the bartender with the shot glass.

“If
you’re trying to drown your problems, you’d better tell him to leave the
bottle,” I said.

He
looked at me and the little bit of courage I’d sucked out of my beer drained
away.

“Just—I
mean, it’d be faster than waiting for—than trying to get his attention every
time he, um…”
Modesty McCormick, ladies and gentlemen! Able to follow her
sister’s trail across the country and into the deepest, darkest NP hotbeds,
while still remaining completely incapable of basic interaction with a
good-looking human male.

I
zeroed my focus back in on my beer. Then I realized John Deere was smirking at
me and it hit me what he was thinking.

“I’m
not drunk,” I said. Which was exactly what someone who was drunk would say.

He
snorted, but his smile got bigger. It wasn’t the kind of smile you usually saw
in NP towns like Halo—the you-could-be-useful-or-maybe-delicious smile. It was
like standing in the sunlight with a warm sweater on. And his eyes were this
color like celery mixed with baby blue.

“You
have pretty eyes,” I said. People who weren’t drunk said that kind of thing all
the time, right?

He
looked down at his shot glass and tugged on the bill of his hat as if it needed
to be straightened.

I
slicked some of the condensation off of my beer and touched my fingers against
my face to cool it down. The air conditioner in this place wasn’t keeping up
with the number of warm bodies dancing and talking. Or the amount of stupid
coming out of my mouth.

Out
of the corner of my eye I saw John Deere wave his shot glass at the bartender,
but when the bartender got there, John Deere gestured at me and put up two
fingers.

The
bartender laughed.

“That’s
the spirit, kid,” he said. He dropped a shot glass in front of me and filled
John Deere’s and mine. “You guys can drink this one to Jason balling his own
wife for a change. May he lose his dick to frostbite.”

John
Deere toasted with his shot, then knocked it back. This time, when the bottle
started to leave with the bartender, John Deere grabbed it. He used the bottle
to point at the shot in front of me.

“I
don’t know if I should be drinking to something like that,” I said. “I don’t
know this Jason and if he turns out to be some nice guy you’ve been
cuckolding…”

John
Deere snorted, then shook his head and closed my fingers around the shot. The
dim overhead lighting caught just right on a hundred or so tiny pink scars
scattered across his knuckles.

“Okay,”
I said. “But only if you promise Jason’s not a nice guy.”

He
patted his heart.

I
stared down the shot for a second, then lifted it to my lips.

“Mmph!”
I clenched my teeth and tried to force the tequila down. A shiver shook me all
over when it hit my stomach. “That’s awful,” I winced. “Really, the way I get,
I probably shouldn’t be drinking at all.”

John
Deere raised his eyebrow and I realized what I’d said.

“Not
like belligerent or super-slutty or anything.” I pushed my bangs back again.
“Just, I don’t hold my liquor well. Then when I wake up and freak out because I
don’t know where I am—”
Bad to worse.
“Wait. Let’s start over.” I stuck
out my hand. “I’m Modesty. Desty. Everyone calls me Desty.”

He
gave me a fake-suspicious look and took my shot glass away like I’d had too
much.

I
laughed, then immediately felt guilty. I was supposed to be looking for anyone
who might have seen Tempie, not flirting with some cute redneck.

It
was probably the amount of alcohol I’d consumed so far in comparison to the
amount of food I’d eaten today—a shot and a beer to one bread knot—but it
seemed like John Deere understood my sudden change of mood. He poured us both
another shot. I gagged mine down and scanned the crowd.

“So,
how about your name?” I asked. Then I realized that made it sound like I was
trying to pick him up. “That wasn’t a line or anything, I just—”

He
smiled and held up one hand like I should stop.

Which
I definitely should. Drinking, talking, everything.

He
grabbed the edge of the bar and levered himself up so that he was leaning over
it with his butt in the air. And talk about a nice butt. Too bad the Skoal ring
on his back pocket reminded me how much I was supposed to hate durr-Chevy-kids.
Why did they all think they needed to chew? He pulled a coaster and a pen out
from under the other side of the bar and pushed himself back down to his feet.

For
a minute, he concentrated on writing, then he pushed the coaster at me. It was
full.

Hi Destie, my name is Tough.
Can I buy you a shot? Come here often? Do you have a ride home because you
won’t get a DUI on a country boy. I promise Jason is an asshole. Let’s drink to
his junk falling off again.

I
put my hand over my shot glass.

“I
think I’ve had enough,” I said. I was as great at drinking as I was at talking
to hot guys and I didn’t have Tempie to make sure I got home safe. Nowhere to
go home to, either. “Besides, I’m actually looking for someone.” I pulled the
picture out of my pocket again and handed it to him. “Have you seen this girl
around?”

He
looked at the picture, then squinted at me like I might be a crazy person.

“No,
we’re twins,” I said, taking the picture back. “Her name’s Tempie—Temperance. I
guess I didn’t think about us being identical. I mean, I think we’re different,
but…I don’t know. Bringing a picture seemed like the thing to do at the time.”
I sighed. “So, does that mean you haven’t seen her?”

John
Deere—Tough—shook his head.

“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-whoopings.

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 that was one in favor of the vamp-groupies. Faded t-shirt
with an old hipster-looking band on it. Shorty-shorts that stopped about an
inch down her thighs. I got stuck there for a while. Even if they make a girl a
little taller than me, long legs really put the wood in my stake.

Speaking
of Spike…
I stood up. I was running out of room to store my tequila
and I needed to figure out a way to get to the bathroom that didn’t end with me
facedown on the floor.

Scout
grabbed my hand. “Ready to get out of here?”

I
pulled away from her and looked around.

“Are
you looking for Harper?” Scout yelled over the music. “Her vamp Logan came and
picked her up, remember? She said something about him getting too lazy to hunt?
None of this is ringing a bell?”

Shit,
did I black out?
I reached up to take off my hat so I could run
my hand through my hair, but I grabbed an empty space.

Scout
held out my John Deere hat.

“I
didn’t want you to forget it,” she said. “I know how special it is to you, with
Sissy giving it to you and all.”

That
wasn’t right. I would never take it off and set it down in the bar. Even
seriously wasted, I always went out with my hat on, like a cowboy and his
boots.

I
took my hat and jerked it on tight.

“Yeah,
you’re welcome,” Scout said, cocking her hip at me, offended. “I guess you’re not
going to walk me home, either?”

That
definitely didn’t sound like me. But Harper was gone and I couldn’t let Scout
try it on her own. She was almost at the end of the grace period underage kids
got in Halo, but NPs who didn’t care about the rules and just plain dickheads
might go after her, especially the way she was dressed.

Scout
latched onto my hand again.

“Take
me home and tuck me in, Tough,” she said.

I
made sure she stayed an arm’s length from me the whole way to her trailer.