Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
“It’d be more than ten minutes. I think. Also, we could get a room and stay ‘til Sunday. Then I can get wasted with you.”
“The beds there are like sleepin’ on bricks.”
“You have a nasty gash on your arm.”
“My clumsy ass fell on the stupid pavement earlier today.”
“Clumsiness is only cute until you get an infection. You going to tell me what’s up yet? I’m getting bored.”
I sigh and cradle my head in my hands. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Try. You can do it. Use your words,” she sings, pretending to be a schoolteacher or something.
Suddenly I’m gonna be sick. “Pull over.”
“Oh, you wanna pet a cow?”
She’s going so slow, I don’t care. I yank open my door while the car’s still moving, tumble out of the vehicle, fly over the ditch, grab hold of a fence by the road and hurl. My first thought when I stare into the dark and wherever my vomit went is that if I had known all that money spent on popcorn was gonna end up in the field on the edge of someone’s ranch …
“Are you okay?” shouts Juni from the car, now stopped.
“Uh-huh,” I mumble, leaning on the fence, certain if I let go of it that I’ll go tumbling straight to the dirt.
The crunching of her heels (why is she always wearing heels?) brings her closer, but not too close. Probably afraid of stepping on something. “Did you eat a bad burger?”
“I need a drink,” I groan.
“Oh … You’re doing this backwards. People usually drink first, then barf.”
I shut my eyes and lay my head on the fence. “I did something tonight, Juni. Something … really, really … really fuckin’ crazy.”
“Well, I would guess it likely isn’t that crazy, considering the things you might have done. Like rob a bank. Or adopt a pet frog.”
“I kissed a dude.” Juni appears by the fence and lets out a sigh. I look at her. “Did you hear me?”
“We should probably go back. You look pale. I have iced tea.”
“I just said I kissed a dude.”
“Yes, you did.”
She’s leaning against the fence next to me now, staring up at the stars. I’m suddenly annoyed. “That’s all you got to say? I kissed a man tonight. I feel … I feel really confused.”
“What’s there to be confused about? Didn’t you like it?” When she looks my way and sees my baffled face with my jaw hanging, her eyebrows go up. “I … I thought it was our thing.”
“Our thing?”
“Yeah. Like, we go out. See hot guys. I throw myself at them. You don’t. Then we go home, alone together, and get drunk.”
I can’t even begin to pretend I follow her. “The fuck?”
“I knew you like guys since I met you. Don’t you remember? At the auction? When that one man put a bid on you, and then you didn’t care and said anyone could put in a bid, and then it was all men and women until I won?” She shrugs. “I just figured.”
I’m so lost. My head and stomach are spinning even worse. “It was just a fundraiser. I don’t understand how … how that even …?”
“And the club we always go to.” She lets out another dainty sigh into the night. “The Saloon is a gay nightclub.”
I snap my eyes back to her. “It is?”
Suddenly she lets out a laugh that fills the whole damned field and scares half the crickets into silence. “You gotta be the most clueless boy I’ve ever known, Anthony! I think it’s why I like you. We’re, like, totally brother and sister. How we sometimes don’t see the obvious thing. It’s the Sassy Saloon,” she says with a nudge at my side. “Sassy. The logo is a red smiley with its tongue sticking out. We made jokes on what it’s licking the first night we went.”
I turn around, then find my back against the fence, staring off at the road, blank-faced. “But … h-how could you know I like guys if … if I wasn’t even sure if I—?”
“I didn’t know. Not for sure. Small-town guys can be weird. They hide it. Or don’t know. Or don’t announce it. Or let everyone assume one way or the other, never confirming it. I became more sure when we went on our date at that Nadine’s place, but then I also wondered if maybe you swang both ways …”
“Swang ain’t a word.”
“Didn’t it feel nice? Kissing the guy? Who was it, by the way?”
I move from the fence and wander into the road. I don’t know if I can have this conversation yet. My heart hasn’t stopped racing. I feel like my mind is spinning out of control.
“Was it the guy from the jukebox?”
I spin on her. “Are you a psychic? Can you read my mind?”
“He was awful charming.” She hops over the ditch, stumbles, then brings a hand to her face, looking dreamy-eyed. “I wonder if his friend’s single. Could we do a double-date thing sometime?”