AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Really?” Ten lifted his eyebrows and glanced to Quinn before turning back to me. “And how’s that?”
“Uh...he told me.” I shook my head, wondering why that was such a big deal.
But Ten only seemed more intrigued. “That’s funny. You guys seem to talk a lot for people who generally...don’t talk.”
“Stop,” Quinn warned him icily, letting me know there was some inside thing between the two of them going on that I knew nothing about.
Instead of backing down, though, Ten seemed more challenged. He turned to me abruptly.
I shied away.
He opened his mouth, but must’ve rethought whatever he was going to say because he immediately turned back to Quinn to ask, “Where’d your date go, anyway?”
Quinn glanced around the bar before spotting Cora at a new table, drinking a pink drink, and chatting with a new group. “She’ll be over soon, I’m sure.”
Ten sighed and ordered us all a new round of Long Island Iced Teas.
Feeling miserable for Quinn, I opened my mouth and blurted out the first thing to come to my head. “If you could be powerful or honest, which would you choose?”
“Why can’t you be both?” Ten asked.
Quinn, however, mulled the question over before admitting, “Honest. It seems like you have to be meaner when you’re powerful. I don’t want to be mean.”
I nodded. “So, then...if you had to choose between nice or honest...?”
“I’d choose nice.”
A smile bloomed across my face. “You believe in lying in order to keep from hurting someone, then?”
He shrugged, but didn’t seem to question why I was asking him this stuff. Heck, I wasn’t even sure why I was. I just wanted to talk. To him.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just can’t handle hurting anyone.”
“Yeah,” I murmured thoughtfully. “Me neither.”
And that’s about the point where I totally lost track of the conversation. The two Long-Island-Iced-Tea drunkards at the table with me started talking about all kinds of shit I didn’t follow, and yet they knew exactly what they were raving about.
“Did you know the corneas are the only cells in the human body that don’t receive blood from the heart?” Hamilton told Blondie.
She puckered her lips thoughtfully. “Does that mean the heart can’t see?”
I groaned and realized their happy juice had definitely kick
ed in, especially when Blondie giggled and then swayed as she clutched her forehead. “Whoa. I’m getting woozy.”
Hamilton grabbed her arm to steady her. “I know,” he slurred and glanced my way. “This shit is potent. I feel...” He nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
I lifted my eyebrows, wondering if he was drunk or high.
Blondie giggled again and pointed at him. “I’ve never heard you cuss before.”
“I don’t,” Hamilton said blankly before Blondie charged, “But you just said shit.”
He laughed and pointed back at her. “So did you.”
As they giggled together, I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. Oh, dear God. Someone shoot me now.
“I don’t know why I was always so scared to drink,” Quinn announced. “My mom used to get so mad when she drank. That’s when she’d beat me the hardest. So I always thought I’d lose my temper too if I ever drank. But I don’t feel mad at all. I’m just...happy.”
