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I shake my head.
“Man of habit. This is why I like you, man.”
I just nod.
Back when I talked—and I talked a fuckin’lot—I was polarizing. People either loved me, to an insane, deity-worship degree, mostly. Or they fucking hated me…also to a slightly deranged level. Especially the idiots who never even actually met or knew me, but who just decided that the internet needed to hear their vitriol against me.
It never really bothered me, because fuck those people—the worshipers and the haters, both.
But now that Idon’ttalk? People just seem to…existaround me. I’m no longer polarizing. I just smile and nod, give a thumbs up here and there, and go on my merry fucking way. And even if it’s pretty obvious to anyone who gives me three seconds of attention that I’m a barely functional drunk, I’m alikablebarely functional drunk.
This townlikesme. They don’t love me. They don’t worship me. They don’t hate me and write weird fucking fan fiction on the internet about cutting my corpse into pieces.
They just like me, or else, they’re indifferent to me.
I should have disappearedyearsbefore I did.
George squats behind the counter and lifts a big cardboard box with the amber glass necks of a dozen bottles poking up out of it. My weekly rations.
He rings me up, tells me to have a good one, and then goes back to his baseball as I heft the box and head outside. On a bench, I plop the box down, grab a bottle, and grin to myself as I twist the top off. I bring it to my lips, and I groan with the rush of endorphins as the booze flows over my tongue and down my throat.
Good morning, Vietnam.
I exhale slowly, relishing the familiar burn and heat of my vice of choice. Or vice oftopchoice—these days, at least. I shoulder the box, keeping the opened bottle in my hand as I stroll down the street to the post office, sipping as I walk.
It’s just about the end of the month, which means I’ve probably got some kind of monthly financial statement and probably a message or fifty from Cliff, my manager slash lawyer.
Well, from him, but routed through three proxies, considering he’s the only person on earth who know where the hell I am.
I’m across the street, about twenty feet from the post office, whensheappears.
And I. Stop. Fucking. Cold.
It’s not just that she’s goddamn gorgeous. It’s not just the wind whipping her pink hair across blue eyes, a button nose, and very, very fuckable lips.
It’s not the beanie, skinny jeans, stiletto boots, leather jacket, and small leather backpack slung over her shoulder that fuckingscream“New York City”.
It’s not the fact that in a town of seven hundred people, even if you barely make appearances and make it your mission not to know a single fucking one of them, you still get an idea of who’s who. And she’s the poster child for “from away”.
It’s not…
I scowl.
Fuck it, I lied. It’s all those things. That’s why I stop cold, bottle halfway to my lips as my gaze stabs into her—raking over her pouty lips and determined blue eyes. Over the pink-punk hair. Over the frankly phenomenal ass encased in those tight jeans.
New York Punk pauses outside the post office door and glances up at it. Then down to something on the phone in her hands, then back to the post office.
My eyes narrow.
What the fuck is this, and who the fuck is she?
I slip into the shadows next to Gerard’s Hardware, eyeing her as she steps into the post office and up to Margie, behind the counter.
My jaw clenches.
This is fucking up my plans for the day, which included getting my mail as fast as possible, polishing off another fifth of this bottle on my way back to the dock, going home, and then getting obscenely drunk.
Instead, I’m skulking in an alley staring lecherously at the denim-clad ass of a girl probably half my age.
