I carry her to the bar, both of us laughing, and we liquor up, dance, and repeat until we can’t feel our limbs anymore. My fingers knot up in her hair. Her arms leash around my waist. That drugged look in her eyes saysfind that damn bathroom stall for two, and I pick her up and stumble us both toward the hall. I make a left instead of a right and end up back on the street, the smell of old beer and urine soaking up the virginal hours of a brand newday.
“Whaddy wanna do nows?” she slurs the words as she plunges a finger sloppily into my mouth, and I nearly bite it off trying to suck it down. None of my responses seem to be working. I haven’t been this wasted in as long as I canremember.
That shiny white chapel catches my attention as I continue to stagger in thatdirection.
“I’mmana make love on a sword which you,” I garble as the night fades in and out like a dream.Don’t drop her, I can hear some distal sane part of me command my limbs.Just don’t fucking dropher.
“You’re so beautiful, Brody,” Raven thunders it out as if her mouth had suddenly morphed into a megaphone. “We’re going to have beautiful babies.” She covers her lips and hiccups. “I’ve had too many alcohols.” She pulls my chin to hers sharply, and I nearly lose a vertebra. “If the Dungeon had a beauty contest, you wouldwin.”
“Thank you, I think.” My tongue sloshes in my mouth as if it were stuffed with cotton. And all I want to do is kiss those luscious red lips, but my damn legs won’t stop moving. We hit the entry to that tacky damn chapel, and I lean against the wall for support. “Your face ormine?”
She lets out something between a howl and burp before pulling me to her, her mouth covering mine. My face is wet as her tongue lashes me wildly. Raven and I fumble with fingers, with lips, teeth, and tongues until the world starts to spin out ofcontrol.
Everything around me spins so damn fast it becomes a beautiful dizzying blur. Too bad I can’t feel herkisses.
I can’t feel a single damnthing.
Ahorrid thumping,followed by a sharp shrill, lights up my senses, and it feels as if someone is beating my body with ajackhammer.
“Shit,” I mutter, struggling to open myeyes.
Cold. So freaking cold. My body gives a mean shudder as I pry my lids open one at a time. Sprawled over my lap lies a girl, her face hidden by a sheet of dark hair. We’re outside. Sidewalk. Oh shit. I blink to life in a panic as I spot a construction crew jacking out the sidewalk down the street. The obstructive sound ready to burst both my eardrums doesn’t seem to faze the chick on my lap so I bounce a knee hoping she’ll bounce rightout.
Fuck. Where am I? I study the old brick buildings around me for a moment until I spot the sign for an all-male strip review, and I close my eyes and groan. I recognize this place. It’s the shitty side of downtownJepson.
The chick on my lap lets out a hostile groan, and I blink back to life in the event she decides to christen me with her stomachacids.
“Ugh!” she screams as her head rolls back, and I freeze because I just so happen to recognize that beautiful face, those luscious full cherry-smeared lips, those dark charcoal stained eyes. It’s a zombified version of Raven Masterson. “Levi, is that you?” She smacks me in the face a few times as if trying to identify me with the palm of her hand. “Animal?” Her voiceperks.
“Yup. It’s me, Tater Tot.” Those are the nicknames we had for one another growing up. Mine, Animal, because I used to growl like a bear at her and my sister so they’d give Levi and me peace while we watched the game. And she was Tater Tot as a testament to her love for the stumpy deep-friedtreats.
“Shit,” shehisses.
“Shit,” I growl right back. We both blink to life and take one another in as if assessing thedamage.
She gives my cheek a light slap. “You look likecrap.”
“No offense, sweetie, but you’re not a ray of sunshine either. Let’s get some coffee and get the hellhome.”
“Easy for you to say. You have somewhere to lay your head at night.” She pulls a stiff sheet of rolled parchment from her cleavage and we both look at it mystified. “What’sthis?”
“Probably a no vagrant citation issued by the city. If The Pelican loses its liquor license because of your debauchery, I might have to press charges,” I tease, unsure of where my words were meaning to go. A dull ache penetrates my skull, and I don’t care about making sense. The only thing I care about right now is throwing myself into a nice warm shower and downing a fistful of aspirin to stop my brain frompounding.
Her slender fingers work to unfurl the paper, and my pornographic mind goes into overdrive envisioning her fingers hard at work undoing my jeans. I shake the thought away as she pulls the scrollopen.
“Marriage certificate?” shebalks.
“Marriage?” I lean in. “Who the hell’d marry you?” A dark laugh rumbles in my chest as snatches of last night come back to me—dancing, drinking, not necessarily in thatorder.
She clears her throat. “This license authorizes any judge, clergy, licensed, or ordained member of the clergy or any other person authorized by the state to solemnize marriage between Raven Virginia Masterson of the county of Jepson and state of North Carolina, who is over the age of twenty-one, and Brody Big Dick Wolf.” She gasps as she looks to me in horror, and I quickly nab the paper fromher.
“This is a joke. For one, they got my middle name wrong.” I wince because I used to tell the girls Big Dick was my middle name, and now I deeply regret it. “My middle name is—never mind what it is.” It’sBoner—Brody Boner Wolf. Boner is my mother’s maiden name, but it’s just as bad as Big Dick if you ask me. I search the paper between my fingers for some sign of a hoax, but everything from that county seal to our signatures, to this morning’s stamp of approval by someone whose signature I can’t make out looks one hundred percent legit. “This looks real.” A strong wave of nausea rolls throughme.
Raven tips her head back and gasps. “It is!” she cries as we look up to find ourselves nestled under the little white chapel of love with all its tacky accouterments of giant bell-like plastic flowers and a neon sign blinkingstop for love. “Oh my God!” Raven crawls off me as if I were suddenly a corpse. “What have we done? I’ve ruined my life!” she howls out inanguish.
“Gee, thanks. I like you, too, Tater Tot.” I struggle to rise and pull her to her feet aswell.
“That’s not what I meant.” She tosses her hands in the air in exasperation. The look on her face suggests she’s about to have a good cry. “I promised my mother I wouldn’t elope. She was going to take me to Kleinfeld in New York!” she wails as she swats me over the chest as if it were all my fault. “I was going to bring Low and probably that psychotic who had my butthole bleached, and we were going to sampleca-a-a-ke,” she sobs out that last word in four long syllables over my chest. She tips her head back for air. “I hate myself!” she cries so loud and so strong that for a moment she overpowers the jackhammer still doing its best to drill a hole right through myskull.
