going to say?"
"Liv." His voice was stern, and the tone took me a bit by surprise. "You need to tell me what's going on."
I crossed my arms over my stomach and tucked my hands under my elbows. "Nothing's going on. My hands keep falling asleep, that's all."
His brow knit. "Since when?"
"It doesn't matter. Stop changing the subject. Do you have something to say to me or not?"
His expression was dark and worried, his eyes still focused on my hands. Finally, he raised his eyes to mine and slowly shook his head.
"Liv, I don't..." He released a breath. "I can't right now, but - "
"Stop." I closed my eyes as it all hit me at once. The pain, the loss, the humiliation, the stark desire for something I would never have. It was too much. I felt the tears prickle at the edge of my eyes, and I knew they were going to fall, and he was going to see them, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to stop it. I took a deep breath, and my chin quivered a bit.
Damnit.
"Liv," he started, but I held up one hand to stop him as I used the other to swipe at my face.
"Believe it or not, now's a good time to shut up, Tobias."
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.
"Don't be," I said, meeting his eye as dryly as I could. "I'm fine."
Then I turned on my heel and headed out toward the road, ignoring him as he called my name.
Chapter 3
Happy Larry's is exactly the kind of windowless pit of doom you'd expect from a dive called Happy Larry's, but there are days when a girl needs to match her bar with her mood, and that day, Happy Larry's was a match.
Happy Larry, scruffy and growly in his mangy, sleeveless MANAGEMENT RESERVES THE RIGHT TO KICK YOUR ASS T-shirt, did not appear to be very happy with my appearance in his establishment. You could never tell with Larry; between the untamed beard and Coke-bottle glasses, he was a hard man to read on facial expression alone.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he growled, confirming my original suspicion.
I took a stool and leaned over the bar. "I'm here for the same reason that everyone else is here. Too miserable to be anywhere respectable, not quite ready to jump off a bridge."
Larry stared at me.
"Fine. Be that way." I reached into my front jeans pocket and slammed a twenty down on the bar. "Serve me whatever is going to get me drunk the fastest. What do I want? Vodka? Tequila? You got anything in an IV drip?"
Happy Larry's expression remained unchanged. "Go home."
I drummed my fingers on the bar for a moment while I deliberated, then made the call. "Make it tequila."
Happy Larry grunted something, but he took the twenty, then set a salt shaker, a shot glass, and a slice of lime in front of me. He pulled a bottle of tequila out, and filled the shot glass. I stared at it for a moment, then glanced up at him.
"How many calories are in this?"
Happy Larry stared at me blankly.
"I'm going on a diet," I said glumly. "Starting today. When I get on that plane, I'm going to be svelte."
Nothing from Larry. Jesus, it was tough to crack this guy.
"Okay. Maybe not svelte. But I wanna wear my skinny jeans. I figure fifteen hundred calories a day ought to do it, and you know what that is, Larry? That's two pieces of lettuce and a whiff of a chocolate-chip cookie. So, what I'm asking you, Larry, is ... how many calories?"
Happy Larry continued to stare at me.
"So you don't ... know? Then? The calories?"
Slowly, he shook his head.
"You know what? That's okay. No, really. Don't apologize." I bet Stacy never asks about the calorie content. "It's early in the day, I'll look it up and adjust for it later. Or, you know. Maybe start tomorrow. You gotta work your way up to these things."
Then I salted my hand, licked it, downed the shot, and sucked the lime.
"What?" I said as I nudged the empty shot glass back at an obviously surprised Happy Larry. "I went to college. I know how to drink tequila. Give me another one."
He shook his head as he poured. "You puke on my floor, you're cleaning it up."
"God, Happy. One time, I puked on your floor. I was sixteen. Let it go, man." I salted my hand, did the shot, then shook my head. I