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“Fuckin’ just fuckin’ shoot me now, fuck,” I growl, barging in.

“That bad?” asks Juni through a yawn.

I kick my shoes off somewhere, throw my nasty tank top at the laundry basket—it misses, what a surprise—then cut through the apartment straight to the bathroom. “That asshole, that cocky asshole … fuck , I can’t catch a break.”

“You smell flammable.”

I stop at the bathroom door where I fight to get my pants off. “Some out-a’-towner dick tried to get me fired today.”

“That’s not nice.”

“I was this close to knockin’ his teeth out. But two times in jail was enough for me, and I wasn’t about to sink to his level.”

“Jail is so unsanitary.”

These pants sure fell off easy at the gas station when I didn’t want them to. Now they’re super-glued to my thighs. “I’m so tired of these outsiders trottin’ through our town like they have a right. After that crazy pageant auction however long ago, with all those whackos showing up in town wanting in on it because of viral social media crap, I’m about up to here with seeing new faces. I don’t want any new faces. Plenty happy with the old ones.”

“I’m an outsider.”

I squint. “But you’re different.”

“How so? Oh, did you take my phone charger? I can’t find it.”

I stop battling my pants. Juniper is a bombshell. That’s what everyone’s first impression is. Either that, or she’s Drunk Beauty Queen Barbie, because she talks like she’s wading through a dream with her every slow, bewildered thought. She’s originally from a trailer park in a small town outside Dallas, but after winning a small fortune several years ago in a local lottery, she left, and now she’s basically an aimless, refreshingly unpretentious tornado, and that’s about as poetic as I’ll get in describing her. I guess you can take the girl outta the trailer park, but that trailer park ain’t ever coming out of the girl. She’s my roommate. Actually, I’m hers. This is her place, impulsively moved in to when she decided to live in Spruce “for a lil’ bit, I guess, maybe, for now,” in her words. It’s a unit in a small, L-shaped, one-story complex off of Peach Street called Happy Trails—real name. We share the rent, but she might as well buy the building so we can stop getting noise complaints at 3 AM when we finally make it home after another night out, the inner party monster awakened fully in the twisted pair of us.

And yeah, alright, the apartment can use a bit of loving—bras and socks and a feather boa hanging over the back of the couch, raunchy laundry pile amassing by the TV, which itself is situated on the floor because no one’s gotten around to mounting it yet, a coffee table buried under stacks of mail, books, shoe boxes with some of them still containing actual heels and pumps she bought and never wore, some dead laptop that won’t charge anymore and needs a new battery, and an empty pastry box crusted with sugar. Juni has a bad habit of ordering random shit online—artwork, weird lighting, furniture, boxes of paints and an easel because she thought she might try to become a painter someday, a zillion cat-shaped throw pillows because she loves cats but is allergic to real ones, tiaras and a plastic scepter because she has a weird princess fetish—and all this stuff gets piled around everywhere, none of the artwork put on the walls, none of the furniture built. Any odor in the room is overpowered by the flowery perfumes, powders, and whatever else she keeps stuffed in her three-mirror vanity in the corner by the window—it was put there and then never made it to the bedroom for whatever reason—all of it pink, pink, pink. It’s a mess in here, and once you misplace something, kiss it goodbye.

Though it’s technically Juniper’s place, I pretty much live here too. She was one of the auction winners. I was the lucky bachelor she won for $1,075—just a drop in the bucket of her fortune. But after our obligatory date, we found we made much better friends. She gets me. I get her. Everything sucks less when we’re together.

“I dunno where your charger is,” I say. “Check the bedroom, the drawer with all your sex toys you never use.” I finally get my stupid pants off, then perform a dance trying to get my boxers off as I hop awkwardly into the bathroom and twist on the shower. One thing I love about this place: perfect-ass water pressure. It sure beats the water at my parents’ house. I moan as I get under the stream and yank the curtain closed behind me.

The curtain sweeps right back open. “What did you mean I’m different?” she asks.

This is normal. We have no boundaries. “Dunno. You just are.”

“Different in a bad way?”

“Different in a you way. Will you get my back?” I ask, handing her the bar of soap.

She takes it but does nothing with it. “I wonder sometimes if there’s something wrong with me.”

“Nothing’s wrong with Prom Night Barbie.”

“Maybe depends on the prom.”

Even washing my pits and chest vigorously, the gasoline smell cuts through the body wash. I’ll stink for days. “Stupid prick.”

“Whose prick?”

“He fuckin’ dowsed me in gasoline.”

“Like, on purpose?”

“Probably. Are you gonna get my back or not?”

“This soap has your pubes on it.”

“And now Mr. Duncan probably won’t ask me back. And I need all the jobs I can get.”

“I can pay your rent, y’know. It’s no biggie. I got the money.”

I grab a bottle, squirt shampoo onto my palm, then squish it into my hair. “Nah, I’m not moochin’ off of you like that.”

“You can mooch all you want.”

“Did I just put your weird-ass moisturizer shit in my hair?”

“Smells like candy.”

“Feels like tar.”

“I still think there’s something wrong with me.”

I turn. She’s still inspecting the bar of soap, lip wrinkled up. It always surprises me, how nothing seems to faze her, nothing at all disgusts her, like her whole life is this cartoon she’s just stumbling through in her high heels, hot pink lipstick, and wet-dream model looks. I haven’t known her long and it feels like we’ve been friends for years already. I know she’d ditch this apartment and follow me anywhere if she felt like it. Even getting a place here in Spruce was a spur of the moment thing. Every second of her life is a surprise.

I guess mine is, too. “Hey, Juni, listen, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re fine just like you are. Life has no rulebook.”

“I can see your penis.”

“We do whatever we want. Be whatever we want.”

“You’re always so nice to me.”

“So who cares what others think?”

“Should we go out tonight?” she asks. I don’t know if anything I said got through to her, but when I give a why-the-hell-not shrug, she says, “I’ll grab my pumps. You need another Band-Aid,” then saunters off. I touch my nose, reminded that it’s still there, and peel it off, flinging it out of the shower toward the trash can. Yes, it misses. As I rinse the mystery goop out of my hair, I realize she walked off with the soap. “Juni!” I call out. No answer. I hiss when goop gets in my eye. “ Lick a dick ,” I growl to myself as I rinse my face off in the stream while my eye stings something awful.

Thirty minutes later, Juni and I burst through the doors of the crowded Tumbleweeds. With one glance at us, the bartender rolls his eyes. As usual, Juni and I don’t care. Another ten minutes, we’re at the bar four drinks in, and I’m laughing my ass off at Juni, who keeps elaborating on how she wants to climb on top of the bartender’s face and how his mustache would tickle. I don’t know when it happens, but suddenly we’re at the jukebox dancing to Like A Virgin , and I don’t care who’s watching or rolling their eyes.

Besides, the place is plenty loud enough to drown us out. Must be no less than forty others in here, some chowing down on food at the tables by the front, others dancing like we are, the bar filled from one end to the other. It’s Saturday night, and in a small town like Spruce, you’ve only got so many options for entertainment before you’re banging your head against a horse’s ass in boredom.

When Juni and I have a night out, nothing can pull us down.

Not even—“Who in Hot Hell is that?” asks Juni.

Still dancing, I turn, following her line of sight. Four guys just walked in. Two of them I know. One of them I don’t.

As for the fourth … “You’re fuckin’ kidding me.”

Juni’s still watching them. Her dancing has become distracted. She has the attention span of a ferret. “Do you know them?”

I scowl, then turn away. “Forget ‘em, they’re nobody.”

“They’re too hot to be nobody.”

“Just forget ‘em.”

“Are they locals? Those two hotties?”

“Turd biscuits is what they are.”

“Okay.” She turns away and taps on the jukebox buttons, her face scrunching up as she fights through her blurry drunken eyes. “Is this in English? I can’t read anything.” A-ha’s Take On Me plays. “Oh, I know this one! Did I even pick this one? I dunno what I did.”

I dance distractedly with Juni, then catch myself turning back around to get a look at them. Cody and Trey, everyone in town knows who they are. But they’re accompanied by Captain Fuckface from the gas station and someone else. Are they friends of theirs? Neither Cody nor Trey have any out-of-town relatives that I know about, and they sure don’t look anything like them.

Then that pompous prick-o-potamus, appearing smug and full of himself, scans the room with his eyes—and catches me looking.

I quickly turn away. Juni’s gone into full dancing queen mode. I join her for a few seconds, but can’t get into it when I feel that jerk’s eyes all over my back. I turn again, ready to scowl at him or flip him the finger.

But he’s gone.

“I’m so sweaty … and crazy thirsty,” moans Juni. “Can I get … like, can you get me, I don’t know, something nice and hard?”

“Huh?” I grunt, distracted, as it’s now me scanning the room looking for that bastard.

“Nice and hard and bad . But also sweet, maybe? Like me?”

Then I spot him at the bar. How convenient. “Yeah,” I say, my blood burning hot, “I’ll get us somethin’ hard alright.”

“I have underboob sweat.”

I cut through the crowd heading straight for that man at the counter. Even from behind, you can tell he’s a dickhead. His tight jeans even make his ass look arrogant, like it’s the ass of a snobby, privileged kid at an Ivy League school blowing his parents’ money. He wears tight shirts, too, the sleeve-punishing kind, like he needs to announce to everyone that he works out. Who gives a shit? I sure don’t. And that stupid hair of his, styled so perfectly, parted at the side and swept over so it’s this fake balance of controlled and crazy. That shit doesn’t fool me. I know he spent an hour on that hair just to make it look like he spent ten seconds on it. He probably thinks he looks bad-ass, arms folded on the counter with his body leaning to the side just enough so the material of his shirt stretches over his back muscles, accentuating his broad shoulders that probably love to shove into people when he’s in a crowd.

I hate him so fucking much already.

When I reach the counter, I make no apologies when the side of my shoulder knocks into his as I flag down the bartender. “Hey, somethin’ nice and hard and sweet,” I call out, slapping a bill onto the counter, “and a little bad .” I put on a smirk, asserting my own authority over the bar as I deliberately ignore the dick—and the fact that I can feel his eyes burning the side of my face right now. He’s got those permanently half-closed bedroom eyes that look so damned conceited, like nothing can get to him. I hate his eyes the most. “Two of ‘em,” I decide to add. “Need one for my special gal .”

Special gal? I dunno. But I say it, probably like the equivalent of puffing up my chest in front of this douche canoe. Yeah, that’s right, I got a special gal, and she’s a bombshell, and I’m gettin’ the pair of us some super bad-ass drinks .

Try as I might to ignore it, I feel him staring with a fiery and unmistakable intensity. He looks like he tries to say something but stops. Or maybe he did say something and I didn’t hear it in all this noise. Did he say hey? Did he say sorry? Did he just confess that he does, in fact, have the world’s tiniest penis and is a fuck-wad?

“Nice and hard and sweet,” comes the bartender, sliding two glasses over the counter and snatching the cash.

My eyes drop to the drinks.

They have tiny umbrellas.

Lemon wheels sitting prettily on the rims.

Cute maraschino cherries bobbing in cream.

I look up. “The fuck are these?”

“What you ordered,” answers the bartender dryly, then sets a tray in front of the asshole with four large glasses of beer—manly and foaming and thick. “Here you go, sir.”

“Thanks,” says the guy, putting on a show of acting polite and dignified. But I know better. Then he has the audacity to hand the bartender cash and say, “Keep the change.”

I stare at those big glasses for his table, probably sucking up to the reverend of Spruce and his husband, planning to return to them with his manly beers, tight shirt, and stupid hair.

I can’t shake the indignant look he gave me at the gas station. With his superior, self-important eyes. Stick up his ass. Probably calling me backwater trash behind my back. Looking down on me like a stain beneath his boot.

My blood boils hotter, just thinking about it.

My breaths come quicker, too, quicker and tighter.

He’s still fidgeting with the glasses of beer, taking his sweet ass time, when I grab my own drinks and spin around forcefully.

And deliberately knock my glass into one of his.

Tipping his beer right over.

Spilling it all over the front of him.

“The fuck!” he shouts out, stepping back, jostling all the beers on the tray as he looks down at his soaked clothes. Beer all over the counter. All over the barstool. Dripping to the floor. He looks up at me, accusation in his eyes.

The best part is, I don’t even feel sorry.

“Oh, damn, shoot,” I exclaim in my phoniest voice. “So sorry, man. I totally didn’t mean to do that. I guess I just …” My eyebrows quirk up with amusement. “… don’t know how to operate beverages properly. Usin’ my actual hands is so last century . Dang, I sure wish someone could show me how to hold a fuckin’ beer .”

The outrage in his eyes.

His lips parted, breathing heavy, staring at me in disbelief.

What’s so hard to believe? That you’re untouchable? That you don’t deserve to be looked down on like the rest of us? That it’s okay for me to get drenched because of your stupidity and not the other way around? This guy is such a tool.

“Aw, damn,” I go on, my voice turning singsongy, “looks like it soaked straight down to your undies.” I shake my head. “Phew, tough titties, pal.” Then I clutch my drinks and go.

He doesn’t say a word. Not to my face. Not to my back. I just enjoy the gift of his scathing silence as I proudly strut through the crowd back to the jukebox. What a satisfying feeling it is, to get the last word in, to put a snob-job like him in his place. Already, my day’s better. I’m on top of the world. King of Spruce. A god.

“Here ya go, Dancin’ Queen Barbie,” I say, giving Juni a glass.

She stops dancing and looks at it. “Half of it’s gone.”

“Slight mishap, spilled a lil’, no biggie. Look, they’re cute, jus’ like you. Got little cherries in ‘em, too.”

“It’s bad luck to drink a drink that’s half a drink.” She kicks it back anyway. The lemon wheel slides off and slaps onto the floor. She doesn’t notice. “Is this a whiskey sour?”

“No fuckin’ clue.” I take a sip of mine as I start dancing again. “But I’m gonna down ten more of ‘em before the night’s over.”

“Good thing I’m not superficial …” she says, slurring slightly.

“Superstitious,” I correct her.

“… because this bad luck sure tastes nice.” She starts fishing the maraschino cherry out of the glass, spilling even more of it, the tiny umbrella bobbing next to her fingers about to go, too.

“Bad Luck Booze,” I decide to name it. It’s suddenly the most satisfying drink I’ve ever had. The tastiest. The manliest. What’s a cherry and a lemon wheel and a tiny umbrella got to indicate what makes a drink manly? I’ll drink fruity cocktails all damned night, I don’t care. I’ve got these cute-ass drinks to thank for flipping my shitty-ass day right back onto its proud feet.

That cocky out-a’-towner can suck it.