Badd Read Online Free PDF

their little pink baby and thought of a sweet name like Brianna. Me, I never went in for that look myself because it seems so obvious that you’re trying to make people think you don’t care about not being pretty. But whatever helps Brianna make it through the day is all right with me.
    Still, there’s nothing she wants more than a boyfriend, but this guy who starts hitting on her at the party is not what she needs. Not at all. For one thing, he must be thirty years old, and for another, he has this pockmarked, smooshed-in face that makes him look like a bank robber with panty hose over his head. To top it off, he’s all proud about how he just came back from a year in jail for possession with intent.
    None of that matters to Brianna, though. She’s standing next to him at the kitchen counter, giggling and playing touchy-touchy and trading hits off a blunt. I try to get her to come outside so I can talk some sense into her, but she pushes me away and goes, “Just because Tillman’s found himself a slut, don’t start trying to ruin my time.”
    I don’t know what hurts more—that Tillman really is hitting on some tramp or that Brianna went out of her way to say the meanest thing she could to me.
    It’s a fact, though. Tillman’s latched on one of the out-of-towners. She looks like she’s thirty too, but she’s probably really only about twenty-four. She’s just lived hard. Has a skeleton figure and gray teeth that you’d swear could fall out on the orange carpet any second. An absolute skank. It wouldn’t surprise me if she worked part-time hooking at the truck stop by the interstate.
    This is what I can’t understand. What attracts a guy to one girl and not another? Why does he fumble around with someone he knows doesn’t have any staying power when there’s someoneelse right across the room who’s mooned over him practically her whole life? No way is this girl even better-looking than me. Sure, she’s thin, but as far as I’m concerned she’s downright ugly, and I don’t mean just physically. She has an ugly spirit too. You can see it in the droop of her eyelids and the slant of her mouth. Still, there Tillman is brushing her hair back and kissing her neck like she’s the love of his life while his beer sloshes down his pants leg.
    I go to the kitchen, get a beer, and stand there staring at this stupid wall hanging with all these corny sayings about how to be happy on it:
    Dance in the moonlight
    Blow on a dandelion
    Kiss a kitten
    Play with a baby
    Bite the bottom out of an ice cream cone
    Run in the purple clover
    Say I love you
    Not a single word anywhere about taking a handful of OxyContin and hitting the bong.
    “Hey, Ceejay.” It’s Jace. He has a look on his face like he just came out of a coma. “What’s going on?”
    “Nothing. Just admiring the artwork.”
    He grins at me and narrows his eyes. He thinks he’s a cocksman. “You know, there’s something about you. You ever think about maybe wearing some makeup?”
    “Why? Do you think I’m a clown or something?”
    “What?” He’s too much of a moron to get the joke.
    “Nothing,” I say. “I heard Sophie Lowell was supposed to be here.”
    “Sophie Lowell’s a pain in the ass.” He takes a drink of beer. “So, Dani tells me your brother’s in Iraq.”
    “He was. He’ll be coming home pretty soon.”
    He leans against the counter and runs his hand through his mop of thick brown hair. “Yeah,” he said, “I thought about joining the marines, shipping over, and kicking some hajji ass.”
    “So why didn’t you, then?”
    “I don’t like taking orders. I still might go over there, though. Recruit some of my buddies, get us some assault rifles, and do our own private commando deal. Shit, we’d take Baghdad in a day.”
    “I don’t think they allow private commandos over there unless they’re part of some big corporation.”
    “Hey, I’m not gonna ask for permission.”
    “Well, but I think the military would