Free Ready To Go by Stephanie Mann Page A

tomorrow.”
    “If you’re sure,” she said.
    An hour later, as they were on the tour, Daniel had his arms crossed over his chest, his hands rubbing against his arms to keep warm.
    “You want my sweater?” Nicole asked.
    He glanced at the sweater she was wearing, a white cotton one with a butterfly embroidered on it. “I don’t think so.”
    She laughed. “You want to skip the rest of the tour and go inside somewhere?”
    “I just want to get drunk,” he muttered.
    “You’re driving,” she pointed out. “I could get drunk, though, if you see a bar anywhere.” He pointed to one sitting just across the street from the tour group, and she laughed again. “Oh. Okay.”
    “You’re sure you want to skip the tour?” he asked.
    “It’s kind of terrible,” she said in a low voice so the tour guide wouldn’t hear. “Let’s ditch them.”
    So when the group went to look at yet another ‘haunted’ graveyard that just happened to have a few gravestones from before 1940, the two headed across the street into the bar. Nicole asked for something sweet, and the bartender gave her a hard glare. “ID?”
    She just smiled and reached into her pants pocket, pulling out a small wallet. She flipped it open to show her license. “I get this a lot. I’m young and I don’t know the names of drinks yet.” The bartender just peered at the license and nodded.
    “I’ll have a beer. Any good local kinds here?” Daniel asked, holding out his license. The bartender didn’t bother looking at him, just reached under the counter and grabbed a bottle of something labeled Grain Belt for Daniel before making Nicole’s drink.
    “Hey, you’re driving,” she said, all traces of a smile gone from her face.
    “I’ll call a cab,” he promised. “I don’t know where we are anyway. We’re close to Des Moines, I’m pretty sure, since we went south after the mall, so they must have cabs out here.”
    The bartender placed Nicole’s drink in front of her, some sort of fruity colorful thing, and then eyed Daniel. “Going to pay now or start a tab?”
    “I’ll do a tab,” he replied, pulling out his debit card and handing it to the bartender.
    “Just so you know,” Nicole said, “I don’t hold my drinks too well. I may do some crazy things. Or throw up on you.”
    “Got it,” Daniel said, taking a swig of his beer. “Do you throw up often?”
    She shook her head. “I’m still learning my limit, though. I mean, I live, I mean, lived at home, so I don’t go to parties. And I definitely don’t get drunk with my parents.” She never wanted to get drunk around her parents, anyways. It was weird to get as super giggly and crazy as she did and her dad was right there. Eugh. She took a long sip of her fruity drink.
    “I’ll stop you before the vomit,” he promised.
    It didn’t seem like much long later that Nicole was laughing raucously and close to falling off her seat. She kept trying to show off some dance move, but kept forgetting she wasn’t standing.
    She called over to the bartender for another drink, and that’s when Daniel stepped in. “She’s definitely had enough. Can you call us a cab?”
    The bartender nodded, and made the call while Daniel tried to get Nicole outside. She stubbornly refused to stand up, so as he was too drunk to argue with her, he just wrapped his arm around her waist and hoisted her out of her seat. She really wasn’t that heavy. At some point he managed to get his credit card back, but he was afraid to know just how much he’d spent.
    “Put me down!” she cried, though she giggled with her words. She swung her legs around, but didn’t actually kick him.
    “Will you actually walk?” he asked.
    She let out an exaggerated sigh and a drawn out, “Yeeeees.”
    Daniel set the girl on the floor, but kept his hand around her arm to make sure she would actually follow him out the door. The cab was already outside waiting for them, so all he needed to do was open the door for her and