Page 9 of Outlaw

She frowns adorably and shakes her head. “No,” she replies. I sigh, but she’s not done yet. “Claire and Christian.”

“Nah.” I grin. “Christian and Claire sounds better.”

“Sounds better for what?” she replies, turning her back on me. “We starting a band or something?”

She’s wearing those weird patterned yoga pants that look like handkerchiefs or something and make girls’ asses look good, even if they’re not. But Claire’s ass makes my fucking jaw drop and my cock go rock hard. It jiggles just right as she walks around the room, examining my things. I’m amazed no one found this place while I was gone and broke in, but I’m more amazed by her.

I’m trying to figure out whether or not she’s wearing panties when she turns and glances back at me.

“So what is this place?” she asks. “Are you a prepper?”

“A what?”

“A prepper,” she repeats. “You know, one of those guys who thinks the world is going to end and he has to be ready for it?”

I chuckle and head to the sink to wash my hands. “No, not a prepper. I used to live here actually.”

“Live here?” she replies, a somber tone in her voice.

“It wasn’t that bad,” I say as I dry off.

“Yeah, it’s kind of homey,” she agrees.

“When you grow up hard, you gotta make do.”

“Did you…not have parents?” she asks. But as soon as the question’s out of her mouth, she shakes her head and waves her hands. “Sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that. It was rude.”

“No, it’s fine,” I tell her. “And no, I didn’t. Not really. They were abusive. I left eventually. Roughed it for a while until I landed with the Red Lions.”

That gets her attention. She looks at me like I just told her I was Michael Myers.

“You—”

“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I left on my own when they started…doing things like they were trying to do to you tonight.”

“I should have listened to you,” she whispers, hanging her head. “It didn’t feel right, but…I needed the money.”

“Always listen to your gut,” I tell her. “If you’d drank that drink, you wouldn’t remember the rest of the night. You’d wake up in one of those rooms and…well, let’s not talk about it. It’s just awful.”

I walk over to the old fridge, that to my surprise, is still running. This place still has electricity; the town must have missed it when they decommissioned this place. I open the door and see that I actually left a few grape sodas in there before I left. I grab one and offer it to her.

“You like grape soda?”

She gives me an odd look. “Grape soda?”

“Oh, come on…” I scoff. “You’re not gonna tell me you’ve never had grape soda, are you?”

Christ, has this girl spent her whole life locked up in a tower like Rapunzel or something?

“Is it good?” she asks.

“Good?” I laugh, handing her one. “It’s the best soda there is. Come on. We’ll have one together.”

I slump down on the old futon and crack my can open. It takes her a second, but she takes a seat beside me. The place is musty, but her scent overpowers it all. She’s wearing some sort of perfume; it’s subtle, but I can still smell her underneath it, and it’s got me all worked up.

She cracks her can and I raise mine to her. We do a silly toast and both take a sip. Her eyes light up.

“Wow, it is good!”

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