Page 37 of The Outsider

“Have I done anything disrespectful?” he asked.

He hadn’t. And she realized they were in a small, and closed bedroom, and he hadn’t made any sort of untoward moves. She had a feeling he saw her more as a stray puppy than a woman, but then, she also knew that attraction wasn’t what made men behavethat way. It was their desire to control somebody. Well, and to get off. But that wasn’t a particularly flattering thing.So, she wasn’t insulted that he wasn’t making any moves toward her.

And maybe he was right; it should be more of a commendation to his character than she was allowing it to be. Or maybe that wasn’t even what he meant. Maybe he meant that he had this ranch. This house. That he had enough not just for himself, but enough to share. Bix had never been able to practice that level of generosity because she’d never even had enough for herself.

“I want pizza.”

“I’ll get us a pizza. It’ll take me about an hour.”

She wondered if she should feel guilty about that. She didn’t. Instead, when he retreated from the bedroom and closed the door behind him she felt a sense of relief.

She wasn’t going to stay here. It was... She had to admit that it was nice of him. To do all of this. He wasn’t trying to get anything out of her. She had to concede that too, because if he had wanted her to pay him back, he would have made his move long before now. Unless he was trying to fatten her up.

She snickered. Maybe he was like one of those witches with the candy house. Maybe he wanted to bake her into a pie. Honestly, that would track with the trajectory of her life.

A Norman conqueror who took her captive, not to chain her to a bed... but to plump her up like a goose for a Sunday meal.

She looked over at her box of books. Then glared at them. “You haven’t helped me at all. You’ve given me unrealistic expectations.”

She sat on the edge of the bed and let out a hard breath as she looked around the room. She would collect her paycheck next week. It would be more than enough for the new starter, and she would continue on her way. She didn’t need to listen to him.

She didn’t need for him to get in her head. It wasn’t possible for her to go back. It was impossible for her to claim even one piece of that silly little dream that she had spouted out to him.

A dream.

A handful of stardust.

A brick. It didn’t matter.

She didn’t have any of it.

And there was no use crying over spilt moonshine.

Chapter Eight

She got paid at the end of the week, but she didn’t leave. She told herself that she would. Every day. It was strange, acclimating to living with someone else. A man. A rather large one who rambled about the space with firm, decisive movements. He made breakfast; he went off to work. She spent the day doing whatever Denver, Justice or Landry assigned her to do. They usually ate at the ranch house, with everybody.

She was still wary of the women, because she didn’t quite know how to relate to them. In her world, the only women around were sleeping with the various men who helped her dad make moonshine, and there was a very clear line between them and Bix. Drawn mostly by them. She was one of the workers. They weren’t.

There was no such line here at King’s Crest. It was equitable, and easy, but still, she was more comfortable with the three men she spent most of the day working with than she was with the women. Though every night part of her ached to figure out how to join their conversation. But she never really had friends, and she didn’t know how to go making them.

There were some moments with just Daughtry, but she found she liked him better when they had a buffer between them.

Denver and the other guys never asked her about her dreams. They applauded her when she climbed the barn. They were excessively complimentary about her carpentry skills, and they made sure to praise her profusely over the different suggestions she made for how to fix things on the cheap. They were easier than Daughtry.

They cursed regularly, they liked to tell stories, and that kept conversation light and easy. And best of all, impersonal.

The new roofing shingles came in, and she ended up getting started on that project. And once that week ended, she didn’t feel like she could abandon it without seeing it through. And then once it went into part of the following week, it just didn’t seem like she ought to leave in the middle of the week.

Every night, she lay down in her bed and looked up at the ceiling. And told herself it ought to be the last night she went to sleep in that bed.

She fantasized about getting up in the morning and asking Daughtry to cut her check for the work from the previous few days, and getting on her way.

She was squirreling away quite a bit of cash at this point. It was way more than she needed for a new starter. It was starting to be a respectable amount for...

A lot of things.

The Kings paid well, and her room and board was included. She was beginning to find her feet in a way that she never had the opportunity to do before.

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