Page 69 of The Outsider

He looked confused for a second. “No, I didn’t,” he said. “I walked out to the parking lot at the same time she did.”

Bix blinked in confusion. “You didn’t... I mean... It looked like...”

“No,” he said. “I was just ready to leave and so was she.”

She felt enraged. Betrayed. Because she wasn’t crazy and he’d definitely left with her, and now he was acting like she was making things up when she had been very upset and torpedoed her date that was already sucking. But she could blame him.

“You were holding her hand,” she pointed out.

“We know each other,” he said, with a maddening lack of real explanation.

“You know each other?” she echoed.

“Yes,” he said.

“I... You...” He didn’t casually holdherhand. Or any other woman’s. And for some reason she felt doggedly determined to prove she just wasn’t wrong. “You’ve slept with her before, haven’t you?”

He frowned. “What does that have to do with...?”

“Youhave,” she accused.

“I haven’t—” she nearly breathed a sigh of relief “—in the last year.”

Of course he’d slept with her before. She thought of how he’d held that woman when they’d danced. She was right for him. Tall, confident. Closer to his age. The way he’d looked at her, and where he’d looked at her, had spoken of attraction. Certainly an attraction he didn’t feel for Bix.

And why would he? He probably sees you as a rescue animal.

Her own thoughts wounded her.

“Right. So why didn’t you sleep with her tonight?” she asked.

“Just because youcandoesn’t mean you always want to,” he said.

She was under the impression men always wanted to. And he wasn’t making any sense.

“Whatever,” she said, jerking the microwave open and taking out her pizza.

“Where’s Michael?”

“We’re just friends,” she said, picking up the pizza and taking a vicious bite. Dammit. It was too hot. The cheese stuck to the roof of her mouth, and it was like having a red-hot coal held against her flesh.

Argh.

She did her best to keep her face stoic.

“Is that a good thing or bad thing?” he asked, leaning against the kitchen doorframe.

“Fine. My decision,” she said.

“Really?”

She shrugged. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you want to, Daughtry.”

She leaned against the counter and stuffed the rest of the pizza in her mouth, her eyes watering from the heat. She was determined to not act bothered. But she had a feeling she only seemed more bothered as a result.

Bix felt itchy.

“So she’s your ex-girlfriend?” she asked, trying to make her tone casual.

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