Page 17 of The Prettiest Outlaw

I looked down at the white tee I was sporting and had to smirk. If there was one thing about me that I couldn’t deny, it was my love for lifting weights.

I was born big. At birth, I tipped the scales at almost ten pounds and from there it had been up. I was a short, stocky kid who hit a growth spurt during my freshman year of high school, and I morphed into a chubby teen.

Around my sixteenth birthday, the weight started to fall off. As soon as my frame was out from under the chub, I realized that muscle definition was right there. I decided that if I was going to be a “big guy” all of my life, I preferred to be big with muscles as opposed to the opposite.

“There’s not much I can do about that. You’re gonna have to try to ignore it.” I made my pectoral muscles jump one at a time.

We both laughed. Seeing her laugh reminded me that it was the first time I’d seen her do that in a while.

Gianni Outlaw with his Italian stallion, pretty boy, multicultural, Casanova ass had fathered three of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. Jia and Jianna were beautiful women, but neither of them could touch Julianna as far as I was concerned. She was most definitely the prettiest Outlaw.

“What’s up?” I repeated.

“I wanna go to church with you.” She blurted out the sentence so fast that it took me a minute to process what she actually said.

I cocked my head to the side. “You wanna go to church with me?”

“Yeah.” She sighed then nervously fingered the strands of her hair. “Yeah, umm…I need to get…centered. I feel like I’m floating through life, not really tethered to anything. This might sound stupid or…I don’t know…crazy, but I need like a…home base. I need somewhere I can touch down.”

I nodded slowly, before speaking—before smirking. “And when you think of church, you think of me?”

My question made her laugh again. I could see the relief on her face. Her facial features and even her shoulders relaxed when she realized that I wasn’t going to make things tough for her or awkward.

“No, not really. I was talking to my sister, and she said that Langston mentioned that you were your mom’s designated driver to church every Sunday.” She looked down for a minute. “You know…we were raised Catholic. I never found St. Monica’s very…churchy. I need to be somewhere that I can be fed. Anyway, I’m hoping I can bum a ride or that you’ll give me directions or something.”

A million thoughts ran through my mind. Julianna, the party girl, was asking to bum a ride to church. She was sitting in front of my desk, acting shy and meek, looking to attend church with me. This was not the Julianna I had met a few years ago. This was a completely different Julianna, and I hadn’t noticed. I wondered if her sisters had noticed…if her friends had noticed.

“Yeah, I’m the designated driver. Church starts at eight o’clock. I’ll come through to get you at seven.” I paused, awaiting her reaction to the pick-up time.

She didn’t give me a reaction.

“What’s the dress code?” She fidgeted with her hands in her lap.

I took a second to think about how to describe the way I saw people dressed at the church.

“It’s very uh…come as you are? The older crowd is the older crowd. The men are in suits or slacks and a button up, the women are in skirts or dresses. But I see just as many people in jeans or what have you. Whatever you wanna wear is cool.”

“Okay.” She finally stopped the fidgeting. “How’s your mom? Bunny mentioned that she was in the hospital.”

It took me a second to remember that her family referred to her sister, Jianna, as Bunny.

“She was. She’s out now.”

“Well, I hope she’s on the mend. Tell her I said hello. I really like your mom. She’s the sweetest. No shade to your father, but Coe’s dirty ass has really good taste in women. Between your mother and Natalya Hill, he’s one lucky bastard.”

I sniggered. “You have a point.”

Since connecting with my half-brothers, I’d had the opportunity to meet their mother, Mrs. Hill. Julianna was right. She was beautiful. I figured that she had to be in her early sixties, but she had the looks of a woman twenty years younger. She was kind, sweet, and nurturing. She cut Briscoe off, but she was accepting of all of the children he’d created outside of their marriage. She was a gem and so was my mother. Briscoe Hillwasone lucky bastard.

Kayla hit me on the office intercom and let me know that Khalil had pulled Julianna’s truck into the first work bay.

“Your truck’s ready.”

She didn’t look happy about that or even relieved.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. I have mixed feelings about my truck. I mean, knowing the state it was in when you rescued it from the chop shop...” Her shoulders bounced up and down in a stiff shrug.

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