Beach Babe | The Outsiders | Johnny Cade

| Princess | 49 |

      As soon as we closed up Johnny showed up and went with me back to my house, where I quickly changed from a thermal shirt and DX button up to a tank top with a lavender sweater over it. I took the gun out from my waistband, put it under my pillow and grabbed my dad's old pocket knife. I put on some more makeup, sprayed some perfume, and redid my braid. I went downstairs back to Johnny and he told me I needed to drive to where the date was, we got in the car and he started giving me directions.

    We drove for about twenty minutes down several roads and then a dirt road that certainly slung dirt and mud all over my truck. I drove all the way up this hill that plateaued at the top and parked. We both got out and I looked around but didn't see anything set up anywhere.

   I looked at Johnny confused, he walked around to the bed of my truck and pulled the latch on the tailgate and reveled a bed in the bed of my truck. It was made of I think eight blankets and two pillows. I felt my face start to flush. A bed in the bed of my truck. In a secluded area. Far from home. Either he's planning on murdering me or something completely different.

"I figured we could sit and watch the sunset then lay down and look at the stars." He says with a smile. Ohhhh. Okay that makes sense.

I hug him and give him a peck on the cheek "That's so cute! When did you even set this up? How did I not notice?"

He got into the bed then helped me up into it "Theo helped me, we did it about thirty minutes after you dropped him off." We propped the pillows up behind us and leaned up against the car part of the truck. The view was really pretty, you could see a large portion of town, all the lights were so pretty, paired with the sunset it looked like a painting. "These are actually all your blankets, Theo said you wouldn't mind though."

"I don't mind! You can steal our shit if it turns out like this." Im still surprised I didn't notice. What was I doing thirty minutes after I dropped my brothers off? 

"Just kill it Steve!" I said from my position atop the counter.

"Gimme a second woman!" He came in from the garage "You couldn't get it?" He directed at Sodapop who was also on the counter with me.

"No. That thing is giant and I'm too pretty to be bitten and die." I would've laughed if there wasn't a black spider the size of a couple quarters running around. Steve took off his shoe and, once he found the spider, swatted at it several times. He wiped its guts off his shoe with a napkin then threw it away. I hate spiders.

"There you go Princess." He said

"I'm not a princess." I said getting off the counter.

Steve snickered "I wasn't talking about you."

     We watched the sunset in silence for a few minutes, I thought we could use some music so I hopped out quickly and found a suitable radio station then cranked the volume up and rolled down all the windows. I got back in and sat cuddled up with Johnny under a blanket.

    As the sun slipped past horizon the stars made their appearance. We laid down as the sky got darker, the stars were absolutely gorgeous.  I didn't know a lot of constellations, that was Richard's area of expertise. He could probably name every star and constellation in this whole sky. I used to hate how every time I even glanced at the stars he would rattle off some useless space fact, I miss it now.

Alright I'm just gonna tell him. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about August." I say

"What?"

"August. He was one of the ones who jumped you. I knew and I really should've told you. I was just really really scared you would hate me." I take in a shaky breath "I'm sorry."