Page 99 of Thug

I wonder if Price wants a family. Price can’t have a family, he’s a criminal.

What if he wasn’t a criminal?

Will he always be a criminal, or will he grow out of it? He’s forty and he hasn’t grown out of yet. You better get used to it, Gray.

I love it when Price holds me in his arms. I love his cock. I like those jeans he wore yesterday. I wonder why he hasn’t ever worn them before then?

I wonder what it would be like to wake up next to him every day? To have dinner waiting for him when he got home. Does he come home every night? Late dinners aren’t so bad.

I do not want to get fat.

They say it’s a bad idea to eat after eight o’clock. I bet it’s just bullshit. It probably doesn’t matter. I hope the waitress works out. I wonder what we’re going to do about eating? Maybe Price has some snacks in his little leather bag.

My back is killing me.

Beep…beep…beep.

I had no idea what I was going to talk about. I opened my eyes and looked at Price. “You go first.”

“Alright,” he said. “I might seem like I’m a pretty good guy, I don’t know. But, you need to know that I’m not. Sooner or later, I’m going to do something shitty to someone. You need to know that.”

“That’s what you came up with?”

“I was just trying to be honest with myself. That’s what I though of.” He shrugged. “Figured I’d make it clear.”

“When you do something shitty, the recipient deserves it, right?”

He nodded. “Always.”

“Is that all you came up with?”

“All that matters,” he responded. “What about you?”

I felt like an idiot. I had nothing. “Are you always going to be a criminal?”

He looked at me like I’d called him a child molester. “I’m not a criminal.”

I was thoroughly confused. “You’re not?”

“I’m an outlaw,” he said in a prideful tone.

“What’s the difference?”

“A criminal life consists of committing crimes. It’s what they do. I’m an outlaw—a man who lives by his own laws, outside the boundaries of the written law. I do what I feel is right, and in doing it, I may commit a crime. Understand, however, that I’m not a criminal.”

“I think I understand.”

He looked me over with narrow eyes. “Do you?”

“If I have you tend bar for me one night, it doesn’t make you a bartender. If you changed the tire on my Pathfinder, it doesn’t make you an auto mechanic. You might commit a crime. Your not a criminal.”

He smirked. “Keep repeating that to yourself when you go to sleep at night until you believe it.”

“To tell you the truth,” I said. “It really doesn’t matter.”

“Why’s that?” he asked.

“Because,” I said. “You’re a good person, deep down inside. Where it counts.”