After Andy (#6 in the 'Outcast' Series)

Chapter 60

Chapter 60:

"Nine in the morning feels really fucking early right now," Brian said as he grabbed his hoodie, putting it on and pushing the hood off. "By the way, it's cold outside today, so if I were you I'd make sure I was wearing something warm."

"Note taken."

Brian gave a nod, making sure he had everything as I put a jacket on, grabbing my phone and making sure that I hadn't missed any calls or messages from Juliet. It would probably take me a bit to stop worrying about her so much.

"So we've got a couple hours before we have to meet up with everyone else," Brian said, checking his messages as well as I looked to him. "So I thought we could go just walk around for a bit, see what's where and maybe buy a couple of useless things."

"Sounds like a good plan to me," I said, phone now in pocket as I made sure I had the second room key-card in case one of us had to come back. "I'm sure I can find Juliet something over the course of the next few weeks."

Brian gave a nod and headed over to the door, me following. We both left the room, the door shutting and locking behind us. Brian took it upon himself to start walking and I quickly caught up, not wanting to get left behind.

"You ever been here before?" I asked as we waited for the elevator to get to the level we were on.

"Twice; this' the third time I've been here," Brian said as he put his hands in his pockets. "Once in summer and once in winter. It's getting very close to winter right now and I don't particularly like it because it gets cold here. Dunno how people put up with the constant cold."

"You'd probably get used to it if you lived here."

Brian gave a shrug as the elevator reached our level; we both got in and Brian pressed the button for the ground level. Neither of us said a word until we got out of the elevator and headed to the front doors of the hotel.

"So where to first?" I asked as we exited, the cold automatically hitting the two of us; I could see that Brian was a bit uncomfortable. "Also, if you knew that it was cold outside, why the ripped jeans?"

"Sometimes you've gotta make sacrifices for fashion," was Brian's response. "And fashion can be a real bitch."

He indicated for me to walk with him as he began moving off to his left, clearly cold. I couldn't really argue with his reasoning; I'd done it many times back home when it got cold.

"Now," Brian said, making me glance at him as we walked, a few groups of people passing by us. "I have a question for you today."

"Sure," I said, glancing at him again as I avoided a couple of people. "What do you wanna know?"

"Seeing as I told you the forbidden truth earlier on this morning, I wanna hear your side of it," Brian said, turning down one of the streets. "How'd you deal with it? I'm sure it hit you harder than it hit Matt, so how'd you get through it when it happened?"

"Why'd you wanna know?" I asked, following him wherever he was going; by the looks of it, the mall was just up ahead and that was where he was going.

"Because it's Wednesday morning and I'm curious."

I sighed. "Is it because I asked about Matt yesterday?"

"Honestly?" Brian said. "Yes. I told you something personal about someone, now you get to return the favour by telling me what I wanna know."

I sighed again, knowing that there wasn't any way that I was getting out of telling him what he needed to know. He had a point; he did tell me something that I'd wanted to know and now it was only fair that I told him what he wanted to know.