Bandit Bound: A Bad Boy Romance Novel (16 page)

Savannah was still smiling at her miniature acts of rebellion when the sirens started to blare behind her.

Shit
.

She pulled over to the side of the road and anticipated the worst.
Do they know he was with me? Did he sell me out? Why would he do that?
The thoughts passed through her head rapidly. Her hands shook and she started to sweat. Savannah's heart raced once more. Strangely, she smiled again.

The officer knocked on her still-closed driver side window. She rolled it down quickly.

"Can I help you, officer?" she asked with a pained grin on her face. Internally, she was screaming.

"You could take this," he said, handing a piece of paper to her. It was a speeding ticket.

"Oh," Savannah said as she looked at it.
Is that it?
She thought hopefully. Her happiness at it being a speeding ticket betrayed her and the police officer became suspicious.

"You look awfully happy to have just gotten a speeding ticket," he remarked bitterly. Savannah's faced snapped from grinning to pale when she realized what she had been subconsciously doing.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. He looked at her, waiting for a further answer. "It sounds stupid, but I just got a new boyfriend and I guess I'm just really excited and that's probably why I was speeding, I'm really sorry," she added, once again coming up with a somewhat-convincing lie in a brief amount of time.
This is fun
, she thought. The officer looked at her skeptically for a moment and then broke out into laughter.

"Well there's a school zone ahead, so keep your excitement off the road and drive like a normal person, okay? I'm not kidding around," he said sternly after recomposing himself.

"Of course, I'm really sorry, I never speed it's just one of those days," she said with puppy-dog eyes looking at him.
It's not going to get rid of the ticket,
she thought.

"Okay," he said. He shook his head at her in mild disappointment and walked back to his cruiser.

Well, that could have gone a lot worse
, Savannah thought. She drove under the speed limit the rest of the way, too nervous to try anything again. She felt like she'd been given a second chance, that that could have been it; she could have been found and arrested for housing a wanted fugitive.

A second chance
, she thought. The words made her smile as she pulled into her driveway.

15

The walls of Savannah's home seemed duller than they were just a few days ago. The feeling was so strong that for a moment, she thought that something had happened to them. Plus, despite the hot weather outside which had considerably warmed from the morning, the house still felt cold. It felt like the bank. The angles of the walls bothered Savannah again.
It's all so pointy
, she thought.
That sounds so... daft, but it's true
, she added to herself. There was something about the way the corners of the square rooms lined up that was driving her crazy.

"I wish I could live in a hut, or something," she said out loud to the empty room. Surprising her, there was a response; a frantic chirping. Almost a scream. It was coming from upstairs.

What the hell is that?

Savannah rushed upstairs to go see what the noise was. As she approached the closed door of her room, she heard rapid fluttering and chirping coming from her room. She very slowly turned the door knob and opened the door. A blurry flash of motion flew past her face, to which she screamed and swatted at.

"God damn it," she yelled out. There was a bird perched on the top of her closet door. It looked exactly the same as the bird that was at her windowsill earlier that day.
Is that the same bird? I thought it flew away
, she thought.

It looked at her briefly and then all over the word. It frantically flapped its wings around the room once more, scaring Savannah again as it tried to find a way out of the room.

"You idiot, you're not supposed to be in here," she said to the bird scoldingly. She crouched and tried to walk past the bird to the window so as not to scare it. At this, she failed. The bird flew towards her in a panic. Not wanting to hurt it, Savannah had no choice but to duck and cover her head.
It's not like it can hurt you
, she thought.
But it's so... frantic, I can't deal with this
, she added to herself. She quickly darted over to the window and yanked it open.

"Go! Go!" She hollered. "Get out! You're not supposed to be in this house! Go be free! Go be a bird!" she pleaded with the feathered critter. It stared at her, scared and confused.

"Go! Shoo!" Savannah repeated herself. She moved her hands towards the bird in a backhand sweeping motion. The bird, at last, flew out of the window and off into the fading sun. "Jesus," she added.

Knock knock
. Savannah snapped her head to the door of her bedroom at the noise.

"Who's there?" she said loudly as she started to walk back out of the bedroom. She stopped herself midway through to run back to the window and close it.
Don't want that dumb bird to get back in here
, she thought.

Knock knock!

"Coming!" Savannah yelled as she ran down the stairs.
Glad I haven't changed into my pyjamas
, she thought. She slid on her socks across the hardwood floor towards the door and managed to gracefully slide right to the handle which she swiftly opened.

Lily's smiling visage greeted her.

"Oh my God!" Savannah said in excitement and hugged her. Lily laughed as they embraced. A paper bag was in her hand and its crinkling brought Savannah's attention. "I see you've brought me offerings," she joked.

"So fast to notice," Lily remarked. Savannah turned around and quickly walked back into the house, leaving the door open for her friend. She walked in and looked around.

"Come, come," Savannah said as Lily stood inside the entrance to the house.

"Did you paint?" she asked, looking around slightly confused. Savannah laughed.

"Yeah, I had time to paint the whole house," she joked back.

"It looks different," Lily said.

"How?"

"It's like, greyer?" Lily said. Savannah turned her head at Lily's astute observation. She looked at the walls once more and noted that they really did seem faded compared to just even a few days ago. The whole house seemed somehow darker as well, now.

"You noticed it too?" Savannah asked intently.

"So, you did paint it?" Lily asked as she looked completely lost.

"No, I didn't, but it looks greyer to me too. Maybe the old paint is fading?" Savannah said.

"Yeah, maybe. You
should
paint, it looks like crap," Lily said with a big teasing grin on her face.

"No, I should move," Savannah said.
Why did I say that?
She thought. It just blurted out of her.

"Oh yeah? You're going to move?" she asked as the two of them made their way to a couch in the living room.

"No, I don't know, I've just had a bad time recently," Savannah said in an attempt to negate her subconscious bursting to the foreground.

"No shit," Lily said. Savannah laughed.

"Very true. So what's in the bag?" Savannah asked excitedly. Lily unsheathed the bottle from its paper bag and Savannah squinted to read the text on it.

"Your favorite," Lily said confidently. Savannah smiled wide upon reading it.

"Ahh, Big Bear!" she exclaimed as she groped the bottle of zinfandel. It was a little cold to the touch.

"You don't have to give it a dirty nickname," Lily joked, since Big Bear was the brand name of the wine.

"Shut up," Savannah said with a smile. "So why the drop-in?" she asked.

"I haven't seen you in forever and you keep getting kidnapped so I figured I wouldn't bother trying to set a date with you. So I just dropped in! Surprise! It's your friend, Lily!" she said. Savannah laughed again, this time harder than the last.

"Well thanks, this is exactly what I needed," Savannah said as she leaned back into her chair. An oscillating fan in the room blew cool air over the two which they savored.

"So how's it been going?" Lily asked as she popped the cork out of the wine and poured two glasses.

"Don't be mad," Savannah said, ready to confess what had happened the night before.

"Well now I'm already mad," Lily joked and proceeded to laugh at her own joke.

"He was here," she said meekly. She was as embarrassed as she was excited about the entire ordeal; especially talking about it. Lily's eyes widened as far as humanly possible and her mouth opened in jaw-dropping fashion.

"Like, here, where I'm sitting?" she asked.

"Well, he didn't sit there," Savannah said smiling.

"Up there?" she said, pointing towards the bedroom. Savannah blushed. "Oh my God! Are you serious?" Lily asked.

"Yes! He broke out of prison," she said. She wasn't sure how to say it and there was a part of her that simply didn't care how it sounded anymore. So the excitement shone through her words. She was somewhat proud.

"And then you guys banged?" Lily asked. Savannah rolled her eyes but her smile betrayed her sass. "You banged the fugitive! Oh my God!" Lily yelled out.

"Lily! Be quiet! I have neighbors!" Savannah said, scared that someone would overhear the conversation and call the police on her.

"Oh shit, sorry," Lily said reading into the rest of Savannah's meaning as she took a sip of the wine.

"Yeah," Savannah said. She was still smiling. It was nice to be able to confess to someone that she could really trust, who wasn't the person she had illegally harbored and slept with in her own home.

"Isn't that, you know, crazy illegal?" Lily asked. Savannah looked down and fidgeted her thumbs on her wine glass before taking a large sip.

"Pretty much," she confessed. "So obviously this is a secret," she said.

"No way," Lily said in a serious tone.

"What?"

"I'm totally posting this all over the Internet. My Best Friend, the Fugitive Fucker! My BF, the FF! BFFF! Everyone's gonna go nuts!" she said with wild eyes.

"You're joking, right?" Savannah said. Her heart was about to burst out of her chest; she was extremely nervous.

"I'm dead serious. I'm going to get so many likes. I'm going to get so many hits," Lily said as she made a daydreaming face pointed at the ceiling. Savannah looked at her in confusion in terror.

"Obviously I'm joking, you idiot!" she said, snapping out of her act and pushing Savannah lightly on the shoulder. Not expecting it, Savannah fell back a bit into her chair from the push and a small splash of wine flew from her glass and spilled on the couch. "Oh shit, sorry," Lily said wincing.

"You scared the shit out of me," Savannah said with a frown.

"You really think I'd do something like that to you?" Lily asked.

"No, but I mean, it's just all too intense," she replied, feeling regret at doubting her best friend.

"Okay," Lily said. She seemed a little hurt that Savannah took her joke so seriously.

"He asked me to come with him," Savannah said. Lily's eyes widened again.