reckless 【 the outsiders 】

sixteen.

"Leigh-Ann Autumn Sawyer is home," Leigh shouted, poking her head out of her door frame.

"Leigh-Ann?" Dallas questioned, quietly.

"That's my full name, they call me that when they're in a good mood."

"You got a guest?" Her father asks from the living room, where he was taking off his shoes and putting up his jacket and keys.

"Yeah, remember Dallas?"

"Nope."

She rolled her eyes and looked at Dally who looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable. He hadn't really thought about what meeting her father meant, it was more of a spur of the moment decision that he'd come up with earlier. What would he say? How would he act? Is it Mr. Sawyer? What's his first name anyway? What would there be to talk about?

"I'll just leave," Dallas tried whispering to Leigh. He hadn't realized that her father had been close enough to hear them and seeing the slightly larger man who looked vaguely similar to the girl he considered his girlfriend, resting mean face included, made him that much more uneasy.

"How come?" The man begins, a scowl still on his face, "Think you're too cool to meet the parent? I'm a rebel, I ain't gotta meet no broad's daddy."

"That's not why, dad," Leigh mumbled, giving her father a quick side hug.

"You gonna tell me what you're doin' here, son? In my daughter's room?" He asks with an eyebrow raised, "Or was you just gonna stand there?"

"I was just leavin'." Leigh almost got annoyed again. She wanted her dad to like Dallas and she knew he would if they'd just sit together. Not to mention, her father would grow even less patient the longer he put it off. It wasn't hard to understand, though: she knew Winston liked her a great deal and he'd never met a girl's parents, she figured he was scared. She let him be awkward for now.

"What's the rush, son?"

"What?"

Leigh could feel the extreme embarrassment for both her and Dallas in this situation and shifted anxiously while her father looked her boyfriend up and down while leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed and an expression Leigh wasn't used to. "Dad? Are you just gonna stand there?"

"Well, I ain't gonna leave y'all here. Alone, in your room."

"How about the front room, then?" she suggests, motioning for Dallas to leave her room. It took a moment before he could get out of his head long enough to realize she was telling him to leave the room but he noticed and left in front of her. She closed her room door while listening to her father complain.

"How about you go to the front room and he goes out the front door?"

She chuckled, Leigh was sure he'd heard her dad and rolled her eyes. "Be nice, will you?"

"I ain't gotta be nice to some kid. You can barely even say you're goin' steady if he ain't met me yet." She agreed but made sure to tell him he'd never really met parents before. She practically begged him to be nice. "Just 'cause you asked, Leigh-Ann."

"Dad, I asked you to stop calling me that."

"Well, I asked you not to get a boyfriend 'til you was twenty-five." He kissed her forehead and she giggled at the slight feeling of his mustache tickling her skin before he disappeared into his room. Now she just had to deal with Winston.

"Y'know," she began, sitting on the arm of the couch beside where Dallas was seated. A part of him hoped she'd tell him he should probably leave but a bigger part didn't want him to. "You're kinda blowin' it if you're tryin' to make a good impression, babe."

"I didn't even wanna meet him."

"Well, now you have. He's not likin' you any better." She played with his hair while he stared at the TV, which was odd to her as it wasn't even turned on. He was playing the scenarios in his head like he never thought he would. He didn't even realize that most of his nerves were self-made. "You can't say you don't care either because I know that if you really didn't, you would've left." He didn't say anything else and she took that as her own personal victory. His head was now resting on her legs and she was waiting for her dad to come and take the leftovers from last night out.

"Did the last guy you went with meet your dad?"

Leigh chuckled at the memory. It was funnier because the last guy she went with was almost the exact opposite of Dallas Winston. "Sure, he met my dad before we started goin' steady. Asked his permission and everything."

"Great."

edited 12-29-21