That turned out to not be very long as he turned his attention to Soda. "I'd ask if you were pickin' up strays, but she don't look like no stray to me."
"Double negative," Adelle coughed. All eyes turned on her and she just shrugged. "What? I didn't say anything. Got a tickle in my throat."
Emma couldn't understand how she could do that. Joke around as though this weren't a major event. The Curtis boys and their friends were one thing. Most of them talked a tough game, especially freak boy in his Mickey Mouse t-shirts, but deep down, they were good people. They were nice people. Dallas Winston was…
Well, she didn't know what he was, but Emma was pretty sure that he wasn't nice. A guy didn't get into the kind of trouble that he got into and still end up being called nice. Dallas Winston was dirty, and not in the physical sense. As far as appearance went, he was a clean guy. Yeah, he had the prerequisite greasy hair and old clothes, but he was still clean. Everything else…
He was a criminal. He'd been to jail. He'd been on the run from jail. She didn't know for sure, but Emma was almost certain that he'd killed someone before. He just had that look about him, that he'd done something like that. Whether it was cold blood or self-defense, she didn't know, but something like that-- He just seemed to be that way.
And the fact that Adelle could perch there and just act like he was anybody else was just strange. Oh, she was afraid. Emma could see it in her eyes. She just hid it a hell of a lot better than Emma did. Adelle sat there with her back straight, her arm around Steve's shoulders, and only the constant darting of her eyes let it be known that being so close to Dallas was making her nervous.
"Well, I'll be damned." Two-Bit let out a harsh laugh and slapped his leg. "Dally got Miss Priss to shut up! I never thought I'd see it happen!"
"I am not a priss." Leave it to Two-Bit to open Emma's mouth. On a deeper level, she liked the guy. He was fun, and he was a straight shooter. He didn't trust her anymore than she really trusted him, and he wasn't afraid to say it. That was an admirable trait. On the surface, though, he worked on her last nerve and she would have been happy if he choked on the enormous amounts of food that he stuffed into his face. "And I'll have it be known that nobody has ever brought me home. Especially, not Sodapop Curtis."
"Ooh, tough words." Dally rolled his eyes. "Could'a said 'em to me, though, since I'm the one that said it in the first place." He pulled a cigarette from its wedge between his head and his ear and flipped it into his mouth. The cigarette bobbed between his lips as he said, "Definitely not a stray, but it's somethin' he brought home."
"For the last time," Emma said, this time directly to Dally, "nobody brought me home. I am not a girl that one just brings home."
"Ooh, she said one, did ya hear that? Now, I really know she's not a stray." He grunted and rolled his eyes, then blatantly ignored her as he turned to Soda. "Can't believe Darry's lettin' ya bring Soc's home. Didn't we get enough o' them last time around?"
Whatever the response was, Emma didn't hear it. She was too busy seething at his dismissal. Emma was slowly getting used to a lot of things. She had finally come to terms with the truth that there was no way Adelle was going home. Oh, she might eventually move into a hotel, but she'd never be going home again, not after staying with the Curtis boys. Though she'd said from the beginning, told everyone there was no going back, she'd held out a little bit of hope that things would be different. She had held out more hope than Adelle. But now, that hope was gone and replaced with resignation and adjustment.
Emma had also grown accustomed to Two-Bit's wise remarks. That was a part of his personality. He was the kind of guy that said what was on his mind, but unlike Dallas Winston, his mind didn't go to the complete and utter disrespectful. Of course, that was probably because, most of the time, he was just joking. As much as she'd gotten used to Two-Bit, he had gotten used to her. It was a give and take sort of thing that both had grown quite comfortable living with.
Even the daily drive, alone, out of the North side of town and the disappointed sigh of her parents (when they were around) as she returned home had become just another day in the life. Emma may not have been living with the greasers, but she spent enough time with them to be a social pariah at school. She was also still too Soc in her mannerisms and bank account to ever be considered a greaser. Emma was in the middle, that high school hell that was always just around the corner. In a way, though, hell wasn't too bad. She rather enjoyed being in the middle. Only the people she cared about talked to her, and everyone else pretended that she didn't exist. For the time being, she could handle that.
What she could not handle, though, was Dallas Winston. Neither did she think she would ever grow accustomed to his attitude. He would always grate on her nerves. She didn't care how cool he was, or how attractive he may have been. He was an asshole, and her dislike of his dismissal was enough to push the fear aside just long enough for her to realize that he was an asshole. At least focusing on his abrasive and all together boorish behavior, she could speak, as opposed to being a mute idiot, waiting for him to pull a gun or something.
"Excuse me, but I don't need Soda, Steve, or anybody else to defend me." Emma sat up straight and folded her arms across her stomach. She would have preferred Dally to be sitting, if for no other reason than that she hated actually looking up at him from so low. Sure, he was taller than her, but with him seated, they would at least be on equal footing. As it were, there was way too much Dally could do to her when he was in the power position. "If you have anything to say about me, then you can say it to me directly."
"Girl, weren't you listening? We stopped talkin' about you already. We're talkin' about this one, now." He pointed his cigarette towards Adelle, then put it back between his lips. After a long pull and an even longer exhale of smoke, he said, "Unless I'm supposed to say that to your face, too."
"Actually, yes, you can. I would very much prefer that you didn't speak to Adelle at all. She's too decent of a girl to have your words on her."
"Oh, little words in big Soc sentences. I think my head might hurt." Dally rolled his eyes. "The girl can't be that decent if she's messin' around with this bunch, baby."
"Don't call me baby," Emma said with a glare, "and you have no idea what a decent girl looks like. I'd imagine that there aren't too many decent girls that come to visiting day in prison."
Dally looked at her hard for a second. Long enough that, as his eyes narrowed and he dropped his cigarette in his cup, the fear came back full force and slapped her right in the forehead. Then, suddenly, he burst into laughter. Emma forcibly stopped herself from jumping, knowing that would only make things worse.
Instead, she slapped both palms down on her thighs and said, "What, pray tell, is so funny?"
"You," Dally said bluntly. "Ya know, I like you. Not rude like the redheaded one. Just tough. Or at least tryin' to be tough, which is more than I can say for most of your kind."
"My kind?"
"You know what I'm talkin' about." He looked down into his cup, as though he were upset that he'd put out the cigarette early. He groaned and turned his head. "Pony, you got smokes?" Ponyboy handed him a crushed pack of cigarettes from his pocket and Dally took one. He stuck it between his lips, then cupped his hand around the lighter to spark the tip. He shoved the lighter in his pocket, took a moment to enjoy his first puff of smoke from a new cigarette, then removed the stick from his mouth and let his arms drop.
"Ya know," he said, pointing at her with his cigarette, "you might be alright, after all. Figure if this one's actually livin' here," he jerked his head towards Adelle, "then she can't be too bad. But you… You're a mystery. Like the stick's only halfway outta your ass. Give it time, though. It'll come out all the way for a while before goin' back up. 'Til then, though, might be kinda cool. Yeah, I think I might like you."
Emma stared at him in disbelief, and with a little bit of uncertainty. She didn't know that she was too keen on the idea of Dallas Winston liking anything about her. She rather enjoyed her life in the middle, and she didn't want to get sucked all the way down into the depths by him. And more than that, it just didn't feel too safe to actually be liked by this guy. That could only cause trouble, and Emma had quite enough of that in her life.
No, she wasn't keen at all on the idea of Dallas Winston liking her, and one look over her shoulder and the feel of fingers against her back told her that Soda didn't really care for it, either.