Late next afternoon, Duncan and Courtney were walking along the cracked sidewalks in downtown Chicago. They were heading towards the grocery store for the weekly grocery shopping. Since she was going to be the secretary at the Log Cabin Company, she had to find out some of Duncan’s spending habits. Like, for example, what he bought to eat every week.

Then another thought was nagging at the back of Courtney’s head: Where did Mary live? What speakeasy did she work at? The urge to scratch out Mary’s eyes out with Courtney’s French-tipped fingernails bubbled up each time she thought about the party.

Duncan opened the door for Courtney and they walked into the cool air-conditioned building. She pulled a sheet of paper out of her purse and led Duncan straight into the produce section. “Alright, so. We’ll need tomatoes, carrots, celery, spinach, lettuce…” Courtney lists.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Princess. Why do we need freakin’ vegetables? It’s a waste of my money,” he groans. Courtney taps her foot on the hardwood floor and glares at Duncan.

“You told me I would be in charge of buying the groceries this week. And I plan on buying a nutritious, well-rounded meal plan that don’t fall into the mere two categories you eat from: meat and liquor,” Courtney responds. Duncan rolls his eyes at her moot point, because he was obviously still healthy from eating meat and beer all his teenage life.

She smiles in success and begins piling groceries into Duncan’s open arms. After about half an hour, they walk over to the cash register and Duncan glares at the nerdy cashier, who looked as if he was about to burst out laughing at any moment from watching a tough guy like Duncan go grocery shopping with his girl.

Once all the groceries were rung up, Courtney hands the wad of cash Duncan had given her as her budget for the shopping trip. Duncan smirks at the cashier, whose eyes went wide at all the money. He grabs the groceries in the plastic bags and holds the door open for Courtney with his hip.

“I believe that was a successful shopping trip,” she preens, tossing her thick brown hair over her shoulder and grinning at Duncan.

“Sure thing, darling.”

They were within sight of the Log Cabin hideout when the sound of a speeding car roared behind them. Duncan spins around, and a glint of something silver hanging out of the open window catches his eye. “Fuck!” Duncan shouts, “Courtney!”

In a mere second or two, he had dropped the groceries and shoved Courtney into the brick wall of an apartment building. She gasps as the breath is taken out of her, and Duncan steps up to her body. Duncan’s hip and Courtney’s hips were pressed together. His arms were around her shoulders, and his hand was on the back of her neck, holding her head against his chest. Courtney was completely shielded from the rest of the world. She was about to shove him away when…

Rapid gunfire flew through the air, chipping the brick surrounding Duncan and Courtney. The screech of squealing tires filled the air and the car zooms off. The whole thing couldn’t have taken more than a few mere seconds.

“C’mon, we gotta get out of here before they drive around the block and come back for another shot,” Duncan says grimly, taking Courtney’s hand and leading her to the apartment. She looks over her shoulder at the abandoned groceries on the sidewalk. She turns back to Duncan and notices his jaw tightly clenched. The next thing Courtney notices, as they walk through the front door, is the bright red gash across Duncan’s upper arm.

She gasps and drops Duncan’s hand. “Oh my God, Duncan, you’re hurt!” Courtney exclaims.

He looks down at his arm with amusement. “Yeah, Princess… I’ve noticed,” he replies with the regular smirk plastered on his face. He starts walking upstairs with Courtney right on his heels.

“But… you should go to the hospital! You were shot!”

“Correction, babe. I was grazed by a bullet, not shot. I’ll be perfectly fine. Nothing a bandage can’t fix in a day or two.” Duncan walks into a room with white walls, white cots, and all-white furniture. Courtney follows him as he sits down on a white stool and props his forearm onto a white counter.

Damien saunters into the room in front of another guy with a dark bowl-cut and lighter brown streaks. Damien claps his hands together and motions to the tall, tan, dark-haired teen. “Announcing… Craig!” Damien announces theatrically. Craig bows down deep, nearly bending entirely in half. Once he stands up again, his hair naturally flips back into place and he fixes the placement of his thick, black, rectangular glasses on his nose.

Wait… this was Craig, Courtney noticed, The guys who invented those anti-hangover pills. She all of a sudden had a new appreciation for him. He must be the kind of ‘doctor’ in this place because of his obvious brains and intelligence.

Damien stands against the wall next to Courtney and they watch as Craig begins shuffling through the drawers underneath the counter Duncan’s arm was resting on. Craig pulls out various cloths, rags, pins, gauze, and creams and places them on the counter while Duncan slowly unbuttons his white cotton shirt. With each new button unbuttoned, Courtney’s eyes became even more transfixed on Duncan’s tan chest.

Of course she was expecting muscles, after all, he was a juvenile delinquent, but that was no preparation for what was to come.

Duncan had large pecs, enveloping his whole chest in pure muscle. A chiseled line ran down his stomach, creating a large cavity that split into six cracks that separated his eight-pack abs. His skin was smooth with no trace of chest hair or a Happy Trail, which was good, because hair was somehow a turn-off to Courtney.

Duncan’s shoulder muscles ripple underneath his skin as he slides his shirt off of him. He tosses his shirt at Courtney, snapping her out of her daze. She catches the soft fabric in her hands and notices that the shirt was still warm from his skin. Courtney looks up and sees the smirk on Duncan’s face as if he was telepathically telling her that he saw her staring at him. She blushes and quickly looks down at his shirt in her hands, suddenly extremely focused on a clear button, but not before she saw his wink in her direction.

“I’m… tired. Pardon me,” Courtney murmurs, quickly thinking up an excuse to get the heck out of there, before her cheeks set fire to the room.

“Can’t take much more of staring at my body?” Duncan calls after her, a smirk evident on his lips as Craig gets to work. Courtney rolls her eyes to keep from trembling in embarrassment. She heads to Duncan’s room and tosses his shirt on the bed, shutting the door behind her.

Quickly, Courtney strips down into her bra and underwear and snatches her pajamas from the chair in the corner of the room. She slips on a pair of green plaid, mid-thigh length Soffe boxer-shorts that she has salvaged from her closet. Then she slid the long-sleeved, white cotton button-up shirt Duncan had lent her around her torso -- just because the shirt was extremely comfortable to sleep in.

Suddenly, the door bursts open while Courtney’s shirt was yet hardly buttoned. She lets out a startled yelp and does the best she can to close the open flaps of the shirt. Duncan stood there, still shirtless, but now with a bandage around his shoulder/arm. There was no smirk, no perverted comment.

He immediately steps up to Courtney and grabs her arms, bringing her as close to him as Courtney’s ample chest would allow without her squeaking in pain. Duncan leans down and kisses her with an uncharacteristic sense of urgency and lust… Usually Duncan’s kisses were gentle and sweet. The grip of Courtney’s fist keeping her shirt closed slowly lessened.

Somehow, both of them managed to stumble over to the bed, where Duncan landed with Courtney on top of him.