1. Jagger
JAGGER
P resent Day
Work, sleep, repeat, and in between those three things, I’ve been doing what I do best: looking for the only high that calms my nervous system, the next adrenaline-thumping, death-defying activity you can find.
I’ve done a lot and seen a lot—swimming with sharks, bungee jumping, mountain climbing, and sky diving to name a few.
All of those were tame compared to what I did last weekend, going silent, telling the guys I needed a weekend away and making sure no one knew what I was doing.
It’s my usual way of operating, only this time, I was running from my past and a certain person: Lyric.
Fucking Jude mentioning her being back pissed me right the hell off. She left and never looked back, and now she’s in Whispering Oaks.
The times I go dark means no phone, no watch, no laptop, no tablet, and half the time, no one knows where I’m going, and there isn’t much service as it is.
In fact, I make sure it’s that way, if at all possible.
This last weekend, though, had me puckering my butthole and hoping my feet landed safely on the ground.
I’ve been trained, gone through every protocol there needs to be, and still, this one rattled my cage.
Base jumping in New River Gorge Bridge. I trained, went through every possibility of what could happen, and had to sign a release waiver of all waivers.
It’s a good thing I have my affairs in order, because there was a real possibility I wouldn’t make it back in one piece.
The company I went with is legal; the safety factor is what they couldn’t guarantee.
I’d looked into other areas, choosing not to go out of the country since we’re currently slammed at Jagged Edge Construction with no end in sight.
The thing I haven’t done yet is admit to my friends and family what I did.
They know I’ve got an addiction that doesn’t consist of drugs or alcohol.
They’ve been around long enough to realize this is who I’ve become.
I hit puberty and became wild and reckless, speeding around town, racking up tickets, and being a menace to society.
It didn’t matter that I was in sports; nothing could hold me back.
There weren’t enough hours in the day to monopolize my time or wear me out.
Fucking hell, I gave them gray hair long before they should have had any.
Mom made jokes that the reason she was at the hair salon every four weeks like clockwork was because of me.
Luckily, before I did anything stupid like wrap my car around a tree or do harm to someone with my bullshit, Dad funneled my energy elsewhere.
He took me to a drag strip, got me hooked, and we started working on a project vehicle, leaving me with little time to be young and dumb. This way, it was legal, safer, and gave me the rush I needed without giving my parents a heart attack or putting myself in an early grave.
It helped for a while, until it wasn’t enough anymore, and once I turned twenty-one years old, I moved on to other shit.
They weren’t too impressed at first, then Dad made a comment about me being so much like his own dad, that he understood.
I still have the hot rod we worked on and I still occasionally race; it’s currently sitting in my garage, covered with a sheet, with not so much of a scratch on the pristine paint job.
Every now and then, when I can’t get away from the job for more than two days, you’ll find me on the track pushing myself to the next limit, fine tuning my car, and seeing what I can add or take away to make it faster.
I did the responsible and adult thing and sent a message to tell the guys I made it back last night before calling my parents to do the same.
I’d have much rather sent a text than to have a conversation with my mom, who repeated everything I said to my dad, except neither of them likes to respond.
They also don’t have their read receipts turned on, which makes it difficult to know if they even looked at their phones.
They’re not technology driven in the least; they still put tape across the camera on their computers and have a landline.
Which is what I called them on hoping they’d both pick up to make it easier to relay the message.
The beeping of the other line did me a solid, and I hung up faster than the speed of light, because Mom started in on questioning where I’d gone and what I’d done.
The only people who knew where I went were my group of friends; it’d be hard to hide since I used Tysen’s private jet to drop me off and pick me up.
Then there’s Jude. He tracks every last one of us with the fancy app he developed.
There’s nowhere to hide when it comes to our friend group.
Even when my devices are turned off, Jude can still track my location.
I learned this a few months ago and quit bothering with trying to keep things quiet.
The one thing I did learn was to stay at a hotel away from where I’d be to keep him none the wiser.
I thought after talking to my parents, I’d be in the clear, except my luck didn’t run that far.
The group chat went off way more than normal, and while I’m usually the one shooting the shit or, how my friends like to say, starting shit, I did something I’ve never done before.
For years, I’d have my phone on me, minus the time I’m out on an adventure.
Last night, it became too much. I could feel the walls closing in on me.
The house I built from the ground up seemed like a cage.
The outdoors didn’t relax me. Nothing seemed to be working.
The dinging and vibrating of my phone only amplified the mayhem spinning in my head, and for the first time in I don’t even know how many years, I tossed my phone in a drawer and walked away.
It's now Monday night back in Whispering Oaks, and my day started at six o’clock this morning with going over contracts, plans, and bids.
By noon, I was over it. The coffee I had earlier in the day long since lost its effect.
My eyes were done with looking at paperwork of any kind.
I grabbed my phone, which I continued to leave on silent, though now it was turned on, but I’d yet to go through all the notifications that have piled up.
Instead, I went around to the job sites, looked at what needed to be done, and got to work.
The need to get my hands dirty, to get my mind in the right frame to be any kind of company, was exactly what I needed and what I was after.
A new job we’d picked up needed heavy demolition.
The crew started earlier in the day, and when I showed up, I went to work right beside them.
We worked until the sun went down. I was tempted to set up a few lights and keep at it.
Except I’d be useless tomorrow, muscles sore, joints aching, and too tired to get out of bed.
The closer I get to forty, the longer it takes to recover.
So, the crew and I packed our tools into our respective work trucks.
I learned a long time ago that while having a storage shed on site to keep everything handy, it comes at a price, one I’m not paying again.
We’d locked everything up using heavy duty locks and all, yet still, the thieves used a grinder and cut through the metal on the backside where no one could see if they drove by.
That shit was a nightmare, one I’ll never repeat.
I also never recovered the tools that were stolen or the money it took to replace them all.
“Figured I’d find you here.” I’m sitting in a booth at Twisted Oak, a bar in Whispering Oaks, with a bottle of beer in front of me, realizing the things I used to do aren’t fulfilling me anymore.
I’ve already quit playing footloose and fancy free, as my grandmother would call it.
In other terms, quit being an idiot, find a woman to settle down with, and stop looking good for right nows, and stumble upon a forever kind of good.
The dissatisfaction caught up with me. The next morning, I’d wake up with nothing but regrets and a feeling of emptiness.
No one knows that while I joke about being the playboy of the group and never wanting to settle down, those times have come and gone. It’s been me and rosy palmer for so long I can’t even remember.
What’s fucking next?
The adrenaline rush I need to quit making my heart pound. After this past weekend, that very well might come true.
“The cavalry send you?” I ask Luke as he slides into the seat in front of me.
“Nah, figured I’d find you here when you didn’t respond to my text outside of the group chat.
You good?” The doctor isn’t in his usual scrubs and white coat, which means he did the same thing I did.
After work, I went home, stripped out of my work clothes, tossed them in the laundry room, and headed straight for the shower.
Twenty minutes later, I’d washed the dirt and sweat off my body, walked out of the bathroom and through the house.
I didn’t bother with wrapping a towel around my waist or putting on clothes.
There wasn’t any point when I’m the only one who lives there, and Jude’s fancy alarm system he installed alerts me when someone pulls down the drive.
I moved through the house, heading for the back patio, needing the outside noise to help drown out the too quiet house.
It took me two minutes to realize staying in for the night would be out of the question, and now here I am .
“Yeah, I’m good, brother. You?” Luke quirks an eyebrow in question to my response.
“Never better. You want to talk about anything in particular?” I nod my head to the waitress when she signals to ask if I need another. I respond with two fingers, knowing Luke has the same taste as I do in beer.
“Not necessarily.” It’s the cold fucking truth, too.
“Alright. You at least have a good trip?” Luke brings up another subject that has me ready to call it a night. Except I won’t. I’m not that much of an asshole to leave him when he only got here and it’s clear he only stopped after seeing my truck in the front parking lot.
“Wasn’t bad. Went by too fast, like most weekends do. You know how that goes.” Five days of work and two days of downtime is never enough, not for anyone, if you ask me. I’d prefer to work Monday through Thursday, from sunup to sundown, but nobody else does in the business world.
“Yeah, well, I’ve been on call the past two weekends and don’t see an end in sight.
” The waitress sets down our drinks, we both take a healthy sip, and he continues on, “Two more weekends, and then I’ll be back to the normal schedule.
Remind me next time not to trade favors with my partner. It always fuckin’ backfires.”
“Sucks, man. Wish I could help you, but I’m thinking what I know about a woman’s body and what you know about a woman’s body are two different things,” I grunt.
Luke laughs before taking a long pull of his drink. I do the same, and we sit in comfortable silence. He’s got his eyes on another area in the bar, probably doing similar to what I am, getting lost in a mindless game and zoning out .
“You eating here or at home?” he asks a few minutes later.
“Here. Definitely here.” I haven’t opened my refrigerator since well before I left to head to West Virginia, and truth be told, I’m not looking forward to cleaning out the fridge or the grocery shop I’ll need to do tomorrow.
“Same. I’m at the clinic or the hospital more than I am home. Once this shit is over, I’m going in hibernation, staying away from restaurants, fast food joints, and hospital food,” he states.
“I need to do the same, but not tonight.”
“I can drink to that.” He looks for the waitress to place our order, and my mind drifts off again, thinking about a woman, and not just any woman.
A woman who’s been out of my life longer than she’s ever been in it.
Fucking hell, maybe I should have stayed out of town a hell of lot longer than a couple of days.
At least then, my mind wouldn’t be on my past.