Epilogue #5
She reached out a finger and touched the miniscule Chaos
patch on the man’s jacket.
Then she whispered, “Thank you.”
After that, she poured herself and her man some coffee.
And went back to bed.
The End
The Stories of the Black
Brothers of Chaos will continue with Jagger…
Wild Wind
A Chaos Novella
Now available.
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When
he was sixteen years old, Jagger Black laid eyes on the girl who was his. At a
cemetery. During her mother’s funeral.
For
years, their lives cross, they feel the pull of their connection, but then they
go their separate ways.
But
when Jagger sees that girl chasing someone down the street, he doesn’t think
twice before he wades right in. And when he gets a full-on dose of the woman
she’s become, he knows he finally has to decide if he’s all in or if it’s time
to cut her loose.
She’s
ready to be cut loose.
But
Jagger is all in.
Prologue
Fuckin’ A
Jagger
The
first time Jagger saw her, it was eleven years ago.
On his sixteenth
birthday.
His brother Dutch
had let Jagger use his truck and Jag drove by himself for the first time.
Where’d he go?
He went to his
father’s grave.
That was another
first.
The first time he’d
been there by himself.
And it was the only
time Jag could remember that he and his dad had been alone together.
Well, kinda alone.
She was there.
Not with him and his
dad.
She was at a funeral
that was happening across the way.
When he first
clapped eyes on her, she was in one of those chairs they set up, right at the
front, staring at the casket.
Jag sat, and he was
supposed to be sharing part of his sixteenth birthday with his dad, but he
couldn’t help himself.
He kept glancing
over at her, mostly because she was pretty.
But he looked her
way so often, he knew, eventually when he did it, she’d be looking at him.
And eventually, she
was.
She was so pretty,
he didn’t think about what she was doing there, he just thought about how
pretty she was.
But when they caught
eyes over those thirty yards dotted with headstones, he felt the look on her
face in the back of his throat.
Only then did he
take in her surroundings.
There was a man
sitting beside her, a guy maybe Jagger’s age sitting on the other side of the
man.
But there was no
woman.
So…
Yeah.
He wasn’t surprised.
He knew that look on
her face.
He felt it.
Still.
Fuck.
Even though it was
his birthday, he was finally legal to drive, and there were a million other
things he wanted to do, he didn’t do any of them.
He hung there until
the service was over.
He didn’t get why.
Maybe it had to do with the fact that, once she saw him there, she kept
glancing at him. Maybe she knew what he knew, and they both just got it. So, if
she was looking his way, he needed to be there for her.
Or maybe it was that
she was just that pretty.
Jag had guessed it
before, but he figured it out for sure when the service was over. The way
people were with her, the guy who looked like her brother, and the man who was
probably her dad.
God, Jag had had
that shit shoved down his throat for as long as he could remember.
He was barely old
enough to talk when his dad was murdered, and to that day, he got those looks.
Especially when folks found out his father was murdered. And more especially
when they learned Jag was barely able to talk when his old man got whacked.
The looks she and
her brother and her dad were getting right then.
Looks that Jag knew
the person intended to be nice, but they made you just want to punch them in
the throat.
Or shout in their
face.
Just be real! I’m
not dead, he is!
I barely knew
him!
I don’t even
remember him!
My real dad is
alive. He’s always been there for me. So you can just chill!
It was not the same
for that girl.
Nope.
She was probably
fourteen, fifteen, and Jag was guessing it was her mom who was gone.
That was a lot of
time to have in before you lost everything.
He didn’t know what
he’d do if his mom kicked it.
Or Hound did.
Or something
happened to Dutch.
No, he did know.
He’d go off the
rails. He didn’t even care. End up dead or in prison.
But his birth dad?
Graham Black?
Jag didn’t know the
man.
So, yeah.
When it came to Jag,
people could just chill.
Her though?
That girl?
For her, even on his
birthday, able to drive by himself, he stayed at the cemetery.
He wanted to go over
there, take her aside, say to her, “Yeah, just look like you’re listening, nod
and move on. It’ll be over soon. They’ll go away. And then it’s just your
family. It’ll always be just your family.”
He wanted to save
her from that shit or at least shield her from it.
But he couldn’t do
that.
Still, he stayed.
He stayed while
everyone came over and fucking touched her. Her arm, or shoulder, her hair, her
hand.
And it was tough to
sit through that. It was tough not to haul his ass over there and stop that
shit.
Christ, why did they
do that?
Like, your mom was
gone, and you wanted people pawing you?
But he sat where he
was and stayed through all that.
He stayed, watching
her walk with her dad and brother to their car.
The dad held her
hand.
He had his other
hand wrapped around the back of his boy’s neck.
Jag couldn’t even
look at the dad’s face.
He knew what he’d
see.
Jag had been looking
at that for as long as he could remember.
But seeing it new?
Fresh? Raw?
Nope.
He wasn’t looking at
that dude.
Jag also stayed
after they drove away.
After everyone was
gone.
And he stayed to
hold vigil as the cemetery workers took care of things.
Put her mom under
dirt.
Did right with the
process. Laid the flowers on just so.
Yeah, Jag stayed
through all of that.
Only when her mom
was all good did Jag look at his father’s tombstone.
“Later, Pops,” he
said, getting up, brushing off the ass of his jeans, and making his way to
Dutch’s truck.
And it was fucked in
the head.
But to this day, he
would swear it happened.
Swear that he heard You’re
a good kid, Jag, in a voice that was totally familiar.
At the same time it
was not.
It was a
couple of months after when he saw the tombstone go up.
He was in Dutch’s
truck again, alone, visiting his dad.
And he was pissed
because Hound and his mom were just not getting it on.
Seriously with that,
what the fuck?
Hound was, like,
wasting his whole damned life waiting for his mother to snap out of it.
But did she?
No.
Hell, everything she
needed was right there.
In her boys.
And in Hound.
Jesus.
But yeah, Jag saw
the new headstone, which was good. Seeing that, he could think of her, the
pretty girl, and not think about why he kept coming to his dad’s grave,
especially when he was frustrated that his father’s wife wasn’t hooking up with
a man his father considered a brother.
And Jag didn’t know
why, but when he saw that new gravestone, he turned right around, drove to the
store, bought some paper, envelopes and Ziplocs, as well as duct tape. He found
a pen in Dutch’s glove box and drove back to the cemetery.
He sat on his
father’s grave and wrote her a note because he knew, that headstone was up,
they’d come back for certain to check it out.
The note read:
Hey,
I’m the guy from
across the way. Just to say, it sucks now and people are gonna
be weird about it for a long time. Just ignore them and do your thing. You got
her in your head, you know? That’s not going anywhere. Ever.
And you got your
dad and your brother. That’s big.
I got my mom and
my brother. And they’re like, everything, you know? We look out for each other.
We’re a family. Totally.
I can’t say it’s
all good, because it’s not.
I can just say
you get on with it.
So just let
people do their thing, you do yours, and stick tight with your dad and brother.
You’ll be OK.
Hang
loose,
-J
He’d then folded it
up, put it in an envelope and wrote For the Girl Across the Way on it.
When he was done
with that, he’d taped it to the base of her mom’s headstone.
Her mom’s name had
been Bryn.
Pretty.
He wondered what the
girl’s name was.
At the time, he
figured that he’d probably never find out.
It was a week
or so later when Hound caught up with him.
“Reckon this is for
you,” his stepdad-not-stepdad had grunted, handing him an envelope in a Ziploc.
Hound said nothing
more.
That was just like
Hound. He always knew what to do, say, how to be.
So he took off and
left Jagger to it.
Jag never asked him
when he was there, or why. It wasn’t a surprise Hound visited his father’s
grave.
They were brothers,
after all.
Jagger pulled the
envelope out of the baggie and saw it said For the Guy Across the Way.
The writing wasn’t
girlie. Each letter was straight up and down, deep impressions in the strokes,
taking space. It had personality but it was so perfect, it was a little eerie.
Like it wasn’t handwritten, but instead some font pretending to be handwriting,
printed out on a printer.
It said:
J-
Thanks for the
advice.
Dad says you’re
right.
And you’re wise.
You hang loose
too.
-A
Jag really wanted to
know what “A” stood for.
But he’d have to
wait a while to find out.
The next time
Jag saw her, it was two, three months later, outside an Arby’s.
She was with her
family.
Or what was left of
it.
Jag was going in.
She was coming out.
He stopped dead the
second he saw her.
She did the same.
Her father and
brother didn’t notice and kept walking to their car.
Jag moved to her
where she was standing on the sidewalk, waiting for him.
“Hey,” he greeted.
“Hey,” she replied.
“How’s things? You hangin’ in there?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Cool,” he said,
feeling something he’d never felt before.
Uncomfortable.
Unsure.
Like a dork.
Man, she was pretty.
And man, he was a
dick, when all he could think was how pretty she was, and her mom hadn’t been
under dirt for a full year.
“Thanks for the
note,” she said.
“I get it,” he told
her.
“Yeah, I saw your