Epilogue #7
his dad’s grave.
“That’s my brother,
and yeah, no.” He shook his head, for some reason, the thought of Dutch knowing
about her, getting her note to him, not understanding what it was, reading it.
Yeah…
No.
“Babe, we’re
supposed to meet Slammer, we’re already late,” her dude said, pulling on her.
Another barely there
glance, this time at her guy while she said, “A second,” and looked back at
Jag. “He dumped her.”
“What?” Jag asked,
his chick grabbing his hand and tugging on it to get his attention.
“Dad,” she said. “He
dumped the woman he was seeing, and you were right. It made me sad because it
made him sad too. So I should have just chilled and let him have it.”
“Hey, baby,” his
chick murmured to Jag, “you said we’d go to that ice cream booth and you’d get
me a cone.”
He glanced at her,
“A sec,” then back to A. “Sorry, but he’ll move on again. You’ll get it this
time when he does and give him that.” After she nodded, he went on, “Anyway,
you look good.”
When he said that,
her dude got closer to her.
So did Jag’s chick,
to him.
“We gotta go, babe,” her dude said.
She spared him
another glance and then to Jag, “We have to meet a friend, but you want to hook
up later?”
Her dude made a
noise.
Jag ignored it and
smiled at her.
“There’s a band
coming on that’s rad,” she told Jag. “You gotta see
them play.”
“We’re in,” Jagger
decided.
His chick made a
noise.
“Okay, four o’clock?
Right here?” she suggested.
“We’ll be here,” he
replied.
She smiled huge,
bopped forward, and gave him a hug.
It was the first
time they’d touched.
She felt good.
She smelled good.
He’d pulled his hand
from his chick’s to wrap his arm around her waist.
“Four,” he whispered
in her ear, giving her waist a squeeze, and feeling really good that they were
finally going to get the opportunity to get to know each other better.
“Yeah,” she replied,
returning that squeeze to his shoulders, and he knew she felt the same way.
“Four.”
She bopped back, her
dude claimed her, Jag’s chick claimed him, and they were both tugged in
opposite directions
But they kept eye
contact over their shoulders as they walked away. And right before she
disappeared from sight, she shot him a devil’s horns, and the way she did was
funny, cute and cool, so it was also totally hot.
Needless to say,
Jag’s chick was not happy about this even a little bit.
So, needless to say,
around four, she pitched one helluva fit and he had
to deal with her ass.
This meant he missed
the meeting with A. By the time he got back to the area where they met, she was
long gone.
And he was so pissed
that she was, he broke shit off with his chick.
He never saw that
girl again.
As for A, it went so
long, he thought he’d lost her forever.
And thinking that,
he felt it.
Deep.
It was four
years before Jag saw her again.
She was in a car.
He was on his bike.
They were stopped at
a stoplight.
He looked over to
her, she looked at him, and when she recognized him past his shades and his
longer hair and his Chaos Motorcycle Club cut, she grinned.
He frowned.
Because there she
was, driving down Broadway like years hadn’t passed.
Where the fuck had
she been?
No notes?
No sightings?
Nothing?
She made hand
motions and he jerked up his chin because, fuck yes, he was gonna
follow her.
And he did.
To the parking lot
at the Albertson’s by the Blue Bonnet.
They parked.
He swung off his
bike.
She got out of her
car.
Her hair was longer
too, she was thinner, but somehow with that, her ass was rounder, her tits
bigger.
And she had more
tats.
He gave himself
seconds to take her in, and in all that, it wasn’t lost on him that she was
even fucking prettier.
And then, no other
way to describe it, he bore down on her.
“What the fuck, A?”
he growled when he was deep in her space.
She pressed back to
her car, but he just moved into the opening she created when she did.
Through all this,
she stared up at him, demanding, “What the fuck, what, J?”
“You’ve been gone
for fucking years,” he pointed out.
Her head ticked.
“Yeah, I went to college out east.”
Well.
Shit.
But.
Still.
“And you didn’t
leave me a goddamn note?”
She blinked.
“You were gone,
like, every fuckin’ day for the last four fuckin’ years so you couldn’t leave
me a note?” he pushed it.
“Well, no, but
mostly, yeah, ’cause Dad had two kids in college,
both out of state, we’re not rolling in it so I couldn’t exactly fly home every
weekend. And anyway, J, you stood me up at Taste.”
And again.
Shit.
But still.
“My chick got up in
my shit, I had to deal with her,” Jag explained. “We were late, you were gone.”
“Yeah, well, my guy
got up in mine too. He wasn’t a big fan of me hugging on a hot dude in front of
him. We had words. I told him he could relax and deal or he could take a hike.
He wasn’t relaxed, but he was ready to deal, and then you didn’t show. After
that, I had to put up with him being smug, which was worse.”
Hang on a second.
She thought he was
hot?
“So, that’s the only
excuse you have?” she pressed. “That your girl threw a tantrum and that’s why
you stood me up?”
That was twice she’d
used those words.
Stood her up.
But they’d both been
on dates.
“A, I—” he began.
She didn’t let him
get any further.
“So no, J, I didn’t
leave you a note because you blew me off and I’m not feeling this.” She
motioned between them, but explained it anyway, “I see you for the first time
in years, and you get all up in my face because I didn’t keep connected after you
didn’t connect with me and I was just off, living my life.”
“You gotta know I’d never leave you hanging unless something
came up I couldn’t avoid,” he told her.
“I don’t know that
because that’s what you did. You left me hanging.”
“My chick was
throwing a hissy fit.”
She shrugged. “So
walk away.”
“If you were
throwing a hissy fit, would you want me to walk away from you?”
“Brother, I would
not ever throw a stupid hissy fit.”
She said these words
like they were gospel and her face registered nothing but disgust at not only
the idea of chicks who did, but that he’d think she would.
Jag found that
interesting.
As well as
promising.
But again.
Still.
“So you’re telling
me it wasn’t a four-year long hissy fit that was the reason I got no fuckin’
note after that happened?” he demanded.
That hit.
He knew it when she
hit back.
“In case you haven’t
noticed, we’re not anything to each other, J,” she informed him. “I don’t even
know your name.”
He stepped back.
She watched him do
it and winced.
But no fucking way.
Maybe he’d screwed
up, and then she’d screwed up.
But she knew that
went too far.
“You’re right, we’re
not,” he agreed. “Sorry to fuck up your day.”
He headed to his
bike.
She moved with him.
He was firing it up
when he felt her hand over the leather on his forearm.
He looked up at her
standing beside him.
“J, hang on a sec,”
she requested.
“Do your thing, A,
live your life,” he threw her words back at her. Then he finished it. “Hope
it’s a good one. Later.”
With that, he opened
up his bike and glided away.
Jagger lost
track of how many times he saw her after that.
At concerts, mostly.
Also at some bars.
Couple of times, out
to eat.
Even at the mall
once.
She’d been with
guys.
He’d been with
girls.
She’d been with
friends.
Ditto with him.
Also alone.
She kept her
distance.
He did too.
Eye contact and then
avoidance.
Through all this,
over the years, even though he was born there and he knew a lot of people and
there was more than a rare occasion he’d run into one of them, it was the first
time he realized how small of a town Denver was, even if it was a big city.
But it wasn’t lost
on him they had the same taste in music, food and social life.
It also wasn’t lost
on him that was way cool and it way fucking sucked because she was enjoying it,
so was he, but never together.
He knew he should
boss up, apologize for acting like an asshole and getting in her shit after she
got back from college.
That said, she was
the one who lowered the hammer, so on one of those occasions they were in each
other’s space, she could have bossed up too.
She didn’t.
And the longer she
didn’t, he got to the point where he just wouldn’t.
So he didn’t either.
In the end,
it wasn’t about bossing up.
In the end, it was
about the fact he was on his bike and he saw some kid motoring down the
sidewalk, totally being chased.
And seconds later,
he saw it was A doing the chasing.
So yeah.
No hesitation.
He waded right into
that.
Fuckin’ A.
In both ways he
could mean that.