Chapter One
Touché
Jagger
The kid took a turn at the end of the block, and Jag
took that turn on his bike.
He passed the kid, pulled up into a drive to cut him off,
and to avoid Jag, the kid jetted right into the street.
Fuck.
Jag parked quickly, swung off and saw A racing across the
street, following him.
In his motorcycle boots, Jag took off after her.
It was good he did.
She was losing steam.
The kid was not.
Jag passed her, sparing her a glance as he did, through
which she wheezed, “Thief.”
Shit.
Great.
He kept motoring.
The kid was twelve, maybe thirteen, he had a little extra
weight and was carrying a backpack, but he was twelve, thirteen.
He had legs that could go forever and the same kind of
energy.
He darted around another corner, then, halfway up that
block, he shot into an alley.
Jagger followed.
Bad luck for the kid, someone was moving, and the alley was
plugged by a massive truck it wouldn’t be easy, even for the kid, to get
around. Jag didn’t know how they got that behemoth wedged back there in the
first place.
But there it was.
The kid decided to double back and take a shot at evasive
maneuvering, but as he tried to cut past Jagger, Jag caught him by the
backpack.
The pack was important, he knew this because the kid wasn’t
losing it. He grabbed hold of the straps and twisted vigorously to get away
from Jagger. In order not to lose hold, Jag had to catch him by the back collar
of his shirt.
That was when the kid started shouting.
“Help! I’m being attacked! Pedo! Pedo!”
“Cool it, kid. I know more cops than hopefully you’ll meet
in your life, and they know me, so trust me. That’s never gonna fly,” he
advised.
Desperate times called for desperate measures, apparently.
“Help!” the kid kept shouting, pulling at Jag’s grasp. “Pedo! Pedo!”
At this point, A rounded the corner, jogged up to them,
stopped about four feet away and immediately went hands to knees, head bent,
her long black hair falling forward, her torso moving as she hauled in deep
breaths.
“Shit,” he heard her rasp. Then her head jerked back, hair
flying, and she squinted at the kid. “You little turd.”
“Fuck you,” the kid spat back.
Hmm.
No.
“What’d I hear you say?” Jagger asked.
The kid looked up at him. “Fuck you too.”
In an effort at control, Jag turned his attention to A.
“What we got here?” he asked.
She sucked in another big breath before she straightened and
stated, “He’s a thief, and that’s why he’s no longer in the group. He was
kicked out. But until now, it was never big. Cash register stuff. Candy. Gum.”
She homed in on the kid and her eyes narrowed again. “Today, it was big. You
take off with what you grabbed, I lose out and my consigner loses out and it’s
never been cool, Mal, you lifting stuff. It’s really not cool now.”
The group?
What did that mean, the group?
“I didn’t take that shit you said I took to get me kicked
out of group in the first place,” Mal retorted.
“Brother, I saw you do it with my own eyes,” A shot back.
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did not!”
“I did!”
Christ.
To move this along, and stop the back and forth, Jag waded
in. “What’d he take this time?”
A turned her gaze to him.
“Game controller bundle. Never been used. It’s worth two
hundred bucks,” she shared.
Keeping a hold on the kid, Jag jostled the backpack.
“That bundle in here, kid?” he asked.
“You shouldn’t be touching me, and you can’t search me,” Mal
sniped. “Let me go and fuck off.”
“Language, bro,” Jag replied.
“Fuck you, bro,” Mal returned. Jag sighed and
turned his attention back to A as Mal lost it and shouted, “Let me go!”
Jag again looked down at the kid, saw his grip had loosened
on his straps, and said, “Sure,” let his shirt go but did it stripping him of
his backpack.
“Hey!” he cried, whirling and jumping on Jag as
Jagger held it high and out of the kid’s reach.
Jagger ignored him and asked A, “You want me to look in it
or you want it?”
“Give me my pack! You can’t take my pack! You can’t
search my pack!” the kid shrieked, still jumping on Jag.
“Everything cool here?”
Jagger turned and saw the movers were now in the mix.
“Yeah. It’s cool. This kid stole a game controller from my
girl here,” he told them, jerking his head to A.
The movers looked from Jagger, who was in jeans, a black
tee, and a motorcycle club cut, to A, who was wearing a T-shirt with The
Blob movie poster on it, a high-waisted corduroy miniskirt, white ankle
socks and Doc Marten Mary Janes.
The movers visibly relaxed.
Then again, Jag was the kind of guy who made a lot of men
tense.
And A was the kind of woman who undoubtedly made a lot of
men relax.
She looked like a seriously toned-down Harley Quinn, but
still with that grown-up schoolgirl vibe that was cool as hell and hot AF.
“We have this covered, it’s all good. Unless…should we ask
them to call the cops, J?” A asked, and he knew with how she did it, she had no
intention of phoning the police.
The kid didn’t read that.
“No!” Mal shouted, stepping away from Jagger,
shaking his head. “No cops.”
A leveled her eyes on him. “Mal, this isn’t candy. This
isn’t stickers. This isn’t a Lionel Richie koozie.”
A Lionel Richie what?
“This is serious,” A continued, “and I think maybe the cops
should be involved.” She looked to Jag. “So maybe leave it in the backpack. The
cops can search it when they get here.”
“Arch, come on,” Mal said, his voice now whiney. “Take it
back, I don’t care. Whatever. I just nabbed it ’cause
I was pissed you kicked me out of group.”
Arch?
Was her name Arch?
Or was that a nickname?
No one was named Arch.
It had to be a nickname.
“So you took it,” A noted.
The kid bit his lower lip.
Yup, not that Jagger doubted it, but that controller was in
the kid’s pack.
“We’ve got an issue here, Mal,” A said to the kid, her voice
softer. She turned her attention to the movers and called, “We’re good. We’ll
work it out. Sorry to disturb.”
“Right, you need any help, we’re right here,” one of the
guys said.
Yeah, they’d lost sight of him and Mal and they
were all about “Arch.”
Jag looked heavenward.
The movers shifted away as A said to Mal, “You know I’m
gonna have to tell your mom about this. And gotta
remind you, we made a deal. I didn’t tell her about the other stuff you stole,
you didn’t pull any more hijinks. And here we are, more hijinks. You reneged.
I’m on the phone the minute I get back to the store.”
His mom?
Okay, was she a teacher or counselor or something?
And if she was, what was the store?
“No!” the kid cried again. “No, Arch. All right. I
stole it. Okay? All right? I admit it. Take it back. No beefs. Just don’t talk
to Mom.”
“I can’t have you coming into the store and stitching me up,
Mal,” she said to the kid. “I’ve got things to do that don’t include chasing
you through Denver.”
Mal turned his head away.
“What’s the deal?” she asked him.
Mal kept his head turned away.
“What’s the deal, Mal?” she asked again. “We never had any
problems before. Why are you suddenly being a pill?”
Mal said nothing and kept his gaze averted.
“She asked you a question, bro,” Jag prompted.
Mal turned his head at that, tipped it back, and glared at
Jag. “Who are you?”
“Who he is isn’t relevant,” A stated.
Well, fuck me very much.
Jag scowled at A.
“He thinks he’s relevant,” Mal muttered.
“He’s not relevant to you,” A amended. “Or this
situation. Now, what’s the deal, Mal?” she kept at him.
“You’re right. Mom doesn’t know I’m kicked out of group. I
didn’t tell her,” Mal spat out like the words didn’t taste good.
A leaned back and crossed her arms on her chest.
“Right,” she said slowly. “So what have you been doing after
school?”
“None of your business,” Mal replied.
“It’s my business, you want another shot at group,” she
said.
Mal’s gaze darted to her hopefully.
He wanted another shot at group.
“Seriously?” he asked.
Jag also looked to her, and when Mal was finished, he
repeated, “Seriously?”
“Stay out of this, J,” she muttered.
“If the kid’s stealing from you, babe, just sayin’,” Jag returned.
Her head ticked and she focused on him. “Babe?”
“Babe,” he confirmed.
That was when A looked heavenward.
“Are you guys, like, together?” Mal asked, his gaze darting
between them.
“Mind your business about J, Mal, and answer my question,” A
demanded.
But Mal was still busy looking between “Arch” and Jag.
“It’s weird, he’s biker, you’re punk, but I see it,” he
decided. Then he said to Jag, “I’d call her ‘babe’ too, because she’s totally a
babe.”
“Mal!” A snapped.
“Nothin’,” he whispered, and Jag wasn’t a huge fan of his
sudden change in tone or the look on the kid’s face. “Nothin’. Just messin’ around, keepin’ to
myself. Hangin’ at the laundromat sometimes. But the
Harris brothers—”
And Jag did not like the way “Arch” responded to
the words “the Harris brothers.”
He shifted in a way he was closer to her and the kid.
“They know I’m loose and they’ve been givin’
me shit,” Mal finished.
“Why don’t you go home?” A asked.
The kid hung his head, and if there was a rock to kick, he
would have.
“Mal,” she pushed.
He looked up at her. “Mom’d know I
was home if I went home, you know?”
Oh shit.
“That was part of our deal that I didn’t share what went
down for it to happen,” she said low, also now visibly seriously pissed. “I
trusted you, Mal. You promised and I trusted that you would tell your mom you’d
left group.”
“She’d be disappointed, Arch.”
Christ, with the way he said that, now Jag felt for the kid.
It took all of two seconds for A to say her next.
“You’re back in group, but I swear to God,” she pointed at
him, “you blow it again, I’m going right to your mom. Do you hear me?”
Mal nodded.
“Give me the backpack, J,” she ordered Jagger.
Jagger handed it to her.
She unzipped it, took a big box out of it that had a picture
of a game controller on it, complete with carrying case and other shit (Who
needed a carrying case for a game controller? What? Did folk take their
controllers on vacation?).
She handed the backpack to Mal.
“Back to the store, brother, your mom’s not home for at
least an hour.”
Mal nodded to A, swung his head to Jagger, then he looked
back to A.
“Why hasn’t your man been at the store?” he asked.
“Back to the store, Mal,” she demanded. “Now.”
“Whatever,” he replied, but he didn’t move.
“That’s backtalk, not walking back to the store,” she
pointed out.
Mal rolled his eyes.
A crossed her arms, still holding the big box in a hand.
“Whatever,” Mal repeated, then started walking out of the
alley.
A and Jagger watched him.
But A did it shouting, “And I’m not punk! I’m not anything
but me!”
Mal said nothing in response before he turned the corner and
disappeared.
When he did, afforded an opportunity he hadn’t had in a very
long time, and not about to waste this one like he did the others, Jagger got
right in her space.
“First, what’s your fuckin’ name?” he asked.
“Archie,” she returned, bellying right up to him in return.
Archie?
“What’s your fuckin’ name?” she asked back.
“Jagger,” he told her. “Your name is Archie?”
“Yes, my name is Archie. Your name is Jagger?”
He grinned at her. “Touché.”
She didn’t grin back.
“Now…store?” he continued.
“I have a shop, about seven what I’ve recently discovered
are very long blocks from here.”
“A shop?”
“A shop.”
“What kind of shop?”
“Albums. Books. Home stuff. Gifts. Local artisan things.
Shit I like. That’s why it’s called S.I.L.”
“Your shop is called Sil?”
“S.I.L. on the Hill.”
He’d heard of it.
He’d also heard it was fucking awesome.
But he wasn’t a shopper so he’d never been there.
“Okay, then,” he went on. “Lionel Richie koozie?”
“It has his picture and ‘Hello, is it me you’re looking
for?’ on it.”
Jag busted out laughing.
Yeah, he’d never been there, but it definitely sounded like
her shop was awesome.
“Jagger,” she called.
He pulled his shit together, doing this primarily because he
liked how his name sounded in her mouth so much he couldn’t focus on anything
else.
He gave her his gaze, but before she could say anything, he
asked, “Group?”
“There’s folks in the ’hood, where I live, where my shop is,
who can use a break. I give ’em a break.”
“What kind of break?”
She shifted, and her body language shifted with her.
She also vocalized this change.
“Jagger, you don’t get twenty questions.”
“I just chased a kid into an alley for you and got called a pedo. Repeatedly.”
“I would have caught him.”
He shot her a look.
Then he vocalized that look.
“Babe, you were goin’ down. I
saved you two hundred bucks.”
“I guess that’s the least you could do after you left me
high and dry for four years.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Say what? High and dry?”
“You know, not being there when I needed you.”
The back of his neck started tightening.
“When you needed me?”
“Are you gonna repeat everything I say?”
“Are you gonna fill in the blanks?”
She stared up at him.
But now she was doing it like she’d run into an ex who she’d
fallen head over heels for and he’d cheated on her.
And yeah, his neck was constricting something fierce.
He dipped his face closer to hers and said quietly,
“Archie.”
“You know it doesn’t end, Jagger,” she replied curtly. “It
never ends.”
Oh yeah, he knew that.
He knew when you lost a parent too early, that hurt never
went away.
Even if you didn’t remember that parent.
It just never went away.
But she knew her mom.
So that had to be worse.
“Talk to me,” he urged.
She shook her head and took a step away. “I gotta get back to my shop.”
“I’ll walk you there.”
“Don’t bother.”
She made a move.
He caught her arm.
She stopped moving, glanced at her arm, then aimed her eyes
to his.
“We’re done talking,” she informed him.
“We haven’t even started and we shoulda
started ten years ago.”
“Yes, we should have, but we didn’t and now it’s too late.”
“What’s too late?”
“Jagger, let me go.”
“Archie—”
“Is your brother good?”
At that question coming out of the blue, the contraction in
his neck got a whole lot worse.
“Yeah,” he said carefully.
“Well, my brother went off the deep end, man. He and my dad
barely talk. He’s constantly an asshole. He hurts people with seemingly no
remorse. My family fell apart. And it would have been nice to have you around
so you could tell me how you all kept yours together.”
With that, she yanked her arm free and jogged away.
Jagger let her, not because he was done talking to her.
Not even close.
But because, clearly, she needed space.
So he’d give it to her.
And he would because now, he knew how to find her.