Chapter Two
In or Out
Jagger
Tomorrow, cool?
Jag stared at his brother’s text, thinking it was not cool.
But it was what it was.
And what it was, was that Dutch and his woman Georgie wanted
Jagger over for dinner.
That would never be a problem, both his brother and Georgie
were good cooks, and if they got busy, they had a fantastic relationship with
DoorDash.
Not to mention, Jagger loved his big brother and Georgie was
the shit.
The problem was, Carolyn was going to be there.
Carolyn was Georgie’s sister.
She was also Jagger’s ex and things had not ended copacetic
with them, mostly because, for years, Carolyn had been snorting coke when she
said she wasn’t.
And, oh yeah…
Begging money off him so she could do her blow and
get herself into a hole with all the designer-gear shopping she was doing.
Jag didn’t give a shit about the Chanel.
But drugs were a no-go and the thought his money went to
that pissed him off.
Huge.
But now she was family, in a way, and he had to suck it up
and put up with her.
Like at dinner tomorrow night.
Sure, what time? he replied.
7:00 Dutch sent.
Jagger returned the “ok” hand gesture emoji which pretty
much said it all with how enthusiastic he was about this dinner.
Then he stared at his phone, moved down two in his text
list, and sent another one.
You open to have a drink at the Compound tonight?
That one, he sent to Hound.
What he was trying to figure out right then was why he sent
it to Hound, and not to Dutch.
Dutch was his brother of the blood and of the patch. They
were both Chaos.
As their father, Graham Black, had been Chaos.
And as Hound, their other father, was Chaos.
Jag and Dutch were close.
But he’d never wanted Dutch to know about Archie.
And Hound had never brought it up, but Jag knew he knew
about her because of the note he’d passed.
He didn’t know.
But he knew.
And Jagger was totally okay with that.
But not Dutch.
And with that…
Why?
His phone binged and he got, Yep. Time?
Jag smiled.
Hound wasn’t a man of a lot of words.
Though he knew how to use them when he needed them.
What he was, was always there for Jag and Dutch.
Always.
Nine good with you? he asked.
See you then, Hound answered.
That made Jag feel better.
Then again, Hound always did.
Shepherd “Hound” Ironside was already sitting at bar
in the Compound of the Chaos MC when Jagger strolled in.
Hound was in his usual position when he sat a stool in the
common room—hunched over a bottle of beer cradled in both hands.
But his eyes were on Jag.
“Yo,” Jag greeted.
“Yo,” Hound replied.
Jag passed Hound at the back to get to the end of the bar,
and then he went behind it, because Hound was the only one in the common room,
there wasn’t a Club prospect to serve them, so Jag had to get his own beer.
He did that, popped the cap, and then turned to stand
opposite where Hound was sitting.
He took a drag from his beer and then leaned into his
forearms on the bar, cradling his bottle the same way Hound was.
“You good?” Hound asked.
“Yup,” Jag answered.
Hound stared right at him.
Jag took another pull from his beer.
Hound spoke again.
“Right then, if you’re good, why am I here when I could be
at home in a house where my kid is asleep, and my wife is pretty much always in
the mood to fall on my dick?”
Jag flinched and reminded him, “Dude, you’re talking about
my mom.”
“Yeah,” Hound agreed.
Even if it was totally gross, Jag couldn’t stop his chuckle.
“Jagger,” Hound said in a warning tone.
“Okay, there’s this girl,” Jag started.
Hound didn’t move, didn’t say a word.
He also didn’t take his gaze from Jagger’s.
He was there. He was interested. He was listening.
He was all Jagger’s in that moment.
Something about that made Jag feel great.
At the same time it totally fucked him up.
“I’ve known her for ten years,” he continued. “And the only
things I know about her are, she has a dad and a brother, good taste in music,
she dresses great, runs a store, her mom is dead, and today was the day I
learned her first name.”
“Sounds to me like you’re takin’ things slow.”
Jag chuckled again before he handed that shit right back.
“You’d know all about slow, brother.”
Hound nodded his head once. “Yup, you don’t push a woman
when important shit is at stake. Like her heart. Her emotions. Her loyalties.
Her sons. And your brothers.”
Jag was no longer chuckling.
“Why’re you not pushin’ this
woman?” Hound went on.
“Timing’s never been right,” Jag lied.
“Cut the shit.” Hound knew he was lying.
Jag sighed.
Then he gave it to him.
“We’re completely connected and we’re totally not.”
Hound’s brows drifted up. “Why’s
that?”
Jag looked down at his bottle.
Then he looked at Hound.
“The first time I saw her, she was at her mother’s funeral,
and I was sitting on Dad’s grave.”
Hound said nothing, just held Jag’s eyes.
“That’s how we’re connected, Hound,” Jagger pointed out.
“That’s an important connection, Jag. Now explain to me how
you never knew her name until today.”
“We’d connect, it was always brief, and then we’d miss
connections that were meant not to be brief.”
“This is the girl across the way.”
Jag straightened from the bar.
Christ.
Hound always had his finger on the pulse of his boys.
So it shouldn’t surprise Jag that, even over a decade since
that note was passed, he remembered.
It still surprised him.
“Hound—” Jag began.
“And you dicked around for all this time, not learnin’ her name?”
“I don’t have what she has,” Jagger told him.
“What’s that?”
“Any time in with my dead dad.”
Hound got quiet.
“She needs me, Hound. She’s always needed me. And I’m an
imposter,” Jagger told him.
That made Hound straighten from his hunch over the bar.
“You are the fuck not,” he returned.
“Today, she told me she’s got troubles. All this way down
the line from her mom passing, she’s got trouble in her family. And she’s
pissed at me because I wasn’t there when she needed me, and her family fell
apart. I got nothing for her. I didn’t keep our family together. Mom did. You
did. Dutch did. I…”
He trailed off because he didn’t know where he was going
with that.
“You don’t have to have the answers, Jag. You just gotta be there to be a sounding board as she finds them. Or
stand strong for her if she doesn’t.”
Jag took another drag from his beer.
But he didn’t say anything.
“Now, the thing she’s gonna help you with is figuring out
why your ass was on Black’s grave and you don’t think you lost what she lost.”
Okay.
No.
They were not going there.
Jag didn’t share that.
He rolled his head on his neck and he felt three things pop.
And Hound heard them.
“You stretchin’?”
This was a thing.
Jag could get wound up.
He worked out, with the brothers in their weight room, at
the boxing gym Hound got them working in years ago, and he started doing that
young.
Or Hound got both him and Dutch into doing that young.
It was smart and not just as a way to teach a couple of kids
how to stay fit.
It worked out other shit too.
But Jag could get tense, and when he got tense, he got
tight.
Sometimes it would manifest in some not insignificant pain
in his neck and shoulders, also his upper back.
So he could go at a bag, a sparring partner, jump rope or
hit the streets and run.
But Hound always made sure he was all over doing a good
stretch after.
“It’s all connected, bud,” Hound would say. “You can’t just
focus on your neck and shoulders, your hammies, big
shit like that. You gotta work the tension outta your hips and abs, triceps, lats, delts, calves. You gotta get loose or anything could pop off.”
Yeah.
Hound was always on the pulse.
Always there to listen.
Always there to advise.
Always there to teach.
Always there to look out for his boys.
Always there.
Like right now.
The woman Hound loved who he waited twenty years to have was
at home with the kid they made and where was Hound?
Right there.
“No,” Jagger answered his question.
“Boy,” Hound said with disapproval.
“I’ll get a run in tomorrow morning and a stretch in after,”
Jagger promised.
Hound nodded.
“And this girl?” he prompted.
Jag shook his head. “I can’t go there unless I know I’m
gonna go there.”
“Yeah, that’s why she’s pissed.”
Jagger blinked. “Say what?”
“Because you’re fuckin’ around and you either need to stop
fuckin’ around or cut her loose.”
Jag said nothing.
Hound did.
“And just sayin’, son, she doesn’t
wanna be loose. I don’t know what’s happenin’ with you two, but no woman gets pissed at a man
she wants loose from. She gets pissed at a man she’s tight with, or wants to be
tight with, or wants to be tighter with. You got years under your belt
with this one and only asked her name today, however the fuck that works, one
thing I know, however it works, it means you’re jackin’
around. She needs you to stop jacking around, Jagger. She needs you all in or
to get the fuck out. That’s your decision. That’s why I’m sittin’
here across the bar with you. To figure that out. Are you all in, or are you
tapping out?”
Annnnnnnnd…
This was why Hound was right there, and not Dutch.
Because Dutch was a together dude. Smart. Wiser than his
years.
But he might not get there, to what Hound just said.
And if he did, if Dutch laid it out like that, it’d get
under Jag’s skin and Jag wouldn’t get where he needed to go.
Because Hound was right.
That was why they were both there.
“I want in,” he said quietly.
“What’s holding you back?” Hound asked, but before Jagger
could answer, Hound went on, “And don’t give me more of that imposter shit.
She’s the one, right?”
Fucking fuck.
It wasn’t like Hound ever delayed cutting to the chase.
But Jesus.
“Hound—”
“You knew that when you were visiting with your dad and saw
her across the way. And it wasn’t about your dad bein’
dead and her mom bein’ the same. You just knew.”
That was crazy.
“I was sixteen and she was maybe fifteen, tops.”
At that, Hound’s brows snapped together. “Who gives a fuck
how old you were?”
“You can’t know a girl’s the one when you’re sixteen and you
never spoke to her.”
“Well, your dad knew, and he wasn’t sixteen, but he knew, no
doubt about it. He saw your mom and that was it. He was done. And you are his
boy. It’s just how it is with the Black men. You watched it happen with your
brother and Georgie, do you doubt it?”
That was the rub.
Because his last name was Black.
But he wasn’t a Black.
“Answer me, Jag, do you doubt it?” Hound pushed.
He gave Hound what he was looking for.
“No, I don’t doubt it.”
Hound watched him closely.
Then, unusually, he read Jagger wrong.
“You got oats to sow, you cut her loose, and pray like fuck
when you’re done wasting your time doin’ shit you woulda preferred doin’ with her,
that she’s still there.”
Having that day in the alley with Archie, knowing her name,
seeing her with that kid, knowing something deeper was happening between Archie
and Jag, having known that for a long time, and knowing she needed him, the
idea of doing anything with anyone other than Archie did not appeal to him.
Not anymore.
He knew how to have a good time and spent a fair amount of
it doing just that.
And now…
Christ, was she the one?
Was he a Black?
At least with this?
“When’d you know Mom was the one?” Jag asked.
“Second I laid eyes on her,” Hound said before throwing back
a swallow of beer. When he was done, he finished, “But she was your dad’s
then.”
“Yeah,” Jagger replied.
So he could also be like the man who raised him.
He could be an Ironside.
Jag dropped his head and focused on his bottle.
“You wanna know what I think?”
Hound asked.
Jagger tipped his head back to look at his dad.
Then Hound told him what he thought.
“I think you’re in. And I think if you walk away from this
girl, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. And I think I’m here to tell
you that because you need another voice sayin’
something you already know.”
“That’s what I think too,” Jagger admitted.
Hound nodded, and again he did it only once.
“Then I’ll look forward to havin’
her over to dinner and celebrating with your mom that she can finally stop
worrying about you because she’s feelin’ you shoulda been done sowin’ those
oats about five years ago.”
Jagger grinned at him.
His mother had never been at one with the way Jag tackled
life, considering he’d always been about wresting as much of it as he could for
his own.
Dutch was the quiet, responsible one.
Jag was…
Not.
Hound reached out and caught Jag by the neck, gave him a
squeeze, a shove, then let him go.
And Jagger felt better.
“So, what’s her name?” Hound asked.
“Archie.”
Hound looked him right in the eye.
Then he burst out laughing.
He settled back into the bar, his fingers cradling his brew,
and he was shaking his head.
“Archie and Georgie. Fuck,” Hound said.
Jag hadn’t thought of that, both him and Dutch finding girls
with boys’ names.
He grinned, leaned back into the bar himself, and replied,
“She doesn’t have red hair and freckles, and I seriously doubt her best
friend’s name is Jughead, but I think she might have a bit of tomboy in her.”
“Well, son,” Hound picked up his beer and tipped it toward
Jag, “you’re about to find out.”
Jag grabbed his beer and tapped necks with Hound.
And he was grinning again.
Because Hound was right.
He was.