Chapter Three #2
adolescents under your belt to back that wisdom?”
“No, but I was a kid once.” Then, out of curiosity, he
asked, “Do you?”
“Jagger,” she snapped.
And even pissed, he serious as fuck liked the sound of his
name coming from her mouth.
So he said, super low, “Baby, I know we are nowhere near
here, but I really dig what you’re wearing and you smell great, so do a man a
solid, and take a couple steps back.”
Her eyelids straight-up fluttered in a sexy version of
surprise and she took a gigantic step back.
Now he could see the whole package, which didn’t help, but
he couldn’t smell moonlight and her lips weren’t a duck of his head away
anymore, so that was good.
For more than one reason, he moved to the window, and looked
out of it.
There was stuff in the way, but he saw all the kids were
cleaning up the mess, and it looked like some staffers were helping them.
The cash registers—and there were two, one on either side of
the front door—were up high, with a view to the whole of the space.
And from what he could tell, there was ice cream at the soda
fountain.
He still wanted a cherry Coke.
“You got real cherry Coke at that fountain?” he asked the
window.
“Jagger,” she called.
He turned to her.
She was leaning a hip against a messy desk, her hair was
piled on top of her head, a lot of long tendrils floating down, some of them
she’d braided, and yeah.
He should have continued looking out the window.
“I was handling that,” she said.
“Yeah?” he asked. “How? Mal looked like he was about to piss
his pants, the only thing stopping him was how upset he was that your store was
fucked up.”
She pressed her lips tight together.
Nope.
She didn’t miss that Mal was messed up about whatever
happened out there.
“Why do you have a boatload of kids hanging out at your
store?” he asked. “And don’t tell me they’re customers.”
He turned his head to look out and watched how the kids were
moving while they helped clean up.
This was their space.
He returned his attention to Archie. “They’re here a lot.”
“They’re group.”
“What’s group?”
She pushed away from her desk and started, “Jag—”
He turned fully to her, lifted a hand, dropped it, and cut
her off, saying, “Okay, this is where we are.”
She looked surprised.
Then she appeared to be settling in and she did this putting
her hands on her hips.
She had thin, long, elegant fingers, she varnished her nails
and shaped them into ovals. They were painted white. And he wanted to spend
some time looking at the tats she had there and on her wrists, which were tiny,
but they looked cool.
That would have to be later.
For now…
“I’m done dicking around—” he began.
“Well, it’s good you are, but—”
“Listen to me, A, and don’t interrupt,” he ordered.
“This may have escaped you, J, but you’re in my office, in
my store, and you can’t tell me how shit is gonna go down here. Or, really,
anywhere.”
“Okay,” he crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder against
her window, “you tell me. How’s this gonna go down?”
“First, I’m not a big fan of being called babe.”
“Noted.”
He said it.
He didn’t mean it.
She was totally a babe and he hoped she would soon
be his babe.
So that was sticking.
She could find that out later.
But for now, they needed to move this along.
“Second, it actually doesn’t matter if you call me babe or
not. The window where we could have been something to each other has closed.
I’ve moved on. You need to move on.”
“What are you, twenty-four? Twenty-five?”
“Twenty-five, who cares?”
Whoa.
“You’re only twenty-five and you made all of that?” He
jerked his head to the window to indicate the store beyond.
“Jagger!” she snapped. “Focus.”
He grinned. “Babe.”
“Oh my God,” she said quietly, her stare hinting at being a
glare. “Are you really this annoying?”
“Just to say, you’re only twenty-five, I’m twenty-seven,
there are no windows that are closed for us. Unless you haven’t stanned for a
boy band. I think for any cool chick like you, at your age, your window is
closed for that.”
“You can be cute,” she was still talking quietly, but her
tone was completely different, “but you’re still too late.”
He was talking quietly too, when he asked, “Too late for
what?”
“Me.”
Shit.
“You married?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Engaged?” he went on.
“Jagger—”
“Are you taken, Archie?”
She held his eyes.
Hers were black.
She had mixed blood, that was obvious, and everything she
got out of however that fusion came about was perfection.
Including her deep-set eyes that dipped down at the inner
corners.
But she didn’t answer his question.
Which was an answer to his question.
So he kept going.
“I wanna know what’s happening
with your family. And I wanna know why you got a
bunch of kids hanging at your store. And I wanna know
about these Harris brothers, and how much trouble they’re causing you, but
mostly Mal. I also wanna take you out to dinner. I wanna see a picture of your mom because I’ve wondered what
she looked like, considering how pretty you are, since the minute I set eyes on
you. I want you to meet my dad who isn’t my real dad and I wanna
share a drink and a game of pool with you in my MC’s compound. I wanna be your friend, Archie. I wanna
take this where we should have taken it years ago. But to be clear, I also want
more. I’m attracted to you. I wanna know how you
taste and what you feel like and the noises you’ll make when I turn you on.
That’s where I’m at right now and I want you to be there with me.”
He took a breath and she didn’t utter a word.
Which was good.
Because he wasn’t done.
“So last, you gotta know, I refuse
to accept that our window is closed. If you believe in God or fate or destiny
or karma or whatever, I was there for you the day you needed me the most. And I
may have fucked up along the way, but I’m standing right here telling you,
unless shit goes south in a way neither of us can turn that tide, I’ll always
be there for you.”
When he was done with that, she turned her head away.
It was a sharp movement, and the way it was, was concerning.
“Archie, baby,” he called.
She turned back to him and said, “She was the best mom in
the world, Jagger. She was…she was…I am everything I am today because
of her and she died when I was fourteen. But boys with their moms, that’s
another thing. And her being gone fucked my brother up. Fubar. Huge.
And Dad was okay with it for a while. And then he got fed up with it. And now
shit is dark, Jagger. And she would hate that. She’d really fucking hate it.
And I have no idea what to do about it.”
For his part, he really fucking hated hearing the emotion
tremble in her words and not be close to her, at least, holding her, better.
“Can I come to you?” he requested.
She visibly tensed.
Then she jerked her head up and down.
He went to her.
And carefully, he pulled her in his arms.
She didn’t commit to it, just rested her hands on his waist.
Though she did twist her neck and put the side of her head
to his chest.
He breathed her in and tucked her as close as he could
without being gross and pervy in doing it.
She didn’t say anything, and he didn’t have anything to say.
He just kept her folded in his arms until he felt the time
was right to say, “Choice placement of the word ‘fubar,’ babe. Well done.”
Her fingers tensed into his flesh, but she didn’t remove her
hands as she tipped her head back to look up at him.
Yup.
Not too short.
Not too tall.
Just right.
Mm.
Though, it was good to see a light shining in her pretty
eyes, and she wasn’t pissed or hurt he’d made a joke.
“So, is this Jagger-style being there? You being a
smartass?” she asked.
He faked looking insulted. “I wasn’t being a smartass. That
was totally choice placement of the word ‘fubar.’”
Her body moved a little with her humor.
It felt too good, so he gave her a squeeze then stepped away
from her.
She moved her head in a way it was both a cute tip and a
sexy-flirty duck and asked, “You wanna catch dinner
tonight?”
Right the fuck on.
There it was.
They were on the same page.
Goddamn brilliant.
“Fuck yeah,” he said, then immediately had to say, “Ah,
hell. No.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m supposed to go over to my brother’s tonight for dinner.
He and his girlfriend are in this zone to get me to sort my shit with her
sister, who’s apparently cleaned up her act. She’s also my ex, which is
problematic to their goal of all of us stomaching each other for family shit
since Dutch and Georgie are breaking the land-speed record for most committed
relationship in the shortest period of time.”
She looked both freaked and amused when she inquired, “Which
one is Dutch and which one is Georgie?”
“Dutch is my brother. Georgie is his girl.”
“I should have called that. And…your ex is her sister?”
“I had the sister first. Dutch is the copycat on that.”
She was nodding at the same time still looking amused.
“Though, he got the better one,” Jag continued.
“This definitely would make things uncomfortable, you gotta put up with the ex at family affairs.”
“Yeah, especially when she fleeced me, repeatedly, for money
that was supposed to be helping her out paying rent because she said her
landlord kept jacking her around, when really she was snorting my money up her
nose and buying three thousand dollar purses. Her sole purpose for being with
me was being on the grift. She supposedly fell for me sometime through that,
but that’s not my problem. My problem is, I’m told she’s found the road to
redemption and I gotta sit at a table with a woman
who pissed away thousands of dollars that I earned.”
“Holy fuck, Jagger,” she whispered, horrified, but also, he
sensed, angry.
“Yeah, so I’d actually wanna say
yes to dinner with you and then take you over to Dutch and Georgie’s, because I
want time with you, and it’d be cool they met you. Though, full disclosure,
also because Carolyn would fucking hate that. But I wouldn’t do that to you