Chapter Seven #2
talking about it. I asked the others, they don’t snitch. I had no choice but to
let him go. Now I know those boys are screwing with him.”
She definitely knew that.
“So, I’m at a crossroads,” she continued. “I’d lose his
trust if I told his mom, and I need his trust. But his mom needs to know. I
have him back now, and I can work on him. And I just have to see where that
leads me.”
“So, you’re the village,” he stated.
She tipped her head to the side in a silent, What?
“Any of the parents pay you guys for looking after their
kids?”
“That’s the point. They have mouths to feed, roofs to keep
over heads, and that’s hard enough. They needed to make decisions that no
parent should make. And this lightens the load, sometimes just the worry,
because most of the kids were looking out for themselves. But for the others,
it lightens it financially and that’s significant.”
Oh, he got it.
“You got all these people to look after their own,” he
explained. “You’re the village.”
She was quiet a second.
Then she said, “Everything is monetized, even stuff that
shouldn’t be. At least not to the extent it is. Healthcare, childcare. And it’s
no skin off my nose to have those kids hang with me for a couple of hours
between school and their parents being home. Occasionally, there’s a headache.
Martin brought the flu in once, everyone got it, and that was a drag. But when
I moved here, I moved into a community. For the most part, folks looked after
each other already, but it wasn’t as organized. Now it’s tighter. And it’s
appreciated. I can’t say Mal’s mom is a good friend of mine. I can say she saw
me and Elijah fighting and she came over that night with a bottle and we hung
out and bitched about family stuff. I needed that but didn’t think to reach out
to anyone to ask for it. So…”
She was done talking because she said no more.
He wanted to get into her fighting with Elijah.
But they both had days to get on with and they were already
into something deep and he suspected that’d only take them deeper.
So Jag stuck with the subject.
“How do you not have problems with a bunch of middle
schoolers?”
She surprisingly had a ready answer.
“Because kids know things. You can’t protect them. They
know. Every one of them knows they’re either alone in their house and their mom
and/or dad is worried about them the entire time. Or they feel like a drain
because their folks have to pay someone to watch them and they don’t have the
means to do that without everyone feeling it. I can’t say they’re angels
twenty-four seven. They’re humans. They have moods. They can act like dicks. I
think it was a shock, in the beginning, that they had someone who understood
that and didn’t get up in their shit about it. The road was bumpy starting out.
Then respect formed. So mostly, now we all get on with it.”
“You do know how fucking cool this is, right?”
Those pretty black eyes shifted to his shoulder.
“No. I know that I had a dad who was clueless, a brother who
was pissed off at the world and I needed to step up when I should have been
able to be a kid. I don’t blame either of them. It was what it was. But did I
want to be doing laundry and cooking food and vacuuming and running
interference and making sure my big brother did his homework? No. I wished I
had someone to step in and let me be a kid. So these kids get to be kids at
school. And they get to be kids after school. And they know someone gives a shit.
And then they get to go home and be part of a family. I didn’t have that. No
one stepped in for me. I didn’t feel like a part of a family. I felt like I was
the only thing holding my family together. It’s not like I’m Mother Teresa. I’m
just a good neighbor.”
Oh yeah.
They had a lot to go over when they had more time.
“Right, well, whether you get it or not, it’s fucking cool.
And just saying, that’s what my Club is about. We look out for each other. We
do all right now, money is good, no one is hurting. But there were times, and
when those times came, the brothers and their old ladies had each other’s
backs.” He took a sip of his coffee and reiterated, “It is really
cool, Archie. More people should think like you. No, not just think like you.
Think like you and do something about it.”
She sidestepped the compliment again, and said, “So the
universe as we know it is what we think it to be, and things work out with us,
I’m gonna be your ‘old lady’?”
“Yup.”
Her lips tipped up, her eyes went hooded and that was how
she shared her approval of that before she sipped more coffee.
“Now, back to the subject, the Harris brothers,” he
prompted.
She gave a nod.
“Their parents suck. I’m no counselor, I don’t have years
under my belt dealing with kids, but I talked with Freya and I tried a number
of different ways to get through to them, and nothing worked. I’m not going to
go so far as say they’re bad seeds. Especially Allan, he’s mostly a good kid,
but he sticks to Aaron like glue, to his detriment. But dealing with them is
beyond my scope.”
“I hear you,” he said when she paused.
So she kept going.
“What I do think is, they give Mal shit. Mal’s mom and dad
have split. His dad is military, he’s deployed a lot. His mom’s going to
school, online courses she does at night, she works during the day. His grandma
is sick, and that puts a strain on things. A lot is going down with him and
bullies, they scent blood. But I think
it’s more. Mal’s parents may have split, but they’re both in his life. They
care. They’re loving. He goes to visit his dad a lot when he’s not overseas.
The twins don’t have that. Nothing near it. I think the twins deal with drugs,
alcohol, their parents not keeping good company and just overall neglect.”
“Jealousy.”
“Yeah.”
“And the scene yesterday?”
“I’m not a bully, I don’t know, but I think they wanted to
communicate that Mal isn’t safe from them anywhere.”
“And they picked you, because they aren’t gonna fuck with
him at home and rub up against his mom. She might get the school and cops
involved. You’re a soft target because they’ve already tested you and know
you’ll put up with a lot before you lower the hammer.”
“Yeah. But that was before my future held me being some
biker’s old lady.”
Jagger chuckled.
Archie smiled through her sip of coffee.
Jagger quit chuckling.
“They got the only pass they’re gonna get, Archie,” he
warned. “You need to call the cops on them if they show and start trouble like
they did yesterday.”
She looked massively unhappy when she said, “I know.”
“Or, you call me, and either I’ll come, or if one of my
brothers is closer, they can come and share with those boys that they had their
time and now’s the time to get their heads out of their asses because that time
is up. They fuck with you or Mal again, there’ll be consequences.”
“How about I share that info with them, and only if things
get out of hand or I get the vibe they’re not receiving the message, I call
badass biker backup?”
He would prefer to be on the way to her the second shit
kicked up.
But he said, “That works.”
“How hard was that?” she asked.
“Sorry?” he asked in return.
“To let the old lady claim her own shit.”
He studied her through swallowing some coffee, wondering if
he was that easily readable or if she was just that tuned to him.
Then he answered, “Hard.”
She pushed up to a hand, leaned in and touched her mouth to
his.
She didn’t pull back very far when she asked, “What’s for
dinner, boyfriend?”
“Smashburgers.”
Her brows went up.
It was then he realized Dutch and Georgie’s baked ravioli
that night was veggie. Inadvertently veggie, they were both meat eaters, but it
was veggie.
“You eat meat?” he asked.
“Yep,” she answered.
“So, smashburgers. And don’t get excited. I cook, but I cook
simple. My mom’s a biker babe, but she’s a mom. A mom with three sons. She took
and continues to take care of her boys. We did not have at-home home economics
time at Casa de Keely.”
“Keely is your mom’s name?”
“Yup.”
“Pretty,” she murmured.
“Hound cooks too, mostly breakfast.”
“Hound?”
“My dad.”
Something moved over her face.
She didn’t comment on it.
Jag didn’t push it.
He didn’t want to ask his next, but he had to ask his next.
“What time is it?”
“It was closing in on seven-thirty when I brought you your
coffee.”
“Shit, I gotta get going,
sweetheart.”
She didn’t look like she liked that, but she nodded.
He didn’t like it either.
What he did do was take their coffee mugs and set them
aside, then pull her in his arms, roll over her and make out with her hot and
heavy.
Because they had to get on with their days.
But there was always time to make out.