Chapter Eight
Original Gangster
Jagger
Early that afternoon, Jagger was on his ass on the
floor of bay two at the garage at Ride, his wrists to his cocked knees, and
Joker was sitting beside him in the same position.
Both of them were staring at the vehicle that was right then
currently kicking their ass.
It wasn’t a build.
It was a restoration.
An old Ford Bronco that was totally worth the effort, seeing
as it was a Bronco, and Joker’s vision for it was epic.
But everywhere they turned, they found rust.
Which was a pain in the ass and it was making the budget
skyrocket.
“Remind me not to do this again,” Joker said.
“Dude,” Jagger replied, because Joker said that a lot, but
when he got something in his head, he didn’t listen to anyone. So a long time
ago, Jag had quit trying.
“Every time we take on a restoration, we get kicked in the
ass,” Joker told him something he knew.
“But, brother, it’s a Bronco.”
Joker sighed, knowing like Jagger did, at least this time,
that made it worth it, just as a child called out, “Daddy!”
Both Joke and Jag looked to the mouth of the bay where they
saw a little girl with black hair racing their way.
Joker and his wife Carissa’s first.
Though, if you counted Carissa’s boy from her previous
marriage, which Joker did, their girl was their second.
She was called Clementine.
Coming up behind Clementine was Wyatt, Joker’s first blooded
boy, and trailing was Carissa, with their last, a baby girl, Raven, on her hip.
Since he wasn’t there, Travis (their first) was probably
with his father.
But even with this parade, Clementine was determined to take
all her dad’s attention, considering she little-girl tackled him.
Joker pretended it was a major hit, groaning and rocking
deeper with the blow than was necessary.
Wyatt ignored both men, seeing as he was his father’s son,
and way more interested in the Bronco, so he went right to that.
Raven was all about her dad too, reaching out to him, and
Carissa was all about her husband, heading straight to him.
But the shout that Jag would put money on all of them
hearing even before they heard it came from the door to the office.
“Get that baby up here!” Tyra yelled.
Tyra, their former president Tack’s wife, also the garage’s
office manager, was a baby monster. It was hilarious. And luckily, with all the
brothers busy procreating, she got her fix regularly.
“Coming!” Carissa called.
But she stopped at her husband first, bending low, touching
mouths, sharing smiles, shifting so that Joker could get a wet buss from Rave,
then, with a smile and, “Hey, Jag,” she took off toward the office.
Clementine was having none of this and declared just that
before her mother was even out of eyesight.
With a scrunched-up, little-kid-pissed face, her hands to
his shoulders, she stated, “I pin you, Daddy!”
“All right, baby,” Joker muttered then fell to his back.
She squealed with triumph.
Jagger pulled out his phone and took a snap after Joker took
control, wrapping his arms around his daughter and kissing her face all over.
This caused more squeals.
“Selfie, brah.”
Hearing this, Jagger looked to his left and Wyatt was
already posing with two fingers in front of him in V position.
Christ, the kid was barely four.
Totally Joke’s kid, and not only due to the jet-black hair
and steel-gray eyes and preoccupation with vehicles, but also the inherent cool
factor.
Obediently, Jagger shifted, reached the arm with the phone
long, did the V with his other hand, and took a selfie.
After this, Wyatt again lost interest in him and went back
to the Bronco.
Yeah, so his dad.
After the cool, all about the cars.
By the time he did, Joker had sat up, Clementine was in his
lap and her attention had turned.
To Jagger.
She launched herself at him and he did his best to pretend
it was a valiant struggle, but she did a great job at pinning him.
“Got you!” she yelled in his face.
“You sure did, cuteness,” he told her.
She didn’t waste time exalting in victory.
Her head snapped to the side, she then shouted, “Hoppy!”
jumped off Joker, making him grunt for real when one of her feet hit his gut,
and she took off after their brother, Hop, who’d just walked in the garage.
“I see a future in GLOW for your girl,” Jagger said as he
did an ab curl back up to sitting.
“It’s her new thing,” Joker told him. “Last week, she wanted
scissors to cut all her dolls’ hair. The week before that, she made me sit on
the couch and put gunk on my face because she saw her mom give herself a
facial. This did not go great for her since I have a beard and that fucked with
her vision of how comprehensive she wanted to get with my skin, but her mother
put her foot down in a negatory when Clem demanded I shave it off. The week
before that, she was karate chopping and kickboxing everything. We had to put a
stop to that when she roundhouse kicked a table and broke a lamp. I saw it. It
was a solid kick. I was impressed. Carrie was not.”
Jag shook his head, chuckling low while watching as
Clementine screamed in (fake) frustration, considering Hop hadn’t proven as
easy of a target as Joke and Jag were and now she was hanging upside down on
Hopper’s back.
“Never thought I’d say this, man,” Joker continued, “but I
hope we go back to the facial thing. She attacks everybody at random, she’s an
early riser, her brother and her parents are easy targets, and it’s messing
with her mother and my morning alone time.”
Jagger kept chuckling.
“Carrie’s pregnant again,” Joker announced abruptly.
Jag stopped laughing and focused on him.
He was watching (and listening to more girlie shrieks) since
Hopper had flipped Clem forward into his arms and begun tickling her.
“Say what?” Jag asked.
Joker turned to Jag. “Yep.”
“How many are you two gonna have?”
“She wants this next one and one more.”
“Dude, that’s six kids.”
Joker shrugged.
“That’s also nuts,” Jagger carried on.
Joke caught his eyes. “Right, Jag. When you find a woman,
and she’s your woman, and then you find out what she wants, I’ll let you show
me the way in denying her.”
Jagger had a feeling he found that girl ten years ago,
hooked up with the woman she became yesterday, and he was already in that
place.
“Text me and Carrie those snaps, would you, brother?” Joker
requested as he hauled himself off his ass, got to his feet and called to his
son, “Yo, boy, you want a tour of the Bronco?”
“Yeah, Dad!” Wyatt cried.
Joker strolled to his kid.
Jagger texted him and Carissa the pictures.
Then he pulled up another name and put the snaps in a new
text.
He sent it to Archie with the words Some of my village.
It took two minutes before he got a reply.
Rad. With about seventeen heart-eyes emojis.
About ten seconds after that came, Is that selfie with
your baby bro?
He sent back, No, my brother Joker’s boy. Joker is in
the other pic with his girl.
To this, she returned, Your brother is hot.
The rest of them are dogs, he replied.
She sent a gif of some woman pursing her lips and rolling
her eyes.
Which meant, when Jagger headed toward the Bronco, he was
smiling.
At six-thirty that night, his doorbell rang.
Jagger left his kitchen, went to his front door, opened it,
saw Archie outside wearing a pair of faded olive jeans shorts and an oversized
V-neck tee she’d knotted at the waist. The tee was white, a little see-through,
and what he could see through it was a red bra. She also had on flat sandals
with a bunch of braided straps around her feet and ankles.
Seriously, he dug how she dressed.
That was the only thought he had, outside he was pleased as
fuck she was there, before he returned the favor she gave him the night before.
He hooked her at the waist, pulled her to his body, dropped
his head and took her mouth.
Kissing her deep, he shuffled her in, shut the door,
shuffled her around, and then moved them in further.
Only when she was pressing close and had a hand fisted in
his hair, did he break the kiss.
“Hey,” he greeted.
“Hey.” She smiled.
Truth.
She was beautiful.
But when she smiled, she was all kinds of pretty.
That might seem a demotion in compliments.
But it was seriously not.
She let his hair go but only to rest her hand on the back of
his neck, remained snug against him, and looked around.
And even if she was close, she still managed to collapse
against him with her laughter.
He knew what was funny and grinned down at her while she did
it.
When she was getting control, she drooped a shoulder and
dropped a beat-up leather backpack to the floor.
She did some head turning to take more in before she slapped
both hands on his shoulders and said, “Thank God, finally, you do something
that’s cute. I mean, could this be more of a bachelor pad?”
He looked around his space that was totally and
unapologetically a bachelor pad.
He was a bachelor. And it was his time to have this
kind of pad.
So that was what he made it and he went all in.
Even if it was a freestanding, his house was considered a
condo since his complex had thirty identical ones built in three sections, one
around a small park, another around an outdoor workout space and the last
around a communal pool. His condo was in the workout space section.
The grounds and pool were maintained really well, this
meaning the HOA was a bitch.
But it was totally worth it.
The front room of his crib was L-shaped with living room to
the left, big open kitchen to the right, off the front of kitchen a dining area
that led to a wall of windows with French doors that led outside to a
decent-size, fenced-in backyard.
The bend of the L contained an office that also had French
doors that led outside.
The hall led to a powder room and the master, with stairs
that went up to the second floor that held two bedrooms that shared a bath.
The furniture in the living room was sectional, slouchy and
comfortable.
The TV was ginormous.