Chapter Eight #2
There was a black pool table with gray felt in the dining
room space.
His décor consisted of two neon signs, one a vintage Stroh’s
and the other was a martini glass with a woman in it, legs high and wide, red
pumps on, blonde hair streaming over the side of the glass.
Added to this was his prized collection of boy-perv vintage
posters, framed meticulously and mounted on the walls. These included the
famous Farrah Fawcett in the red one-piece sitting on the blanket, the tennis
player scratching her ass, Tyra Banks’s yellow bikini Sports Illustrated
cover, a black and white Jayne Mansfield and three Lottie Mac Corvette posters.
Considering it was a special occasion, he’d turned on the
neon for Archie.
“Do you really need a beverage fridge by the pool table when
the kitchen is right there?” she asked.
“Babe, I have a seventy-inch TV and I don’t watch TV. Dudes
buy shit with plugs regardless if they need shit with plugs. If you didn’t know
that, learn it now. It’s likely never gonna stop.”
She laughed softly then suddenly squinted at the wall. “Are
those Lottie Macs signed?”
“I got an in with Lottie.”
She looked up at him. “No shit?”
He shook his head. “No shit. She’s a friend.”
“Whoa,” she murmured. “Cool.”
“Have you seen her dance?”
She nodded. “Me and my crew go to Smithie’s on occasion. The
new revue is da bomb.”
It really was.
Yeah.
He so fucking liked this girl.
“Want a drink?” he asked.
She nodded, he let her go, but only to take her hand and
lead her to the kitchen.
He bent and nabbed her backpack on the way and tossed it to
his couch.
Archie took off the little purse she had hanging cross-body
to her hip and set it on one of the counters.
Jag then opened the door to his liquor cabinet.
Archie peered in and busted out laughing again.
And again, Jag grinned at her while she did it.
“Are you a mixologist?” she asked.
“No, I just never know what mood I’m gonna be in.”
She surveyed the contents of the very stocked cabinet then
told it, “I’m an amateur, but I dabble in the mixological arts.” She looked up
at him. “Prepared to be adventurous?”
“Always.”
She gave him a look that was both hot and approving before
her eyes skidded through the cut potatoes he had on the baking sheets and came
back to him.
“I’m on drinks,” she declared.
“Gotcha,” he replied, taking her hint, moving to the baking
sheets and grabbing the olive oil. “You hungry? Or you wanna
wait?” he asked to be certain.
“Hungry,” she answered.
“Cool, dinner in around twenty-five,” he muttered, and got
to it with the olive oil, salt and pepper on the oven fries.
He was sliding them in when she was sliding a glass next to
the stove.
“I went with a pear base,” she shared.
“Pointing out the obvious, since I had a can of juice, I dig
pear,” he told her and picked up his drink.
She held hers out.
He grinned at her and clinked.
He tasted it.
She’d gone with spiced rum, some lime, a ginger ale float.
“Nice,” he said.
Her black eyes twinkled before she tipped her head to the
side and stated, “Right, so, my girl Joany, who’s a friend, but she’s also on
staff at S.I.L., got a load of you when you made your presence known at the
store. And when I told her we were a thing, she told me I have some viewing to
do.”
The cocktail she made kicked ass.
But when she said that, all he could taste was bitter
because he knew exactly what she was talking about.
She didn’t miss it.
“Jagger?”
“Yeah,” he cleared his throat, took another sip, tasted the
pear, lime, ginger and spices again, and that was much better. Then he went on,
“Blood, Guts and Brotherhood. Our president, Rush’s old lady, Rebel is
a film director. She did that documentary on my Club.”
“Didn’t you like it?”
“It was great.”
“Then why, from when I mentioned it, to right now, do you
look like you wanna throw up?”
He put his drink down, moved to her, and caught her at both
sides of her neck.
Then he dipped his face close to hers.
“Can we eat smashburgers, drink, play pool, make out, take a
trip to get ice cream before we’re too fucked up to drive, then come home,
drink more, play around more, and I call adding some groping and maybe,
depending on how that goes, some fingering, and then pass out?” He paused
before he finished, “And all that without any heavy?”
“We can avoid what you want to avoid,” she agreed. “But
before we do that, are you okay with me watching that film?”
“Yeah, I just don’t want to see it again.”
She took a second to consider that, using that second to
study him closely, before she noted, “The tat on your back is carved in your
dad’s headstone. He was Chaos too, right?”
“Yeah, I’m a legacy.”
She took another second to ponder this before she set her
drink aside, fit herself to his front, and wrapped her arms around his middle.
“All right, Jagger. I’m good with shifting from the
emotional to some fun and physical, if that’s what you want. But just saying,
I’ve been waiting years to know you. I’ll wait for you, baby. Just, please
don’t make me wait too long.”
He nodded.
Archie pushed up on her toes to kiss him.
He kissed her back.
Then he let her go to get out the hamburger because his girl
was hungry.
“This is not right. You go Heath. You go
Butterfinger. You go Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Or the ultimate,” he lifted
the cup in his hand, “Oreo. You never do a limited edition, ever,”
Jagger decreed.
“I see my guy is a Blizzard purist,” Archie noted, before
shoving more of her blasphemous Blizzard in her mouth.
“You gotta know I like you,
considering I paid for that sacrilege you’re eating,” he told her.
Her eyes were twinkling again when she looked at him at the
same time reminded him, “Jagger, it’s a Wonder Woman Blizzard. It’s an
impossibility I’d say no to Wonder Woman, unless she sported pineapple or
something fucked up like that.”
Jag burst out laughing.
Archie leaned a shoulder into him where they were sitting
side by side on the table part of a picnic table in front of a DQ, their feet
on the seat.
Jagger spooned more soft serve with Oreos in his mouth.
“Your smashburgers were great,” she remarked. “I’m impressed
you know how to make oven fries. I stand behind this Blizzard choice. And I
won’t mind if you kick my ass in pool…again…when we get back, because
it’s awesome watching you work that table, you’re so good at it. But the best
part of the night was being on your bike with you.”
Yeah.
That was the best part of the night.
Absolutely.
Now, was he gonna say it?
Yeah.
He was.
“That’s my dad’s bike.”
Her tone had changed when she said, “You mentioned that.”
“He never put a woman on the back of that bike, except my
ma.”
Archie said nothing.
“I’ve never had a woman on the back of that bike, Archie.”
She kept her body mostly in the same position, but she moved
just enough to push her forehead deep into the point of his shoulder.
She stayed that way through two of his spoonfuls of ice
cream.
Then, without a word, she shifted, resting her head against
his shoulder, and she resumed eating.
He was grateful she didn’t dig, make a deal about it, just
shared she got how huge that was and it meant something to her and then went
back to her ice cream.
He was grateful, because it made it perfect.
“You’re high,” she declared.
“I am not high. Everyone knows Disney World is better than
Disneyland,” he reiterated what he’d said five seconds before.
“Everyone does not,” she retorted. “For instance, I
don’t know that. Disneyland is the OG Disney theme park. As such, it is and
always will be the best.”
He couldn’t believe his ears.
“Did you just refer to Disneyland as OG?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered.
It was much later that night.
Archie was in panties and another tank.
She was also straddling his lap in his bed where he sat,
legs stretched out, head and shoulders to the headboard, hands moving randomly
on her hips and on her skin under the tank at her waist, ribs, sometimes belly,
sometimes ass.
It wasn’t about sex.
It was about touch.
The warmth of her skin, the smoothness.
It being hers.
And they were discussing some very important shit.
“Your argument is Disneyland is the original gangster of
Disney theme parks?” he pushed.
“Dude, don’t even try to argue that the OG isn’t
the best of everything.”
“We don’t have time for me to share the many examples of how
faulty that logic is.”
She disagreed with this, obviously, since she kept arguing
it.
“Right, the Beatles are the OG boy band. Then came the
Monkees. Now, ‘Daydream Believer’ is a kickass song. Just the title kills it.
But The Monkees are no Beatles. And the Beatles are Disneyland whereas
the Monkees are Disney World. Good fun, but not the best.”
“Wrong,” he stated. “In that analogy, The Beatles are OG and
therefore Disneyland and The Stones are Disney World. Do I need to go
on?”
“My point still stands,” she declared outrageously.
He dug his fingers in her ribs and reminded her, “Woman, my
name is Jagger.”
“And?”
She was out of her mind.
“This is the thing,” he announced. “If we go the distance
and have kids, we’ll go to Cali to take them to Disneyland, but only so we can
go to the beach too, hit a Dodgers game, do all that LA shit because Disneyland
is a one-day thing. But we’re also taking them to Orlando to go to Disney World
so we can do all things Disney and Epcot, which is also Disney. And
we’ll probably be there for three weeks because Disney in Florida is not
a one-day thing. We could fuckin’ move there and not take it all in.”
“If slash when,” she shot back.
“What?” he asked.
“You said ‘if we go the distance and have kids.’ But that
isn’t ‘if.’ It’s ‘if slash when’ and the ‘if’ only stands when you’re being
ridiculous and it’s annoying me. Like now.”
And suddenly, Jagger couldn’t give less fucks about how
wrong she was about the Disney theme park debate.
“Are you that into me, baby?” he asked softly.