Chapter Eleven #3
Jag rounded the counter, sliding a finger across her hip as
he did, then rested his ass on a stool by Mal’s.
She didn’t lie. She hurried.
Mal avoided watching her.
It wasn’t that long ago Jag had been Mal’s age so he knew
what was going on with this.
He was crushing, huge.
So much, whatever was fucking with his head had come out in
an ugly way, a way that he’d disappointed her, and now he was embarrassed he’d
acted like a dick.
When Jag had his cherry Coke, Mal had his shake, and Arch
had taken off, he let Mal have a couple of swallows before he admitted, “All
right, kid, I lied.”
Mal looked up at him.
“You’re gonna get a lecture, a short one, but an important
one,” Jag went on.
Mal’s face started screwing up.
Jag was quick about saying what he had to say before the boy
said something he’d regret.
“Fabe’s a cool guy. We both know that. What is not
cool is you talking trash to him. And I’ll just say that’s to him or about
him if he’s not around. He is who he is and how he is and that’s none of your
business, outside how he treats you. And I know he’s cool with you. So there’s
not one single reason for you not to be cool with him. Are we on the same page
with that?”
Mal looked guilty and hid it by turning away and slurping up
more ice cream.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Jag said, lifting the glass and
taking a sip (and Archie had bona-fide Coca-Cola glasses, with the bulbous top
and the narrow base).
Shit.
Fountain cherry Coke made with two syrups and seltzer just
couldn’t be beat.
They sat in silence.
They sat in silence longer.
Mal made those slurping noises that meant his shake was
gone.
And they sat in silence after that.
Jag had hoped the kid would open up, but it seemed he wasn’t
going to.
He still gave him more time before he got off his stool,
grabbed both their glasses and headed behind the counter to put them in the bus
bin.
He then positioned himself opposite Mal at the counter and
leaned into his forearms to get eye-to-eye with the boy.
When they locked gazes, Jag spoke.
“Right, I gotta get back to work,
Mal. It’d be groovy you worked on your homework a little. And when Fabe gets
back with his smoothie, it’d be cool you said words to make amends. That’s up
to you. But from here on in, your day fucks with your head, you need someone to
sit with and just be, you tell Arch to call me. I’ll be here.”
He then reached out, rapped his knuckles on the counter in
front of Mal for no reason at all, just to punctuate his point, and he started
to make his way to wherever Archie was.
“You really came right here when Archie texted?”
Mal’s question made him stop and look back at the kid.
“I’m standing here, aren’t I?” Jag noted. Then joked, “I
mean, as much as your joyous company lights my day and gives the promise of a
million better tomorrows, I do gotta work to pay my
mortgage.”
His joke made Mal crack another smile.
That smile did not have a long life.
“I…” Mal seemed like he was going to say something, but Jag
figured what came out of his mouth next was not what Mal intended to say. “I’ll
say sorry to Fabe.”
“Awesome,” Jag said.
“And I’ll get on my homework,” Mal continued.
“Great, kid.”
Mal pulled his lips in and nodded.
Then he slid off his stool and crept through the store to
the back, where Archie had storage, a break room, the bathroom, and a setup for
the kids to watch TV, play videogames, and sit at a table and do homework.
And again with the creeping.
He couldn’t say he knew Mal all that well. That was the
longest period of time he’d spent with the kid and they’d done it barely
speaking.
But he always seemed full of something, himself, swagger,
whatever.
Now he seemed…
Beaten.
Archie was at his side before Mal made it to the door to the
back.
Joany was with her.
Joany spoke first.
“What was up his ass?”
“He didn’t share,” Jag told her as Archie slid an arm around
his waist simultaneous with him curving an arm around her shoulders.
Joany gave them an up and down and stated, “I hate to be the
one to inform you of this, but it’s impossible for you two to physically fuse.”
“You are very wrong about that,” Archie returned. “Do we
have to have a convo about the birds and bees?”
Joany made a face. “Don’t gross me out. You’re my girl.
You’re asexual.” She jerked her head at Jag. “He’s not, of course. He’s very
sexual. But you have Barbie parts.”
Jagger started chuckling.
“Learn early, Jag, don’t encourage her,” Archie advised, not
taking her eyes off Joany.
Jag didn’t quit chuckling.
“And again,” Archie said this to Joany, “stop
perving on my boyfriend.”
“If you date a hot guy, you give up the right to ask friends
and acquaintances not to perv on said hot guy,” Joany shot back.
“That is not true,” Archie retorted.
“Sis, if I was dating a hot guy, I’d so totally let
you perv on him. It’d be my civic duty.”
Jag started laughing.
Fabe showed, his lips wrapped around a straw stuck into a
smoothie.
He handed another one to Joany, stopped sucking, and asked
Jag, “Are they having the perving-on-you discussion again?”
“Again?” Jag asked.
Fabe nodded.
“They used to fight regularly about if Prince should have
gone back to Prince after he assumed the symbol, since the symbol, everyone has
to agree, was kick-freaking-ass,” Fabe declared. “Now they fight about perving
on you. And by the way, I’m on Joany’s side of that argument. You’re seriously
perv-worthy and it’s just selfish not to let that happen.”
Jag looked down at his girl. “Where do you stand on Prince
and his symbol?”
“Symbol, dude,” Archie replied.
He gave her a squeeze and murmured, “Good girl.”
“Are you high?” Joany demanded to know. “Prince is
the single coolest name in the history of rock. And onward from that, it’s the
single coolest single name in the history of celebrity.”
“Does anyone know who I’m named after?” Jag asked the three
of them.
Archie petted his chest and murmured placatingly, “Baby, ol’ Mick is cool…” long pause, “ish.”
Jesus.
“Is Mal straightened out?” Fabe asked, thankfully taking
them out of this discussion.
Jag looked to him. “He’ll probably apologize when he sees
you again.”
“Not big on the ‘probably’ part but…okay,” Fabe mumbled.
Joany slurped, did it huge, then moaned, “Oh shit, ice cream
headache.”
She had both eyes looking down at her nose.
Jag was back to chuckling.
Man, Archie’s people were seriously the shit.
After he was done doing that, he said to Archie, “I gotta go. Walk me to my bike?”
She gave him a look he wasn’t surprised to receive seeing as
he’d never asked her to walk him to his bike when he hit her store.
“’Kay,” she replied, and on this short answer, his phone
chimed.
He pulled it out, saw another text from his mom, and put the
phone back into his pocket without viewing it.
Archie again ignored this, and Jag didn’t feel good about
it.
He could not miss a point punctuated by her letting him fuck
her for the first time on his pool table that she was going to allow Jag to be
Jag however that came about.
She wasn’t going to push, nag or wheedle.
But this meant he was avoiding giving her the deep.
And he didn’t feel right about that.
They knew financial deets about
each other. She sat down with his brothers and broke bread. He knew the musical
preferences of her shop assistants, people who were also her friends.
But this, whatever it was, he was holding to himself.
Not giving it to his mom.
Not Dutch.
Not Hound.
Not Tack.
Not Archie.
And that was not just because he didn’t know what “it” was.
This was in his head as they walked with arms around each
other to his bike. They took the way through the store, rather than going
around it, exiting out the back door.
But when they got to his bike, and Jag curled Archie to his
front, he didn’t get into his mom texting or why he might be avoiding that or
any of the other shit that he was avoiding thinking about.
He informed her, “I played the wrong card at first with Mal,
got in his face physically, and he reared like he thought I was gonna follow
through with that.”
She was watching him closely as she said, “I see you think
that’s important for me to know, but if anyone gets in your shit, you’re gonna
retreat. Am I wrong?”
He shook his head. “Maybe not, but it didn’t feel that way.
I didn’t lift a hand, not even to point in his face. It was threatening, but in
no way a threat. Do you know what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“Do you think the Harris brothers would take bullying to the
next level?”
The point he was making dawned on her.
He knew this when she whispered, “Oh shit.”
“Fuck,” he whispered back. Then asked, “How do the kids get
to your store?”
“They walk from school. It’s a hike, but it’s good
exercise.”
“Together?”
“I…” She shook her head. “No. They have cliques. They bond
in store, mostly. But out of the store, from the way they filter in, my guess,
not so much.”
“And Mal shows alone,” he deduced.
She nodded.
“I don’t know where to go from here, baby. If we can’t get
him to talk, we can’t go to his parents about what’s going down. I can’t show
at his school and escort him here, that’s creepy. I’d like to put the lean on
the Harris brothers, but that’s creepy too. And since Mal isn’t saying
anything, I don’t know if there’s anything to lean on.”
“We need Mal to open up,” she remarked.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“Did you feel he might get there with you?”
No, he did not.
“I’ll swing ’round tomorrow,” he told her.
She smiled up at him as she arched into him and said, “I kinda dig you, Jagger Black.”
He grinned down at her and tightened his arms around her,
replying, “Good, seein’ as after we scarf down the
order from DoorDash you’re gonna text me about in an hour or so, I’m gonna
spend the rest of the night inside you. It’d be awkward that happens and you
weren’t into me.”
She started laughing.
He kissed her in the middle of it.
Then they let go, he waited until she went in the back door
before he took off.
About an hour later, he got her DoorDash order, ordered it
and what he wanted, so it arrived at his place twenty minutes after she did.
They scarfed it down, then spent the rest of the evening
fucking, and after, they passed out.
And in all that, Jag did not reply to his mother’s texts.
He did not reach back out to Tack.
He didn’t connect with Hound or Dutch.
And yeah, that was about being with Archie.
It was also…
Not.