Chapter Fourteen #2
where I’ve sat with my girls, my son not here, and felt light in my life,
because I have all of you, at the same time felt the pain of not having my son
be a part of it. And that pain never fails to cut sharp, clean through my
heart.”
Total silence.
But something made Jag stop looking at Andy. He turned his
attention to Archie, and the second he saw her, he felt his neck muscles
constrict.
And he opened his mouth immediately.
“Arch, don’t.”
“Fuck…that,” she bit off.
Oh shit.
Jagger stood.
But she took the last step to the table, dumped the plates
on it and was on the move, he knew, to her bag.
Jag took off after her.
Her bag was in the living room, which was off the dining
room through opened double doors, so they had an audience.
He didn’t think about that.
He got close as she hit the couch where she’d left her
purse. By the time he got there, she’d already snatched it up and was digging
in it.
“Take a breath, baby,” he said quietly.
“No,” she clipped toward her bag.
He wrapped a hand around the side of her neck and advised,
“You don’t want to say something you’ll regret.”
She tipped her head back, her black hair flying, and asked,
“I don’t?”
“Maybe you do in this moment, but you won’t—”
“Tell me you would not lose your fucking mind if your mother
said those words,” she demanded, her arm slashing up, finger pointed toward the
dining room, indicating her dad.
He couldn’t, so he didn’t.
“Tell me you wouldn’t lose it if Hound said those words,”
she pushed, dropping her arm.
Jag again couldn’t, so he didn’t.
“Right,” she snapped, engaged her phone, hit some buttons,
and as she did, he realized the others had joined them.
“Archie, honey, I think—” Andy started.
“I’m not even gonna start with you,” a male voice came over
the speaker on Archie’s phone.
Jag let her go and stepped back.
“You’re on speaker, with your entire family listening,”
she announced.
“Then I’m definitely not—” Elijah tried.
“I don’t care what you’re not. Jagger’s over here, Elijah.
Jagger is sitting down to dinner with your family, and I bet Dad asked
you to join us, and you blew him off. This man is important to me. He’s mine.
And tonight, I gave him to my family. But not you. No, when Jagger
first met you, you were in my face so bad, he thought he had to protect me from
my brother. You could have pulled that together if you’d been here tonight
to show him you were a decent guy, but you’re not here. You. Are. Missing. Everything.
YOU! Because of what?”
“I’m not doing this now,” Elijah said.
“You absolutely are because I swear to fuck, if you
don’t, I won’t speak to you until you apologize to me, to Haley, to Hellen and
Liane, and most of all to Dad for breaking his heart over and over again.”
Elijah didn’t say anything, but Jagger could see the screen,
and he hadn’t disconnected.
“What’s your goddamn beef?” Archie demanded to know.
“I’m not going to say it again, I’m not doing this now.”
“And I’m not going to say it again either, Elijah. I’m done
ignoring your shit. I’m done putting up with your shit. I’m done excusing your
shit. It’s now or never, Elijah.”
Fuck.
An ultimatum.
Not good.
“Baby,” Jagger whispered.
She pinned him with a look.
Christ, he didn’t think she could even get this angry.
It was lowkey glorious.
He closed his mouth.
“We’ll talk when you’ve calmed down,” Elijah stated.
“Like you took a beat and got your shit together before you
accosted me at my store today? That kind of calm? Because if so, we can talk
now, because I’m that kind of calm right now, Elijah.”
That was a score.
“I’m not putting on a show for Haley and her girls and your
new beau.” Elijah’s voice was betraying a hint of impatience.
“Her girls? Her girls?” Archie’s voice was rising.
“You mean our sisters?”
“Ohmigod, how sweet,” Liane whispered, but the whisper was
thick.
“They are not—” Elijah began.
“Do not fucking finish that!” Archie screamed, loud
and shrill.
Whoa.
Jag moved in again and caught her on both sides of her neck.
She looked up at him, and the second she did, two tears
tracked down opposite cheeks.
His gut started burning.
“Your sister is crying,” Jag declared, his voice crisp and
sharp.
Nothing from Elijah but a hand came between Archie and Jag
and nabbed Archie’s phone.
It was Andy.
Jag pulled her into his arms.
When he got her there, her arms curved around him and got
tight.
Andy spoke into the phone. “We need to end this now.”
“Dad—”
“Two of your sisters are crying, Elijah, and so is
my wife, who cares deeply for you whether you want that or not. She’s given it
to you from the beginning. Now, Haley started preparing this dinner last night,
Elijah, because she knew how important it was. And then she spent hours in the
kitchen this evening because she wanted Jagger to know that too. Something I’ve
seen her do on countless occasions for you. And now that dinner is
ruined, as so many of them have been before, and I need to look after my family.
We’ll talk later.”
“Take me off speaker, Dad.”
“I can’t, son, I have other things I need to do right now.”
And with that, Andy disconnected.
He looked to Jagger. “You have her?”
“Yes,” Jag answered what he thought was unnecessarily, but
he was not yet a dad.
Andy nodded and turned, “Liane, honey, come here.”
Liane wandered to him, and the minute she got close, she was
in his arms.
Hellen was holding Haley.
Archie sniffled into his chest.
“Welcome to the family, Jagger,” Andy remarked
sarcastically.
Before Jag could say something to try to defuse the
situation, Archie’s phone rang in his hand.
Andy looked to it and declined the call.
That hurt to witness, and it probably killed Andy to do it.
But Elijah would have to be fucked right the hell up if he
didn’t feel the worst of that.
Not there, by his choice. Blocked out, by his actions.
Knowing he caused pain and unable to do anything about it.
Also on him.
Which would be gutting.
At least it would be to Jagger.
Jag decided not to reply to Andy’s remark. He just held
Archie with one arm and caught her around the back of the neck with his other
hand, giving her a reassuring squeeze.
“One thing I know right now, I need a flipping cupcake,”
Hellen declared.
Haley cry-laughed, so did Liane, and Archie turned her head,
pressing her cheek to Jagger’s chest, but she didn’t let him go as she said, “I
do too.”
“I’m eating three of those babies,” Andy announced.
“I’m so, so glad I doubled the recipe,” Haley stated.
“I’m so, so glad you always double the recipe,
Mom,” Liane said.
“Well, I have to send my girls home with cupcakes.” Her gaze
fell on Archie and she concluded tentatively. “All my girls.”
Archie lurched in his arms and shoved her face in his chest
again.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—” Haley began quickly.
“You should.” Archie’s voice came muffled, but no one missed
it.
He knew this when Haley whimpered.
So did Liane.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Hellen said, holding tight to her
mother even as she shuffled her mom in the direction of a box of tissue. “It’s
good Jagger and me are badass or this would be totally pathetic rather than
just mostly pathetic. And just to note, I’m epically disappointed that Archie’s
turned to the dark side and become a crier. This is completely messing with my
plans to have a girls’ night viewing of The Fault in Our Stars.”
He felt Archie’s body start shaking with laughter in his
arms and he could have kissed Hellen for it.
“What? I’m not badass?” Andy asked.
“It’s impossible for Dad Units to be badass,” Hellen
returned.
“She better not say that around Hound,” Jag whispered in
Archie’s ear, and her shaking got worse.
Hellen continued in her attempt to lighten the atmosphere,
and she did it with a threat to Andy. “But do I have to share with the class
what happened when you and me watched Me Before You together?”
“Please, God, don’t,” Andy begged.
Liane giggled.
So did Haley.
“Dad can get the weepies,” Archie confided in a mumble.
“Right,” Jag mumbled back.
Everyone started migrating back to the dining room as Archie
pulled her face out of his chest.
“So, as you now know, I can have my not-so-chill times.”
“You losing it in the face of the pain of someone you love,
pain that someone else you love is causing, let me go on record as saying is
all kinds of hot,” he shared.
“You think everything I do is hot.”
“That’s because, so far, everything you do is hot.”
Her mascara was totally fucked up and her eyes were already
a bit swollen.
But she made even that hot.
He didn’t share that.
“I’m really looking forward to meeting Hound,” she said.
And shit.
He needed to get on that.
He shifted them so they were still connected but aimed at
the dining room table.
He then started them that way.
“He’s looking forward to that too.”
She gave him a squeeze.
While he was returning it, Andy caught his eye.
And Jag knew, even if fathers of daughters with dead mothers
didn’t have long memories, he was still in with this family.
Because Andy Harmon cried at sad movies, loved and helped
raise two girls who were not his own, adored their mother, and put up with a
ton of shit from his son because he was his son and he loved him too.
So that was the house he built.
And that was the people he had in it.
And Jagger was now in that house.
So that was the way it always was going to go.
Jag made sure Archie was seated before he took his own
chair.
And as Andy put cupcakes on plates and passed them around,
everyone got two.
Except Andy, he took three.
And Jag, who got three too.
Jag was on his back, Archie curled into his side,
nuzzling his skin with her nose and mouth and trailing her fingers over his
chest. He had his arm around her and was tracing random patterns on the skin of
her shoulder.
They’d fucked, she’d cleaned up, and they were in her bed
even though they’d planned to spend the night at his pad (after the emotion of
the day, he wanted her to have her space).
It was dark because it was late.
But the space by the bed lit up with her phone going again.
She had it on silent.
And neither of them had to look to know who it was.
“How many is that?” he asked softly.
“Who cares?”
She did, he knew.
He said nothing.
Her brother was blowing up her phone.
She didn’t block him, but she didn’t pick up.
To take her mind off it, he urged, “Tell me about Haley’s
ex.”
She drew in a breath, let it go, which he hoped was letting
the shit happening with her brother go (at least for now) and gave it to him.
“I’ve only seen him a couple of times. Never met him. Liane
played lacrosse in high school. He came to a few games. He’s a workaholic. He
abandoned them without officially abandoning them, if you know what I mean.”
“I do,” he confirmed.
He felt rather than saw her nod.
She then continued.
“Haley tried to get him to work on their marriage, not his
job, he kept promising he would, but didn’t. She got fed up with it, and when
he was away on business, which he was a lot, she had the locks changed. Asked
him for a separation. He’s not big on failure and wouldn’t even discuss it. He
also wouldn’t change his ways and spend more time in his roles as a husband and
father. So she saw no way forward except to file for divorce. He’s never
forgiven her and he’s not the kind of guy who lets things lie. That means now,
even though they’ve been divorced since the girls were little, I think it’s
been maybe ten, twelve years, he still intermittently gets in her shit about
‘giving up on them.’”
“What a dick.”
“Yeah, and I will note, I saw him go to a few of Liane’s
games. And I didn’t go to all of her games, but I’d say more than half of the
ones I went to, he wasn’t there. But Dad never missed one. And Hellen plays the
flute, and she’s had some concerts, and I’ve never seen their dad at Hellen’s
gigs, not once. My dad…again, always.”
“Really dig your dad, baby,” he murmured.
She cuddled closer. “I do too.”
He grinned at the ceiling, tracing random patterns on the
point of her shoulder.
“We need to arrange you to meet my folks,” he told her.
“I really wanna do that. Do you
think they’d come here? My haul today included this pretty kickass table with
these pale blue bucket chairs. I haven’t put it out on the floor because it’d
fit perfect up here. And I need a dining room table. They could help me
christen it.”
“They’d love that.”
“They can name the night, boyfriend. All my nights are for
you anyway.”
Christ, he liked that.
So much, he rolled into her and took her in both of his arms
in a way she knew how to read.
This meant she pressed into him and tipped her head back for
his kiss.
When he finished with her mouth, he whispered, “I’m sorry
your day sucked.”
“It happens.”
“Wanna fuck again?”
“Yes.”
He grinned at her.
Then he kissed her.
And after that, they fucked again.