Chapter Sixteen
Chapter
Sixteen
Free to Be
Jagger
“It’s set for next Tuesday, yeah? The parents are
gonna show at the Compound for dinner?” Jagger asked.
“Yeah, baby,” Archie answered.
“Right. Good,” he replied. “I got the guys sorted. Dutch,
Joker and Hugger are gonna swing by in their trucks to ferry the kids to Ride.
We’re gonna do a store tour, a garage tour and finish with the parents showing
and a cookout at the Compound.”
They were in her kitchen.
He’d just finished pounding some pork chops into cutlets for
the schnitzel Archie was making for dinner for him and his parents. She was at
a bowl that was full of broccoli, cheese, red onion and bacon she was mixing
with some dressing made of mayo, sugar and vinegar.
She hadn’t yet met him, and still, she was going to serve
the perfect Hound Salad: mayo, bacon, cheese, sugar with a nod to something
green.
“They’re really gonna like this food, baby,” he told her
after she turned to the fridge to shove the salad in.
She shot him a smile. “Awesome.” She wandered the short way
to him and leaned against the counter close by his side. “Now, can we talk
about how cute it is you’re all in to plan this field trip?”
“Sure, but before you push me up on that pedestal, when I do
good things for your kids, I get head, so it’s not entirely altruistic.”
She busted out laughing.
The buzzer sounded.
“I’ll get it,” she said, still laughing. “Can you dredge
those cutlets in flour?”
“What’s dredge?” he asked.
She changed her mind. “Never mind. You get the door. I’ll
dredge.”
He nodded, kissed her cheek as he passed her and headed to
the intercom.
He hit the button. “Yo.”
“Let us up,” Joany demanded.
Needless to say, Joany was not who he expected since his
parents were due any second now.
Because of this, he turned his gaze to Archie to see how she
wanted to play this.
And as he did, she was saying, “For shit’s sake.”
The intercom sounded again.
“Dude, buzz us up,” Joany repeated her demand.
“Ask her ‘who’s us’?” Archie ordered.
He hit the button.
“Who’s us?” he said into the speaker.
“Me and Lafayette,” Joany answered.
Again, Jag looked to Archie.
The instant he caught her eyes, she queried, “How non-judgy
are your folks?”
“Very.”
“Very very?”
“Very very. Why?”
“Dude! Buzz us up!” Joany shouted through the
speaker.
He hit mute and waited for Archie’s explanation.
“Okay, Joany is here because Joany is an equal mixture of
protective and nosy,” Archie started to explain.
“I’ve been getting that,” Jagger replied.
“And your family is coming, and I’m sure she just wants to
make certain it’s cool, but also, she likes Dutch, she likes you for me, and
she probably wants in on the sitch to either take my
pulse or take my back. That said, after she gets over being protective and
nosy, she’s friendly and she thinks of me as family. So I should have predicted
she’d horn in on this because I’ve never had a boy’s parents over for dinner
and she knows this is big.”
Never had a boy’s parents over for dinner.
Nice.
He grinned at her, she did an eye roll, and he moved them
along, saying, “Right.”
Not on speaker, but from outside, they heard, “Dude!
Buzz. Us. UP!”
“And Lafayette is super cool,” Archie went on.
Okay then…?
“So…I don’t get it,” he said. “Why did you ask if my parents
are judgy if he’s cool and Joany is…Joany?”
“Because La-La is also La-La. Some days, he’s in skirts and
makeup. Other days, he’s in leather. He just goes with his flow and you never
know what that flow is. If he came to work in a tinfoil hat, I wouldn’t blink.”
This was something else to dig about her.
Her posse ran the gamut and that said seriously cool things
about the woman who was Archie.
“So, essentially, anything,” he remarked.
“Yes, but I’ve no doubt he’s only with Joany right now so he
can drag Joany out before she invites herself to dinner. But like I said, he
could be wearing a tinfoil hat while he does it.”
“My parents won’t care.”
And that was what she got back from him and Chaos, because
they not only let people be who they were, they got in the life so they could
be free to be whoever the fuck they wanted to be themselves.
“Duuuuuuuude!”
That came from outside.
“Sure?” she asked.
“Your parents are here! Buzz us up!”
Again, from outside.
“Too late now,” he said.
“Go back to the front!” Archie shouted in the
direction of the window.
“La-La’s there! The parents are parking out back. Buzz!
La-La will open!” Joany shouted back.
Jagger hit the button to let them in and asked Archie, “Do
they have the interior code?”
“Yeah.”
It was then he noticed Archie didn’t look upset or anxious.
In fact, she hadn’t been either all night and they’d been
prepping dinner for at least the last half an hour.
This was because, for Archie, Joany was Joany and she was
there and what would be from that would be.
Lafayette was whoever Lafayette was and what would come from
that also would come.
His parents were going to like her, and either she knew
that, or she knew Jag liked her so much, he didn’t care if anyone else did, so
she didn’t have to worry about it.
And she didn’t.
It was the first time he realized how much like his mother
she was.
Keely Black Ironside not only gave zero fucks what anyone
thought about her, she understood how cool she was and always would be.
It was just a part of who she was.
And it was a part of who Archie was.
“What’s that look on your face?” she asked.
“Just thinking again about how much of the shit you are.”
“I’m the shit times a thousand.”
Jagger busted out laughing at that.
He also looked around her pad.
She might not care what anyone thought of her, but this
night meant something to her.
Joke had come with him to bring up the dining room table,
and Archie had been right. It looked great in her space.
Now it was set with plates, silverware and wineglasses, and
there was a pretty bouquet of fresh flowers in the middle.
There was another small bunch of fresh flowers on the edge
of her bar.
The place always looked lived-in and funky, but she’d
tidied, so now it looked lived-in and funky on purpose, with style and flair.
And he’d seen the inside of the fridge. So he saw that she’d
made a trifle out of passionfruit and meringues that looked like it took her
three hours to put together.
Candles were burning.
She had Ray LaMontagne playing and four types of beer in the
fridge.
All of this for his mom.
Hound.
Him.
He recently saw a picture of his mother and father on the
night they met.
He saw the way they were looking at each other.
And Jagger felt that look.
He was that look.
With Archie.
She was his.
And she was his entire future.
He was so into this thought, his body jerked in surprise
when there was a knock on the door.
Before he moved the short distance to answer it, quickly,
Archie asked, “Jagger, baby, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he muttered, and opened the door.
Hound and who he assumed was Lafayette were standing at the
back.
His ma and Joany were at the front.
Jag noted that Lafayette was mixed race, Black and maybe
Asian. He was also tall. But with the women blocking him, Jag couldn’t see
anything else.
He and Hound were staring at the backs of the heads of the
women in front of them.
“Jag, honey, hey!” his mother cried, coming forward,
grabbing his shoulders, and pulling him down for a kiss on the cheek.
“Hey, Ma, come in,” he said, shifting aside.
“Jag, honey, hey!” Joany echoed in order to take her shot to
get a smooch, reaching up a lot higher, since she was so much shorter, to grab
his shoulders and pull him down for a kiss on the cheek.
“Hey, babe,” he muttered, chuckling.
Hound came next.
“Son,” he said, pounding Jag on the arm.
“Hound,” Jag returned.
Hound went in and Jag saw that for Lafayette, it was a
T-shirt-and-calf-length-pleated-skirt day.
There was some makeup.
And the guy could grow a fierce beard.
“Hi, I’m Lafayette and I’m vowing to you now we will be here
all of five minutes and then we’ll vanish.”
“Hey, I’m Jagger and it’s okay,” Jag replied.
“You’re new,” Lafayette returned. “You’ll learn Joany
Control.”
Jag started chuckling again as Lafayette entered.
He shut the door and turned, seeing Archie rounding the bar
and heading their way.
So he introduced, “Ma, Hound, this is my girl, Archie. Arch,
this is my mom, Keely, and my stepdad, Hound.”
“Or Shep,” Keely said, extending a hand. “You can also call
him Shep.”
She could call him Shep?
No one called him Shep.
“No one calls me Shep but you, woman,” Hound stated.
There you go.
“Is that a declaration or simply information?” Keely asked.
“Both,” Hound answered.
“Keely, Hound,” Archie butted in. “So glad you’re here and I
finally get to meet you.”
She’d made it to Keely, and they were shaking hands in that
way women do which was more like holding hands.
“She’s making schnitzel,” Joany announced from where she was
peering over the bar to the kitchen counter.
“Upon learning this knowledge, my night is complete,”
Lafayette proclaimed. “Can we leave these good people alone now?”
Yep.
Archie had read that right.
Lafayette was there solely to keep Joany in hand.
“I’m pretty sure Archie wants us to stay for a cocktail,”
Joany told Lafayette.
“I’m pretty sure I can buy you a cocktail down the street
and it will heighten the odds that you’ll still have your best friend and
your job in the morning if I do,” Lafayette retorted.
“You’re back from vacation, we need to celebrate that,”
Joany shot back.
Lafayette turned to Keely and Hound. “For your information,
I do not require a welcome home celebration after I spent two weeks alternating
between a lounger at a pool and a treatment table in a spa.”
Keely started laughing quietly.
But although Jag thought Lafayette was funny, he was
watching Joany.
She had a strong personality, definitely a take-me-as-I-come
person, and he dug that about her. She was also nosy. And for certain