Chapter Nineteen
Chapter
Nineteen
Brotherhood
Archie
“Babe, it’s kinda hard for
me to do you when you’re sitting on my ass.”
“Shush, Jag.”
It was that next Tuesday.
First thing in the morning.
And it was going to be an important day and both of them had
to be ready for it.
To be that, Archie reached over and found the bottle she’d
set by the bed last night.
She tipped some oil in her palm, twisted the cap back on,
coated her hands in slick and then put them to Jag’s back.
“Babe,” he murmured.
“You’re tense, it’s a heavy day, we need to release some of
that, so just go with it,” she murmured back, using the apples of her palms to
press and stroke upward on each side of his spine until she got to his broad
shoulders, where she spread the pressure out.
Jag was quiet as she kept this up, Archie seated on his ass,
putting her weight into it when needed. Her hands were heated by his skin and
the oil that not only offered ease to her ministrations, but warmth to his
muscles.
“You good?” she asked after a bit, digging her thumbs in
where his neck met his shoulders, a place she found was often super tight.
“Yeah, baby,” he said quietly. “You have that oil, or did
you buy it for me?”
“I bought it for you.”
A beat then, “Don’t relax me too much I can’t fuck you.”
Archie grinned and kept massaging.
And replied, “Don’t worry. I’d never do that.”
They weren’t going to be able to carry out their plan
to take the kids to Jagger’s motorcycle club hangout that afternoon.
This was because that afternoon, they were sitting in a
church, listening to people sharing what a lovely woman Danielle Middleton,
Mal’s grandmother, was.
It was a nice service. The flowers were very pretty. And
Jagger looked incredibly handsome in his dark suit.
They were in a pew with Joany, Fabe and Lafayette (they’d
closed the store) mid-way back on Mal and Shanta’s side. There were a lot of
people there (more testimony Danielle was an awesome lady).
But when it was done, Mal didn’t miss catching first
Archie’s, then Jagger’s eyes and giving them a boy-man chin lift as he walked
out with his mom and aunt.
They waited their turn as folks left the church, and as they
headed down the aisle, Archie looked up at her man and asked, “Do you want to
go to the gravesite with the procession, or head out?”
Jagger didn’t look at her, his eyes were aimed to the exit,
and she knew where his head was at even before he answered, “We’re there all
the way for Mal.”
“Okay, honey,” she murmured, glanced behind them, and got a
nod from Fabe, which meant he heard, and they were in too.
When they exited the church, the first thing she saw was
Mal, who was standing at the bottom of the steps looking off in the distance
and seeming frozen in place.
It was then she noticed a lot of people were staring in the
same direction.
Archie looked that way.
And she saw, around the entrance to the parking lot of the
church, there was a slew of men on motorcycles. They were wearing black,
long-sleeved, button-down shirts, jeans, and had sunglasses over their eyes to
shield them against the bright Denver sun.
When she turned her gaze to Jagger, he was looking at Mal.
He also headed to Mal, and since he had her hand tucked into
his elbow, Archie went with him.
“Sorry,” he said when they arrived, and Shanta moved her
gaze from Jagger’s brothers to Jag. “I didn’t know. But I should have guessed
because Mal claimed me, and since I’m his, they weren’t gonna let this pass. So
they’re here to provide an honor guard escort for your mom. I can tell them to
go if it’s—”
He shut up because Shanta ducked her face and turned it
away, lifting a hand with a hanky in it to touch under the sunglasses she was
wearing.
“Don’t tell them to go,” Mal decided for his family.
Shanta cleared her throat, turned again to Jagger, and her
voice came soft when she added, “Please, don’t. Momma could be theatrical.”
The sister snorted and said under her breath, “To say the
least.”
“She’d love a biker honor guard,” Shanta finished.
Jagger nodded and started to move them away, but Mal tagged
the sleeve of his suit jacket, so he stopped.
“You do that too?” he asked.
Jag and Archie looked where Mal tipped his head and they saw
Gina, Martin, Colby, Dex, Tracee and Mia standing off to the side with a couple
of the parents who were obviously their rides.
She hadn’t noticed them in the church.
But there they were.
Archie’s head came back around when she heard Jag answer,
“Yeah.”
She didn’t know he did this.
Then again, he’d asked to use her laptop on Sunday, so she
didn’t have to play super-sleuth to figure it out.
She didn’t wonder why he didn’t tell her.
Her man was not wrong when he said Mal had claimed him and
Jagger was his. They now had an even bigger thing than they’d been growing
before, and that was not about Archie.
It was theirs.
And Archie had no issue whatsoever sitting back and letting
them have it.
Mal’s gaze wandered through his friends from group and
Jagger’s brothers before it came back to Jag.
“So that’s brotherhood? Showing at some lady’s funeral you
don’t know?” he asked Jag.
“It’s brotherhood, it’s community, that on one of
the worst days you’ll have in your life, or any day of your life, they do
things that state clear in a way you can’t mistake that you matter.”
Mal took that in.
He then cracked a smile. “Thinking now it’s pretty awesome
that I stole that gamer thing.”
“You did what?” Shanta asked, her last word rising
several octaves.
Archie watched Jagger smile back.
They let Mal deal with his mother’s reaction to his remark
and Jagger took her to his truck.
But along the way, she made certain to wave in the general
direction of the Chaos brotherhood.
She got some all-man chin lifts and only one wave, which was
mostly a flick of a hand.
That was Dutch.
Jag helped her in his truck and shut her door for her,
rounded the hood and got in himself.
“Boyfriend,” she called.
“Right here,” he said, sliding his glasses on his nose.
He then commenced scanning the area, undoubtedly watching
for the convoy to start to take them to the cemetery.
“Don’t freak out.”
At her words, he turned those sunglasses to her.
“What?” he asked.
“Don’t freak out,” she repeated.
“About what?”
“About the fact that I’m telling you right now that I’m
really, stupidly, crazily, totally head over heels in love with you.”
Jag said nothing.
Not a word. Not a sound.
He didn’t move.
He just stared at her through his kickass KD sunglasses.
Then he grunted, “Same.”
She couldn’t stop her grin.
Or pushing across the cab to kiss him.
Both she did.
The first big.
The second…
Hard.
It was hours later.
She was in the Chaos Compound watching another reason why
she was in love with Jagger Black happen at the pool table.
Fabe and Lafayette were playing pool with Dutch and Joker
while Joany, Georgie and Joker’s wife Carissa looked on (but mostly, the women
were giving them shit and trying to make them mess up shots, though this was
not succeeding very well).
Another reason why she was in love with Jagger was that he
was not there.
He’d gotten a text from Mal that said, Can you come get
me?
She’d watched Jagger text back, You okay?
To which, Mal replied, Yeah, I just have to get out of
here. Mom says it’s OK.
Be there soon.
And with that, Jag asked her if she wanted to come with him,
or hang. She’d told him she wanted to hang (so she could give him time with Mal
and give the same to Mal).
He’d kissed her quickly and left.
But when they’d arrived, Jag had told her the gang was all
there, and like Jag and Archie, a lot of them had changed out of their funeral
clothes.
Since their arrival, she’d met Snapper and Rosalie, Hopper
and Lanie, Tack and Tyra, Shy’s wife Tabby, Dog’s woman Sheila, Carissa, Rush
and Rebel, High and Millie, Boz, Arlo, Hugger, Grizz, Karma, Saddle, the list
went on.
Jagger had a huge family.
She liked that.
She was nursing a beer and considering going over to the
pool table when Hound slid up on the stool beside her.
“Hey,” she greeted.
“Hey, girl,” he replied.
“Thanks for today,” she said. “Mal’s been leaning on Jag a
lot lately. His dad couldn’t come home, communication is spotty, and it seems
to give him something, having a dude to hang with. So I think it meant a lot to
Mal, you guys showing. Also to his mom,” she told him.
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“And again, sorry about the other night.”
He’d jerked up his chin when he’d settled, and then had been
watching Saddle behind the bar go and get a beer for him (Saddle was a man
Jagger called a “prospect,” or someone who was putting the work in to become a
member of the Club).
But Hound looked to her when she said that.
“Don’t know why you’re apologizin’.
It’s understandable.”
She nodded. “I’m glad you sat down. Wanted a moment to say
thanks.”
“You already did.”
“Not for that.”
“For what?”
“For Jagger.”
He shook his head, dipped his chin sharply to Saddle when
the beer was set in front of him, and looked back at Archie.
“Not my doing,” he said.
“Oh yes it is.”
Hound stared at her hard.
Then his voice dropped low when he asked, “He okay?”
Hers went low too when she answered, “He’s working through
things, but yes.”
“Don’t wanna put you on the spot.
You don’t have to say dick. But you probably could guess this anyway. His momma
is worried,” he muttered.
On first appearances, Hound seemed pretty rough, weathered,
definitely had some life under his belt.
But there were things no one could hide.
So she knew, Jag’s dad was feeling the same.
“He might reach out to her,” she told him.
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“I do if it makes you feel better. He wants to watch that
Chaos movie with me. I think he needs to share Club history with me. His dad.
You. I think he’ll feel a lot better when I know. But it’s hard for him to
express.”
“I get that,” he muttered, and turned to his beer.
She took that as what it was, he was letting her off the
hook with that at the same time he got what he needed to feel better about it.
And she was grateful for it.
Moving on.
“My mother would lose her mind, the thought of her daughter
sitting in a biker club hangout, drinking a beer, surrounded by bikers,” Archie
remarked.
Hound returned his attention to her and his tone was wary
when he asked, “Yeah?”
“She was kind of proper.” She smiled at him. “She’d come
around though.”
“She as pretty as you?”
“Prettier.”
“Not sure I believe that, but okay,” he said.
Aw, that was sweet.
So sweet, Archie listed to the side and bumped her shoulder
against his.
Hound grunted and raised his beer to his lips.
“She loved family,” she whispered when he put his beer back
to the bar.
Hound again caught her gaze and his expression was no longer
worried.
That was when he listed to the side and bumped her with his
shoulder.
Archie took that as her invitation to lean into him…and just
stay.
So she did.
Which was where she was five minutes later, shooting the
breeze with Hound Ironside, when Jagger strolled in with Mal.
Mal’s attention went right to…well, everything.
Suffice it to say, a biker hangout that looked like a seedy bar, and proud of
it, was new and fascinating terrain for Mal.
Jagger’s attention came right to her with his dad.
And one could say, when he saw them together, his expression
was no longer worried either.
It was later.
Days later.
Or, precisely, the morning after the night where she and Jag
watched the documentary Blood, Guts and Brotherhood.
She went first to her mom just to say hi.
Then, as she usually did, she wandered the quiet space and
stood in front of the black marble marker that had a weathered tequila bottle
sitting at the base of it, a bottle that was mostly full.
And as she usually did, she wondered how that bottle hadn’t
been nicked.
She then looked at the stone.
“Life is all kinds of fucked up,” she said quietly to
Jagger’s father. “If you weren’t gone, I wouldn’t have him. And if she wasn’t
gone, he wouldn’t have me.”
There was no sound, no breeze, no wind through the trees,
nothing.
Just quiet and peace.
“I don’t know what to do with that,” she admitted.
There was no rustle of leaves.
There was nothing.
“I guess the only thing I can do with it is think that you
gave me him, and she gave him me.”
The sun shone down on Archie and black marble, it warmed her
skin, it glinted the stone.
“You were a good man, Graham Black,” she uttered an
understatement.
Archie reached out and touched stone that was cold, even
under the sun.
“Thank you.”
Still, nothing.
But peace.
And with that, Archie walked away.