Wild Fire (Chaos #6.5)(57)

That was a good idea.

Retaliation that was more cerebral and longer lasting.

He’d have to think on that.

“Jackson’s totally going to lose his job or similar soon, isn’t he?” she inquired.

Dutch couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You’re gonna stick up for this guy?”

“No. A reporter is asking for information and you don’t want to give it, just say no. So yeah, we were playing a game and I was giving him my time to get something in return, but that doesn’t give him carte blanche to grab my breast. But this is cruddy. He’s a jerk. We’ve had a really good day, finally, and we shouldn’t be discussing jerks. And I don’t want you to have to get involved.”

Except that last part, he couldn’t argue the rest, so he ignored the last part and just said, “Okay, darlin’, we’ll stop talking about him.”

“Thanks,” she rapped out. Then asked, “Are we gonna have sex tonight?”

“No.”

“Are we gonna have sex tomorrow night?”

“Yes.”

She huffed out air.

Then asked, “Am I gonna blow you tonight?”

“I don’t know. I know I’m gonna eat you, and I’m not gonna do it sixty-nine. You’re too good with your mouth. It’ll fuck with my concentration when I’m goin’ down on you. So after I make you go, if you’re up to give some head, I’ll be all in.”

“Then we have a plan,” she said curtly.

“Sounds like it,” he said amusedly. “Though, we gotta get some food first. You wanna roll through a drive thru, order some Chinese, what?”

“We have more than half a pizza left, since we got busy last night and didn’t eat it. We can have that.”

He was disgusted.

And he sounded it when he asked, “Leftovers?”

“You don’t like leftovers?”

“You eat leftover pizza for breakfast when you’re hungover. You heat it and eat it for lunch when you’re in a bind. You don’t feed it to your woman on night three of the longest date in history.”

She now sounded amused when she asked, “Are those hard and fast rules?”

“Emphatically.”

Georgie busted out laughing.

He tucked her hand into the bend of his hip and smiled at the windshield thinking he really loved the sound of Georgie laughing.

“Chinese,” she said when she was done.

“You got it, baby,” he replied.

“Dutch?”

“Yeah?”

“You okay?”

He lifted her hand to his mouth, touched her fingers to his lips, then tucked it back in his hip.

“Yeah, Georgie.”

“Okay.”

They fell silent and neither broke it the rest of the way to his place.

He let them in and Murtagh came right to them and shared how he felt about being left alone all day.

In other words, the cat was ticked.

Dutch locked the door, but when he turned to shrug off his cut, Georgie was there, and she hadn’t yet taken off her coat.

“Did you want to go out and get Chinese?” he asked.

She didn’t answer.

She put her hand to his chest, but she did it watching her hand, not him.

She then traced her fingernail through the bottom, outside edge of his Chaos patch in a weird way like she was copying a line.

Still, he thought he read what she was doing so he assured quietly, “I’m past what you said about bikers too, Georgie.”

She tipped her head back.

“Your dad made this scratch.”

Dutch stilled, and asked, “What?”

“This scratch.” She looked down and traced it again, then back to him. “It happened when your dad had this jacket.”

He stared at her.

She gave him a small smile that was a little wobbly.

“I asked your mom about it the other night. I didn’t think she’d remember it, seeing as it’s a tiny little thing, and she probably wasn’t even around when it happened. Maybe didn’t even notice it. But she did. She said she couldn’t share precisely how it happened, but it happened when your dad took it off and tossed it aside when, uh…you know, they were—”

“Yeah,” he grunted.

“He saw it and he was upset that the patch was damaged. She checked it out and assured him it’d be okay. It was worse on the leather, but he buffed it out so it didn’t look that bad and you can barely notice it, unless you’re looking.”

He’d noticed it.

But he’d been looking.

He didn’t think to ask about it.

But Georgiana Traylor, Ace Reporter did.

And now he knew.

Now he knew.

He wore that cut every day, he wore his father every day, and now he knew what made part of that cut.

“Jag got his bike,” he shared, his voice strange, hollow, far away.

“Yeah?” she asked, shifting closer, probably because of his voice.

“We had to pick between us, who got his cut, who got his bike. We couldn’t. Hound helped us. We both wanted the cut.”

“I can see that.”

“But then, before Ma handed them over, she kissed Dad’s bike with red lipstick. She told us she’d said goodbye and we could come get our dad’s stuff. We went right over. We both saw that mark, like, at the exact same time. Like it spoke to us. I don’t think either of us said anything for about five minutes. We didn’t move. We couldn’t tear our eyes off that kiss. Once we pulled our shit together, I swear to fuck, Jag protected that mark with everything that was him until he could get it sealed under a clearcoat. And when I got the cut, I felt kinda guilty I got it, since I knew Jag wanted it, and I had more of Dad than he did, even if it wasn’t a lot. But when Ma did what she did, I wanted the bike because, with her mark on it, it was both of them. You know?”