Wild Fire (Chaos #6.5)(75)

-J





He’d then folded it up, put it in an envelope and wrote For the Girl Across the Way on it.

When he was done with that, he’d taped it to the base of her mom’s headstone.

Her mom’s name had been Bryn.

Pretty.

He wondered what the girl’s name was.

At the time, he figured that he’d probably never find out.





It was a week or so later when Hound caught up with him.

“Reckon this is for you,” his stepdad-not-stepdad had grunted, handing him an envelope in a Ziploc.

Hound said nothing more.

That was just like Hound. He always knew what to do, say, how to be.

So he took off and left Jagger to it.

Jag never asked him when he was there, or why. It wasn’t a surprise Hound visited his father’s grave.

They were brothers, after all.

Jagger pulled the envelope out of the baggie and saw it said For the Guy Across the Way.

The writing wasn’t girlie. Each letter was straight up and down, deep impressions in the strokes, taking space. It had personality but it was so perfect, it was a little eerie. Like it wasn’t handwritten, but instead some font pretending to be handwriting, printed out on a printer.

It said:





J-


Thanks for the advice.

Dad says you’re right.

And you’re wise.

You hang loose too.

-A





Jag really wanted to know what “A” stood for.

But he’d have to wait a while to find out.





The next time Jag saw her, it was two, three months later, outside an Arby’s.

She was with her family.

Or what was left of it.

Jag was going in.

She was coming out.

He stopped dead the second he saw her.

She did the same.

Her father and brother didn’t notice and kept walking to their car.

Jag moved to her where she was standing on the sidewalk, waiting for him.

“Hey,” he greeted.

“Hey,” she replied.

“How’s things? You hangin’ in there?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Cool,” he said, feeling something he’d never felt before.

Uncomfortable.

Unsure.

Like a dork.

Man, she was pretty.

And man, he was a dick, when all he could think was how pretty she was, and her mom hadn’t been under dirt for a full year.

“Thanks for the note,” she said.

“I get it,” he told her.

“Yeah, I saw your dad’s stone. I get that you do,” she replied.

“Honey!”

They both looked in the direction of the call.

The dad was looking impatient and not too hip on his daughter chatting with Jag.

The brother had the same exact look.

“Be right there,” she yelled back.

“I’ll let you go, but you know how to get me, you need me, yeah?” Jag asked.

He was talking about exchanging notes.

What he wanted to do was get her number.

“Yeah,” she answered. “Thanks,” she said, tucking her black hair behind her ear.

And he wondered about her mom. The dad was tall and blond.

She was not either.

Nor was her brother.

She stepped off the curb and said, “Later?”

This was the time he should ask for her number or give her his.

But how did he do that when her brother and father were right there?

“Later,” he said, though he didn’t know how that would happen, unless she left him a note, which could be intercepted by someone other than Hound, like Dutch or his mom, and they wouldn’t be as cool about it.

He watched her walk to her dad and brother, thinking he shouldn’t.

But he just couldn’t stop.

She said something to her pops when she skirted him to get in the backseat, and after she did, the man looked right to Jag.

He then dipped his chin Jag’s way.

Well, shit.

She’d told him that Jag was Note Guy.

And the dude was cool.

Jag gave him the salute he’d seen Hound give every once in a while, finger to temple and out.

The man quirked a grin, lifted his chin this time, and angled into his car.

The brother glared at him.

Jag ignored that, tried to catch sight of her in the car, but couldn’t.

So he walked into Arby’s, hoping like hell there was a “later.”





Later turned out to be later.

The next time Jag saw her, it was at a party, and well over a year had passed.

She hadn’t left him a note.

Since she hadn’t, he hadn’t left her one either.

And he hadn’t because he didn’t want to be that jerk, creeping on some girl who’d lost her mom, doing it by leaving notes on her mom’s tombstone.

The party where he saw her was a party she shouldn’t have been at.

He knew her the instant he saw her, even though she’d grown up—a lot—in the time in between.

He’d never forget her, though.

Never.