Wild Fire (Chaos #6.5)(77)

“It just…makes me remember, not that I’d forget. But the pain comes back, you know?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know, seein’ as Ma hasn’t gone there. But I just want her to be happy. That’s, like, the only thing in this world I want. Because she’s the mom who made it so I want for nothing else, so it’s more like, I need that for her. You get me?”

She nodded and said, “I’m sorry, J. That does sound like it sucks.”

“Don’t be too hard on your dad and don’t make him worry about you. It’s not cool.”

She nodded again and started to fold into her car.

He was about to ask her her name, get her number. She was underage, but just.

And they’d just had the deepest conversation he’d had since Hound sat him down to share about the birds and the bees and how he’d knock Jag’s block off if he took a girl ungloved.

But someone called his name and he looked to the house they’d exited.

Some dude he knew was shouting something.

Jag called, “What?”

And in that time, she got in her car, closed her door and her Honda started.

When he heard the engine catch, he looked down and through the window at her.

She waved, gave him a smile she didn’t really mean because she was sad and had learned too young how big life could suck.

And he stepped back wide when she pulled her car out of the spot and drove away.





The next time he saw her was maybe a year later. At a concert. At the Gothic.

She was coming his way when he spotted her. She’d seen him before he saw her.

She smiled and waved.

She looked good, happier.

He still saw the weight she carried, that he carried too.

But yeah.

Happier.

And he was glad to see that.

He waved back and started her way.

But since it was a punk act they were catching, and they were in the mosh pit, a wave hit the pit, they both got caught up in it, he lost sight of her, and even if he looked (all night), he didn’t see her again.

That was a serious bummer.

Though, he was glad to know they liked the same kind of music.

Just because they liked the same kind of music.

But also because it meant they might run into each other again.





He saw her a few months later at Taste of Colorado downtown.

They caught up then.

She was with a dude.

He was with a chick.

But she dragged that dude right to Jagger, smiling big.

And Jag stood next to his chick, watching her do it, smiling big right back.

“Hey, J,” she greeted.

“Hey, A,” he’d returned.

And Christ.

Yeah.

She just got prettier and prettier.

She barely glanced at his chick when she started up their convo, which did not go over well with his chick.

Or her dude, who Jag felt no remorse about the fact it seemed she forgot he was even there.

“So cool to finally run into you again. I was gonna leave you a note at our place, but the last time I went to visit mom, there was this other dude who looked like you there,” she told him. “And I didn’t want him to get it.”

And he knew what she meant.

Our place.

Reaching out using his dad’s grave.

“That’s my brother, and yeah, no.” He shook his head, for some reason, the thought of Dutch knowing about her, getting her note to him, not understanding what it was, reading it.

Yeah…

No.

“Babe, we’re supposed to meet Slammer, we’re already late,” her dude said, pulling on her.

Another barely there glance, this time at her guy while she said, “A second,” and looked back at Jag. “He dumped her.”

“What?” Jag asked, his chick grabbing his hand and tugging on it to get his attention.

“Dad,” she said. “He dumped the woman he was seeing, and you were right. It made me sad because it made him sad too. So I should have just chilled and let him have it.”

“Hey, baby,” his chick murmured to Jag, “you said we’d go to that ice cream booth and you’d get me a cone.”

He glanced at her, “A sec,” then back to A. “Sorry, but he’ll move on again. You’ll get it this time when he does and give him that.” After she nodded, he went on, “Anyway, you look good.”

When he said that, her dude got closer to her.

So did Jag’s chick, to him.

“We gotta go, babe,” her dude said.

She spared him another glance and then to Jag, “We have to meet a friend, but you want to hook up later?”

Her dude made a noise.

Jag ignored it and smiled at her.

“There’s a band coming on that’s rad,” she told Jag. “You gotta see them play.”

“We’re in,” Jagger decided.

His chick made a noise.

“Okay, four o’clock? Right here?” she suggested.

“We’ll be here,” he replied.

She smiled huge, bopped forward, and gave him a hug.

It was the first time they’d touched.

She felt good.

She smelled good.