Wild Wind: A Chaos Novella (Chaos #6.6)(13)

Jagger grinned at him.

His mother had never been at one with the way Jag tackled life, considering he’d always been about wresting as much of it as he could for his own.

Dutch was the quiet, responsible one.

Jag was…

Not.

Hound reached out and caught Jag by the neck, gave him a squeeze, a shove, then let him go.

And Jagger felt better.

“So, what’s her name?” Hound asked.

“Archie.”

Hound looked him right in the eye.

Then he burst out laughing.

He settled back into the bar, his fingers cradling his brew, and he was shaking his head.

“Archie and Georgie. Fuck,” Hound said.

Jag hadn’t thought of that, both him and Dutch finding girls with boys’ names.

He grinned, leaned back into the bar himself, and replied, “She doesn’t have red hair and freckles, and I seriously doubt her best friend’s name is Jughead, but I think she might have a bit of tomboy in her.”

“Well, son,” Hound picked up his beer and tipped it toward Jag, “you’re about to find out.”

Jag grabbed his beer and tapped necks with Hound.

And he was grinning again.

Because Hound was right.

He was.





Chapter Three



Luminous



Jagger



The next day, Jagger went out for a morning run, made sure to take his time stretching, then he had shit to do at the garage at Ride, the business Chaos ran that was half a big auto-supply store and half a garage that built custom cars and bikes.

Jagger was a certified mechanic, both cars and bikes, and he wasn’t skilled with design, but his Chaos brother Joker was (like, award-winning, get-magazine-articles-written-about-you and have-TV-producers-come-to-you-to-do-reality-shows skilled).

And they worked well together.

On the build they were doing, Joke needed Jagger that day, and with what had to get done, Jag couldn’t cut out until mid-afternoon.

And he couldn’t go straight to Archie after six hours at the garage without going home and having a shower first.

So he couldn’t get to S.I.L. on the Hill until late afternoon.

He was pissed at the delay.

Now that he knew where she was, and his decision had been made, he wanted to see Archie, talk to her, get some shit sorted, learn other shit and make it clear he was done dicking around, and whatever it was that connected them, they were going to explore.

But when he walked through the door to her shop, which was right on Colfax in the Capital Hill area, he learned his timing couldn’t have been better.

There was stuff all over the floor, the area close to the door and in front of the cash register, was a disaster, and Archie was standing between two kids who had their backs to Jagger, and Mal, who was on her other side, was facing Jag.

Her arms were up like the referee holding two opponents from each other in a ring.

Jag had a feeling he was about to meet the Harris brothers.

And with one look at the expression on Mal’s face—and the kid was openly freaked and upset—he knew how he was gonna play it.

He didn’t delay doing that.

“What the fuck is going on here!” he barked.

Archie’s attention shot to him, Mal jumped a foot, and the two little shits he knew were there for no reason but to cause trouble, whirled around on him.

He took them in.

Bullies.

Twins.

Twin fucking bullies.

Jesus.

They were Mal’s age. One needed to lay off full-sugar Coke and the other was skinny and weaselly.

But even if their bodies couldn’t be more different, they were the same height, had the same face, and the same beady eyes.

That said, only one pair of those eyes was mean.

However, the belligerence shifted when they got a load of a pissed-off biker standing between them and the door.

“You two do this?” he asked them, stabbing a finger at the mess.

The skinny one’s stance adjusted like he was going to make a break for it, so Jagger turned, walked the three strides that took him back to the door and flipped the lock.

He retraced his steps and announced, “Not gonna ask again.” He threw out a hand in a repeat of indicating the mess all over the floor. “You do this?”

No one said anything.

He looked to Archie. “Babe, these two fucks do this to your store?”

“Jagger, I’ve got this,” Archie replied.

But the Harris twins didn’t miss the “babe” part of what he said.

They were looking at each other with identical “oh fuck” expressions.

Jag crossed his arms on his chest, glanced between them and stated, “Yeah, motherfuckers, I’m in this mix, I do not like what I see, so what I see better change right fuckin’ now. Clean this shit up.”

The boys looked at each other again, then to Jag, and the skinny one, who Jag was tagging as the leader of their two-man crew, said, “You can’t lock us in here.”

“Choice one,” Jag retorted, ignoring what the kid said. “You clean this shit up. Choice two, you leave and me and my brothers will find something you care about and we’ll mess that up so you’ll get how it feels. You got five seconds to make that choice. One…”