Wild Wind: A Chaos Novella (Chaos #6.6)(3)

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.

And the second she locked eyes on him, he knew she hadn’t forgotten him either.

The minute she saw him, she immediately looked guilty.

As she should.

He was eighteen. He was the son of a biker (actually two, but only one was blood). It was a rough crowd, and a big one, everyone (that he knew) was of age (or at least, not a minor). There was definitely booze, some drugs, some folk who he knew could get rowdy, and not in a good way.

Jag could be there.

She was maybe sixteen, at most, seventeen.

She had no business anywhere near there.

He went right to her, fighting his way through the crowd to get where she was.

And when he got close, he saw she’d already started tatting up.

Shit.

Not huge tattoos, little ones here and there on her arms, her fingers.

He had no problem with tats. He had some of his own.

But at sixteen?

Nope.

The first thing he wanted to talk about when he saw her again was to ask her name. It seemed like forever since that birthday, their note exchange, running into each other at Arby’s, and he’d thought about it a lot.

Was she an Ann? Or Amy? Andrea? Amanda? Abby? Audrey?

He didn’t ask her name or say hi.

He said, “You got a lift home?”

“Yeah,” she’d muttered.

Mm-hmm.

She knew she had no business being there.

“Then get them and get outta here,” he ordered.

He saw right away some attitude start surfacing.

“I’m just havin’ fun.”

“You can have fun. Just not here.”

“I’m all right here.”

Jag shook his head decisively. “No, you’re not. You’re too fuckin’ young to be here. Can you even drive yet?”

Chin tilt and, “Yeah. And by the way, I’m my own lift. I don’t need anyone to drive me around. I can take care of myself.”

Oh yeah.

The attitude was surfacing, and he sensed she was digging in.

So it was time to blow past this and get her safe.

“Your dad is probably worried like fuck about you.”

That did it.

She looked away.

Hung her head.

Caught herself doing that and looked back to him, trying to keep her chin high.

“A, go home,” he urged.

“J, you’re a pain,” she retorted.

She remembered his initial.

That felt good.

It also spoke to their connection.

So, it wasn’t all in his head. It wasn’t only on his side.

It was on hers too.

He put his hand out toward her. “Let’s go.”

It didn’t take real long before she put her hand in his.

He led them through the crowd like he was her bodyguard.

He took some shit along the way from friends and acquaintances about showing and then immediately nabbing the prettiest girl there.