Wild Wind: A Chaos Novella (Chaos #6.6)(50)

Jag looked down at his girl. “Where do you stand on Prince and his symbol?”

“Symbol, dude,” Archie replied.

He gave her a squeeze and murmured, “Good girl.”

“Are you high?” Joany demanded to know. “Prince is the single coolest name in the history of rock. And onward from that, it’s the single coolest single name in the history of celebrity.”

“Does anyone know who I’m named after?” Jag asked the three of them.

Archie petted his chest and murmured placatingly, “Baby, ol’ Mick is cool…” long pause, “ish.”

Jesus.

“Is Mal straightened out?” Fabe asked, thankfully taking them out of this discussion.

Jag looked to him. “He’ll probably apologize when he sees you again.”

“Not big on the ‘probably’ part but…okay,” Fabe mumbled.

Joany slurped, did it huge, then moaned, “Oh shit, ice cream headache.”

She had both eyes looking down at her nose.

Jag was back to chuckling.

Man, Archie’s people were seriously the shit.

After he was done doing that, he said to Archie, “I gotta go. Walk me to my bike?”

She gave him a look he wasn’t surprised to receive seeing as he’d never asked her to walk him to his bike when he hit her store.

“’Kay,” she replied, and on this short answer, his phone chimed.

He pulled it out, saw another text from his mom, and put the phone back into his pocket without viewing it.

Archie again ignored this, and Jag didn’t feel good about it.

He could not miss a point punctuated by her letting him fuck her for the first time on his pool table that she was going to allow Jag to be Jag however that came about.

She wasn’t going to push, nag or wheedle.

But this meant he was avoiding giving her the deep.

And he didn’t feel right about that.

They knew financial deets about each other. She sat down with his brothers and broke bread. He knew the musical preferences of her shop assistants, people who were also her friends.

But this, whatever it was, he was holding to himself.

Not giving it to his mom.

Not Dutch.

Not Hound.

Not Tack.

Not Archie.

And that was not just because he didn’t know what “it” was.

This was in his head as they walked with arms around each other to his bike. They took the way through the store, rather than going around it, exiting out the back door.

But when they got to his bike, and Jag curled Archie to his front, he didn’t get into his mom texting or why he might be avoiding that or any of the other shit that he was avoiding thinking about.

He informed her, “I played the wrong card at first with Mal, got in his face physically, and he reared like he thought I was gonna follow through with that.”

She was watching him closely as she said, “I see you think that’s important for me to know, but if anyone gets in your shit, you’re gonna retreat. Am I wrong?”

He shook his head. “Maybe not, but it didn’t feel that way. I didn’t lift a hand, not even to point in his face. It was threatening, but in no way a threat. Do you know what I mean?”

“I think so.”

“Do you think the Harris brothers would take bullying to the next level?”

The point he was making dawned on her.

He knew this when she whispered, “Oh shit.”

“Fuck,” he whispered back. Then asked, “How do the kids get to your store?”

“They walk from school. It’s a hike, but it’s good exercise.”

“Together?”

“I…” She shook her head. “No. They have cliques. They bond in store, mostly. But out of the store, from the way they filter in, my guess, not so much.”

“And Mal shows alone,” he deduced.

She nodded.

“I don’t know where to go from here, baby. If we can’t get him to talk, we can’t go to his parents about what’s going down. I can’t show at his school and escort him here, that’s creepy. I’d like to put the lean on the Harris brothers, but that’s creepy too. And since Mal isn’t saying anything, I don’t know if there’s anything to lean on.”

“We need Mal to open up,” she remarked.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“Did you feel he might get there with you?”

No, he did not.

“I’ll swing ’round tomorrow,” he told her.

She smiled up at him as she arched into him and said, “I kinda dig you, Jagger Black.”

He grinned down at her and tightened his arms around her, replying, “Good, seein’ as after we scarf down the order from DoorDash you’re gonna text me about in an hour or so, I’m gonna spend the rest of the night inside you. It’d be awkward that happens and you weren’t into me.”

She started laughing.

He kissed her in the middle of it.

Then they let go, he waited until she went in the back door before he took off.

About an hour later, he got her DoorDash order, ordered it and what he wanted, so it arrived at his place twenty minutes after she did.

They scarfed it down, then spent the rest of the evening fucking, and after, they passed out.