Wild Wind: A Chaos Novella (Chaos #6.6)(72)

He got it then.

He knew what was eating at him.

And it was huge.

Unwieldy.

And ultimately unanswerable.

Because he was grappling with how he could give Archie all he should be if he didn’t know who to be.

He wanted to give her a love that wouldn’t die even with death.

The kind of love his mom had with his dad.

And the man who could give him that not only had he never met…

They had no chance in hell ever to meet.

Yeah.

What was eating him was huge.

Unwieldy.

And lost to him forever.





Chapter Sixteen



Free to Be



Jagger



“It’s set for next Tuesday, yeah? The parents are gonna show at the Compound for dinner?” Jagger asked.

“Yeah, baby,” Archie answered.

“Right. Good,” he replied. “I got the guys sorted. Dutch, Joker and Hugger are gonna swing by in their trucks to ferry the kids to Ride. We’re gonna do a store tour, a garage tour and finish with the parents showing and a cookout at the Compound.”

They were in her kitchen.

He’d just finished pounding some pork chops into cutlets for the schnitzel Archie was making for dinner for him and his parents. She was at a bowl that was full of broccoli, cheese, red onion and bacon she was mixing with some dressing made of mayo, sugar and vinegar.

She hadn’t yet met him, and still, she was going to serve the perfect Hound Salad: mayo, bacon, cheese, sugar with a nod to something green.

“They’re really gonna like this food, baby,” he told her after she turned to the fridge to shove the salad in.

She shot him a smile. “Awesome.” She wandered the short way to him and leaned against the counter close by his side. “Now, can we talk about how cute it is you’re all in to plan this field trip?”

“Sure, but before you push me up on that pedestal, when I do good things for your kids, I get head, so it’s not entirely altruistic.”

She busted out laughing.

The buzzer sounded.

“I’ll get it,” she said, still laughing. “Can you dredge those cutlets in flour?”

“What’s dredge?” he asked.

She changed her mind. “Never mind. You get the door. I’ll dredge.”

He nodded, kissed her cheek as he passed her and headed to the intercom.

He hit the button. “Yo.”

“Let us up,” Joany demanded.

Needless to say, Joany was not who he expected since his parents were due any second now.

Because of this, he turned his gaze to Archie to see how she wanted to play this.

And as he did, she was saying, “For shit’s sake.”

The intercom sounded again.

“Dude, buzz us up,” Joany repeated her demand.

“Ask her ‘who’s us’?” Archie ordered.

He hit the button.

“Who’s us?” he said into the speaker.

“Me and Lafayette,” Joany answered.

Again, Jag looked to Archie.

The instant he caught her eyes, she queried, “How non-judgy are your folks?”

“Very.”

“Very very?”

“Very very. Why?”

“Dude! Buzz us up!” Joany shouted through the speaker.

He hit mute and waited for Archie’s explanation.

“Okay, Joany is here because Joany is an equal mixture of protective and nosy,” Archie started to explain.

“I’ve been getting that,” Jagger replied.

“And your family is coming, and I’m sure she just wants to make certain it’s cool, but also, she likes Dutch, she likes you for me, and she probably wants in on the sitch to either take my pulse or take my back. That said, after she gets over being protective and nosy, she’s friendly and she thinks of me as family. So I should have predicted she’d horn in on this because I’ve never had a boy’s parents over for dinner and she knows this is big.”

Never had a boy’s parents over for dinner.

Nice.

He grinned at her, she did an eye roll, and he moved them along, saying, “Right.”

Not on speaker, but from outside, they heard, “Dude! Buzz. Us. UP!”

“And Lafayette is super cool,” Archie went on.

Okay then…?

“So…I don’t get it,” he said. “Why did you ask if my parents are judgy if he’s cool and Joany is…Joany?”

“Because La-La is also La-La. Some days, he’s in skirts and makeup. Other days, he’s in leather. He just goes with his flow and you never know what that flow is. If he came to work in a tinfoil hat, I wouldn’t blink.”

This was something else to dig about her.

Her posse ran the gamut and that said seriously cool things about the woman who was Archie.

“So, essentially, anything,” he remarked.

“Yes, but I’ve no doubt he’s only with Joany right now so he can drag Joany out before she invites herself to dinner. But like I said, he could be wearing a tinfoil hat while he does it.”

“My parents won’t care.”

And that was what she got back from him and Chaos, because they not only let people be who they were, they got in the life so they could be free to be whoever the fuck they wanted to be themselves.