She squealed with triumph.
Jagger pulled out his phone and took a snap after Joker took control, wrapping his arms around his daughter and kissing her face all over.
This caused more squeals.
“Selfie, brah.”
Hearing this, Jagger looked to his left and Wyatt was already posing with two fingers in front of him in V position.
Christ, the kid was barely four.
Totally Joke’s kid, and not only due to the jet-black hair and steel-gray eyes and preoccupation with vehicles, but also the inherent cool factor.
Obediently, Jagger shifted, reached the arm with the phone long, did the V with his other hand, and took a selfie.
After this, Wyatt again lost interest in him and went back to the Bronco.
Yeah, so his dad.
After the cool, all about the cars.
By the time he did, Joker had sat up, Clementine was in his lap and her attention had turned.
To Jagger.
She launched herself at him and he did his best to pretend it was a valiant struggle, but she did a great job at pinning him.
“Got you!” she yelled in his face.
“You sure did, cuteness,” he told her.
She didn’t waste time exalting in victory.
Her head snapped to the side, she then shouted, “Hoppy!” jumped off Joker, making him grunt for real when one of her feet hit his gut, and she took off after their brother, Hop, who’d just walked in the garage.
“I see a future in GLOW for your girl,” Jagger said as he did an ab curl back up to sitting.
“It’s her new thing,” Joker told him. “Last week, she wanted scissors to cut all her dolls’ hair. The week before that, she made me sit on the couch and put gunk on my face because she saw her mom give herself a facial. This did not go great for her since I have a beard and that fucked with her vision of how comprehensive she wanted to get with my skin, but her mother put her foot down in a negatory when Clem demanded I shave it off. The week before that, she was karate chopping and kickboxing everything. We had to put a stop to that when she roundhouse kicked a table and broke a lamp. I saw it. It was a solid kick. I was impressed. Carrie was not.”
Jag shook his head, chuckling low while watching as Clementine screamed in (fake) frustration, considering Hop hadn’t proven as easy of a target as Joke and Jag were and now she was hanging upside down on Hopper’s back.
“Never thought I’d say this, man,” Joker continued, “but I hope we go back to the facial thing. She attacks everybody at random, she’s an early riser, her brother and her parents are easy targets, and it’s messing with her mother and my morning alone time.”
Jagger kept chuckling.
“Carrie’s pregnant again,” Joker announced abruptly.
Jag stopped laughing and focused on him.
He was watching (and listening to more girlie shrieks) since Hopper had flipped Clem forward into his arms and begun tickling her.
“Say what?” Jag asked.
Joker turned to Jag. “Yep.”
“How many are you two gonna have?”
“She wants this next one and one more.”
“Dude, that’s six kids.”
Joker shrugged.
“That’s also nuts,” Jagger carried on.
Joke caught his eyes. “Right, Jag. When you find a woman, and she’s your woman, and then you find out what she wants, I’ll let you show me the way in denying her.”
Jagger had a feeling he found that girl ten years ago, hooked up with the woman she became yesterday, and he was already in that place.
“Text me and Carrie those snaps, would you, brother?” Joker requested as he hauled himself off his ass, got to his feet and called to his son, “Yo, boy, you want a tour of the Bronco?”
“Yeah, Dad!” Wyatt cried.
Joker strolled to his kid.
Jagger texted him and Carissa the pictures.
Then he pulled up another name and put the snaps in a new text.
He sent it to Archie with the words Some of my village.
It took two minutes before he got a reply.
Rad. With about seventeen heart-eyes emojis.
About ten seconds after that came, Is that selfie with your baby bro?
He sent back, No, my brother Joker’s boy. Joker is in the other pic with his girl.
To this, she returned, Your brother is hot.
The rest of them are dogs, he replied.
She sent a gif of some woman pursing her lips and rolling her eyes.
Which meant, when Jagger headed toward the Bronco, he was smiling.
* * * *
At six-thirty that night, his doorbell rang.
Jagger left his kitchen, went to his front door, opened it, saw Archie outside wearing a pair of faded olive jeans shorts and an oversized V-neck tee she’d knotted at the waist. The tee was white, a little see-through, and what he could see through it was a red bra. She also had on flat sandals with a bunch of braided straps around her feet and ankles.
Seriously, he dug how she dressed.
That was the only thought he had, outside he was pleased as fuck she was there, before he returned the favor she gave him the night before.
He hooked her at the waist, pulled her to his body, dropped his head and took her mouth.
Kissing her deep, he shuffled her in, shut the door, shuffled her around, and then moved them in further.
Only when she was pressing close and had a hand fisted in his hair, did he break the kiss.
“Hey,” he greeted.
“Hey.” She smiled.
Truth.
She was beautiful.
But when she smiled, she was all kinds of pretty.
That might seem a demotion in compliments.
But it was seriously not.
She let his hair go but only to rest her hand on the back of his neck, remained snug against him, and looked around.
And even if she was close, she still managed to collapse against him with her laughter.
He knew what was funny and grinned down at her while she did it.
When she was getting control, she drooped a shoulder and dropped a beat-up leather backpack to the floor.
She did some head turning to take more in before she slapped both hands on his shoulders and said, “Thank God, finally, you do something that’s cute. I mean, could this be more of a bachelor pad?”
He looked around his space that was totally and unapologetically a bachelor pad.
He was a bachelor. And it was his time to have this kind of pad.
So that was what he made it and he went all in.
Even if it was a freestanding, his house was considered a condo since his complex had thirty identical ones built in three sections, one around a small park, another around an outdoor workout space and the last around a communal pool. His condo was in the workout space section.
The grounds and pool were maintained really well, this meaning the HOA was a bitch.
But it was totally worth it.
The front room of his crib was L-shaped with living room to the left, big open kitchen to the right, off the front of kitchen a dining area that led to a wall of windows with French doors that led outside to a decent-size, fenced-in backyard.
The bend of the L contained an office that also had French doors that led outside.
The hall led to a powder room and the master, with stairs that went up to the second floor that held two bedrooms that shared a bath.
The furniture in the living room was sectional, slouchy and comfortable.
The TV was ginormous.