There was a black pool table with gray felt in the dining room space.
His décor consisted of two neon signs, one a vintage Stroh’s and the other was a martini glass with a woman in it, legs high and wide, red pumps on, blonde hair streaming over the side of the glass.
Added to this was his prized collection of boy-perv vintage posters, framed meticulously and mounted on the walls. These included the famous Farrah Fawcett in the red one-piece sitting on the blanket, the tennis player scratching her ass, Tyra Banks’s yellow bikini Sports Illustrated cover, a black and white Jayne Mansfield and three Lottie Mac Corvette posters.
Considering it was a special occasion, he’d turned on the neon for Archie.
“Do you really need a beverage fridge by the pool table when the kitchen is right there?” she asked.
“Babe, I have a seventy-inch TV and I don’t watch TV. Dudes buy shit with plugs regardless if they need shit with plugs. If you didn’t know that, learn it now. It’s likely never gonna stop.”
She laughed softly then suddenly squinted at the wall. “Are those Lottie Macs signed?”
“I got an in with Lottie.”
She looked up at him. “No shit?”
He shook his head. “No shit. She’s a friend.”
“Whoa,” she murmured. “Cool.”
“Have you seen her dance?”
She nodded. “Me and my crew go to Smithie’s on occasion. The new revue is da bomb.”
It really was.
Yeah.
He so fucking liked this girl.
“Want a drink?” he asked.
She nodded, he let her go, but only to take her hand and lead her to the kitchen.
He bent and nabbed her backpack on the way and tossed it to his couch.
Archie took off the little purse she had hanging cross-body to her hip and set it on one of the counters.
Jag then opened the door to his liquor cabinet.
Archie peered in and busted out laughing again.
And again, Jag grinned at her while she did it.
“Are you a mixologist?” she asked.
“No, I just never know what mood I’m gonna be in.”
She surveyed the contents of the very stocked cabinet then told it, “I’m an amateur, but I dabble in the mixological arts.” She looked up at him. “Prepared to be adventurous?”
“Always.”
She gave him a look that was both hot and approving before her eyes skidded through the cut potatoes he had on the baking sheets and came back to him.
“I’m on drinks,” she declared.
“Gotcha,” he replied, taking her hint, moving to the baking sheets and grabbing the olive oil. “You hungry? Or you wanna wait?” he asked to be certain.
“Hungry,” she answered.
“Cool, dinner in around twenty-five,” he muttered, and got to it with the olive oil, salt and pepper on the oven fries.
He was sliding them in when she was sliding a glass next to the stove.
“I went with a pear base,” she shared.
“Pointing out the obvious, since I had a can of juice, I dig pear,” he told her and picked up his drink.
She held hers out.
He grinned at her and clinked.
He tasted it.
She’d gone with spiced rum, some lime, a ginger ale float.
“Nice,” he said.
Her black eyes twinkled before she tipped her head to the side and stated, “Right, so, my girl Joany, who’s a friend, but she’s also on staff at S.I.L., got a load of you when you made your presence known at the store. And when I told her we were a thing, she told me I have some viewing to do.”
The cocktail she made kicked ass.
But when she said that, all he could taste was bitter because he knew exactly what she was talking about.
She didn’t miss it.
“Jagger?”
“Yeah,” he cleared his throat, took another sip, tasted the pear, lime, ginger and spices again, and that was much better. Then he went on, “Blood, Guts and Brotherhood. Our president, Rush’s old lady, Rebel is a film director. She did that documentary on my Club.”
“Didn’t you like it?”
“It was great.”
“Then why, from when I mentioned it, to right now, do you look like you wanna throw up?”
He put his drink down, moved to her, and caught her at both sides of her neck.
Then he dipped his face close to hers.
“Can we eat smashburgers, drink, play pool, make out, take a trip to get ice cream before we’re too fucked up to drive, then come home, drink more, play around more, and I call adding some groping and maybe, depending on how that goes, some fingering, and then pass out?” He paused before he finished, “And all that without any heavy?”
“We can avoid what you want to avoid,” she agreed. “But before we do that, are you okay with me watching that film?”
“Yeah, I just don’t want to see it again.”
She took a second to consider that, using that second to study him closely, before she noted, “The tat on your back is carved in your dad’s headstone. He was Chaos too, right?”
“Yeah, I’m a legacy.”
She took another second to ponder this before she set her drink aside, fit herself to his front, and wrapped her arms around his middle.
“All right, Jagger. I’m good with shifting from the emotional to some fun and physical, if that’s what you want. But just saying, I’ve been waiting years to know you. I’ll wait for you, baby. Just, please don’t make me wait too long.”
He nodded.
Archie pushed up on her toes to kiss him.
He kissed her back.
Then he let her go to get out the hamburger because his girl was hungry.
* * * *
“This is not right. You go Heath. You go Butterfinger. You go Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Or the ultimate,” he lifted the cup in his hand, “Oreo. You never do a limited edition, ever,” Jagger decreed.
“I see my guy is a Blizzard purist,” Archie noted, before shoving more of her blasphemous Blizzard in her mouth.
“You gotta know I like you, considering I paid for that sacrilege you’re eating,” he told her.
Her eyes were twinkling again when she looked at him at the same time reminded him, “Jagger, it’s a Wonder Woman Blizzard. It’s an impossibility I’d say no to Wonder Woman, unless she sported pineapple or something fucked up like that.”
Jag burst out laughing.
Archie leaned a shoulder into him where they were sitting side by side on the table part of a picnic table in front of a DQ, their feet on the seat.
Jagger spooned more soft serve with Oreos in his mouth.
“Your smashburgers were great,” she remarked. “I’m impressed you know how to make oven fries. I stand behind this Blizzard choice. And I won’t mind if you kick my ass in pool…again…when we get back, because it’s awesome watching you work that table, you’re so good at it. But the best part of the night was being on your bike with you.”
Yeah.
That was the best part of the night.
Absolutely.
Now, was he gonna say it?
Yeah.
He was.
“That’s my dad’s bike.”
Her tone had changed when she said, “You mentioned that.”