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.
Jag stopped once through this, when some asshat called her “talent.”
He was in staredown with the asshat when A put her hand on his back and said, “He’s a douche. Let it go. I don’t care. I am talent and he’s never gonna get that lucky.”
She was right.
Still, Jag gave it a couple more seconds to make his point before he broke contact and kept moving.
Her car was parked at the curb and it was nice. A solid Honda a dad would think his girl was safe in.
She beeped it and he opened the door for her.
“So, you’re, like, a gentleman?” she teased.
“My dad is dead, I was raised by my mom, so yeah. A woman raises you, you got no choice but to learn to treat women right, unless you’re a moron or born a dickhead.”
She kept eye contact with him all the time he said this, but when he was done, she looked away.
“A—” he started.
“You know it hasn’t gotten better,” she told the road.
He felt like an imposter.
Because, yeah, he knew that.
But she’d been fourteen (fifteen?) when her mom died.
He’d been three when his dad was gone.
He still said, “It doesn’t get better. You just get used to it.”
She looked back to him and she looked pissed.
Or hurt.
He’d get it when she said, “My dad’s dating someone.”
For her, it was a betrayal.
For him, if his mom got her shit together and started moving on, it’d be a relief.
Which was why he said, “That’s good.”
And now she was definitely pissed. “No, it isn’t. She died, like, yesterday.”
“It wasn’t yesterday, A,” he said softly.
She got that stubborn expression on her face before she turned her attention to her toes.
He got closer to her.
Not too close, but close.
She looked up at him.
Perfect height, even if she had on heels.
He was tall, he wasn’t into short women.
But he wasn’t into tall women either.
She was neither.
Yeah.
Perfect.
“My mom isn’t over my dad and we’ll just say my dad’s been gone way longer than your mom has, and it sucks,” he shared. “It fuckin’ hurts. Every day, wakin’ up and seein’ her in pain. I get it doesn’t feel good seein’ him with another chick or thinkin’ what that means about how he felt about your ma. But trust me, the alternative is way fuckin’ worse.”
“It just…makes me remember, not that I’d forget. But the pain comes back, you know?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, seein’ as Ma hasn’t gone there. But I just want her to be happy. That’s, like, the only thing in this world I want. Because she’s the mom who made it so I want for nothing else, so it’s more like, I need that for her. You get me?”
She nodded and said, “I’m sorry, J. That does sound like it sucks.”
“Don’t be too hard on your dad and don’t make him worry about you. It’s not cool.”
She nodded again and started to fold into her car.
He was about to ask her name, get her number. She was underage, but just.
And they’d just had the deepest conversation he’d had since Hound sat him down to share about the birds and the bees and how he’d knock Jag’s block off if he took a girl ungloved.
But someone called his name and he looked to the house they’d exited.
Some dude he knew was shouting something he couldn’t hear.
Jag called, “What?”
And in that time, she got in her car, closed her door and her Honda started.
When he heard the engine catch, he looked down and through the window at her.
She waved, gave him a smile she didn’t really mean because she was sad and had learned too young how big life could suck.
And he stepped back wide when she pulled her car out of the spot and drove away.