Shit.
Fountain cherry Coke made with two syrups and seltzer just couldn’t be beat.
They sat in silence.
They sat in silence longer.
Mal made those slurping noises that meant his shake was gone.
And they sat in silence after that.
Jag had hoped the kid would open up, but it seemed he wasn’t going to.
He still gave him more time before he got off his stool, grabbed both their glasses and headed behind the counter to put them in the bus bin.
He then positioned himself opposite Mal at the counter and leaned into his forearms to get eye-to-eye with the boy.
When they locked gazes, Jag spoke.
“Right, I gotta get back to work, Mal. It’d be groovy you worked on your homework a little. And when Fabe gets back with his smoothie, it’d be cool you said words to make amends. That’s up to you. But from here on in, your day fucks with your head, you need someone to sit with and just be, you tell Arch to call me. I’ll be here.”
He then reached out, rapped his knuckles on the counter in front of Mal for no reason at all, just to punctuate his point, and he started to make his way to wherever Archie was.
“You really came right here when Archie texted?”
Mal’s question made him stop and look back at the kid.
“I’m standing here, aren’t I?” Jag noted. Then joked, “I mean, as much as your joyous company lights my day and gives the promise of a million better tomorrows, I do gotta work to pay my mortgage.”
His joke made Mal crack another smile.
That smile did not have a long life.
“I…” Mal seemed like he was going to say something, but Jag figured what came out of his mouth next was not what Mal intended to say. “I’ll say sorry to Fabe.”
“Awesome,” Jag said.
“And I’ll get on my homework,” Mal continued.
“Great, kid.”
Mal pulled his lips in and nodded.
Then he slid off his stool and crept through the store to the back, where Archie had storage, a break room, the bathroom, and a setup for the kids to watch TV, play videogames, and sit at a table and do homework.
And again with the creeping.
He couldn’t say he knew Mal all that well. That was the longest period of time he’d spent with the kid and they’d done it barely speaking.
But he always seemed full of something, himself, swagger, whatever.
Now he seemed…
Beaten.
Archie was at his side before Mal made it to the door to the back.
Joany was with her.
Joany spoke first.
“What was up his ass?”
“He didn’t share,” Jag told her as Archie slid an arm around his waist simultaneous with him curving an arm around her shoulders.
Joany gave them an up and down and stated, “I hate to be the one to inform you of this, but it’s impossible for you two to physically fuse.”
“You are very wrong about that,” Archie returned. “Do we have to have a convo about the birds and bees?”
Joany made a face. “Don’t gross me out. You’re my girl. You’re asexual.” She jerked her head at Jag. “He’s not, of course. He’s very sexual. But you have Barbie parts.”
Jagger started chuckling.
“Learn early, Jag, don’t encourage her,” Archie advised, not taking her eyes off Joany.
Jag didn’t quit chuckling.
“And again,” Archie said this to Joany, “stop perving on my boyfriend.”
“If you date a hot guy, you give up the right to ask friends and acquaintances not to perv on said hot guy,” Joany shot back.
“That is not true,” Archie retorted.
“Sis, if I was dating a hot guy, I’d so totally let you perv on him. It’d be my civic duty.”
Jag started laughing.
Fabe showed, his lips wrapped around a straw stuck into a smoothie.
He handed another one to Joany, stopped sucking, and asked Jag, “Are they having the perving-on-you discussion again?”
“Again?” Jag asked.
Fabe nodded.
“They used to fight regularly about if Prince should have gone back to Prince after he assumed the symbol, since the symbol, everyone has to agree, was kick-freaking-ass,” Fabe declared. “Now they fight about perving on you. And by the way, I’m on Joany’s side of that argument. You’re seriously perv-worthy and it’s just selfish not to let that happen.”
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.”