Jag hadn’t seen Archie’s brother since Elijah was sixteen.
But there was no mistaking the tall, good-looking man who was right then openly pissed as all fuck and fully up in his woman’s shit.
Like…
Physically.
He had six inches on her but there was less than an inch between their faces, and Jagger couldn’t hear what he was saying, but there wasn’t a centimeter of his body that did not share he was all kinds of furious.
Instinct guided Jagger’s next moves, which were to get behind Archie, curl his fingers in the back of her jeans, pull her away from her brother and step between them.
“What the—?” Elijah started angrily.
“Maintain space or I won’t, and you won’t like how I won’t,” Jagger growled.
“Jagger, baby,” Archie murmured, and he felt her hand fall light between his shoulder blades.
He also felt Dutch get close and watched Elijah’s eyes dart to him.
And he noted something he didn’t when he walked in and saw what he saw.
The storage space wasn’t only taken up by the fruits of Archie’s day (since he knew she was hitting some flea market as well as two auctions to bulk up stock), Joany was standing there and she was pissed as all fuck too.
“You gonna stand down?” Jagger asked and got Elijah’s attention again.
“So you finally made a move,” he sneered.
And he was Arby’s Guy to Elijah too.
Not a surprise.
“That isn’t an answer to my question,” Jag noted.
“This is between Arch and me, so beat it,” Elijah replied.
“And you can have a conversation with your sister. What you can’t do is be up in her shit when you do.”
“This is none of your business,” Elijah returned.
“You’re right and you’re wrong. Whatever you’re talking about is none of my business. But I’ll repeat, you do not get up in your sister’s shit when you’re conversing with her. And that is absolutely my business.”
They scowled at each other way too fucking long before Elijah took a step back, stabbed a finger at his sister and stated, “We’re not done but I’m not talking about this with your dog in the room. You’ll hear from me.”
“Elij—”
Archie didn’t get her brother’s full name out.
Without looking at anyone, he stormed to the door, which had a push bar and a sturdy hinge at the top to avoid the heavy door slamming.
Elijah still put the effort into slamming it.
Jag turned to Archie.
“Let me guess, you told him he was paying his half of the handyman,” he deduced.
She’d looked mildly freaked, and equally mildly put out, but when he said that she smiled that almost-smug, totally-hot smile of hers.
“And then some,” she shared.
“Okay, I need some assistance here,” Joany stated in Archie’s direction, bellying up to them, “’Cause, see, I got hella mindfuck going on because simultaneously I don’t know whether to touch my contacts to see if I can order a hit on that crazy-ass brother of yours. This along with beating back an inappropriate orgasm with the repeat goin’ on in the back of my brain of your boy here sharing what is absolutely his business and how he did that. And last, tamping down my jubilation that his semi-twin has shown up and he’s not wearing a ring.”
“He’s taken,” Jagger informed her.
“Pity,” she muttered.
“Hey, I’m Dutch, Jag’s brother,” Dutch introduced himself to Joany with a huge smile he knew melted panties.
Jagger sighed.
“I’m single, just, you know, in case shit goes south at home,” she replied.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dutch promised, still smiling.
Joany’s eyes darted between the brothers before she said, “For crap’s sake, you two have the exact same voice. This will not help me fight my twin fantasies. You could blindfold me, and I wouldn’t know who was doing what.”
“Dear Lord,” Archie mumbled.
“Do not tell me you haven’t thought about it,” Joany accused.
Archie had no comment to that.
Jesus Christ.
Now Dutch was grinning so big, it had to hurt his face.
“You wanna help me put an end to this?” Jag asked his brother.
“I don’t mind being a pretty girl’s fantasy,” Dutch continued flirting, punctuating this with a wink at Joany.
For fuck’s sake.
“If you don’t tone it down, bruh, I’m sharing with Georgie,” Jagger warned.
“Dude, Georgie flirts in front of my face. She knows she owns my dick. We both know I don’t want anyone else to claim it. So it’s all good.”
“Do real people talk like this, or am I in a movie?” Joany asked Archie.
“You’re not in a movie,” Archie replied. “Though I will point out you just shared you nearly had an orgasm.”
Archie was also smiling, and it was again semi-smug.
Probably because she knew she owned Jagger’s dick.
“Huh, I did do that,” Joany replied.
“Right, as cute as we’re all being, two things,” Jag began. “One, Dutch and me checked shit out at the school today, watching the kids come out, and they barely got a block off school grounds before the Harrises went after Mal. Or Aaron did. He pushed him to the ground and kicked him. We rolled in and put a stop to it, but the time is now to discuss talking to his mother.”
Archie and Joany stared at him and no one was smiling.
“Two, we need to have a convo about your brother, because what we walked in on is not okay,” he finished.
“Is Mal hurt?” Archie asked.
“He said he was all right, but I think he still needs to be checked out,” Jag answered.
She digested that, then said, “Jag, honey, if we go to his mom, we’re gonna lose him.”
They probably were.
“As much as I want to, I can’t shadow him everywhere he goes and hope the Harrises will see he has a bodyguard and find someone else to fuck with,” Jagger told her. “And Mal’s not dealing with this. He rolled out of school in a hurry, but he can’t escape this. They’re not gonna let him ignore it. We have no clue what’s happening in school. We’re not his peers, we’re adults and we have to have his best interests in mind, baby. If he was my son, and anyone knew this was happening to him and didn’t tell me, I’d be pissed as shit.”
She didn’t even need to process that, she nodded.
“You say there are cliques. But Dex, Martin and Colby are cool with him here. They play videogames together. They don’t seem to dislike him,” Jag remarked. “But they were there, and they didn’t step up for him. Four against two is decent odds, especially when it seems only Aaron is the asshole. I’m saying this because we also need to find a way to get those boys to look after their friend. It’s not on, them letting him swing in the breeze like that.”
Through a grin, she replied, “Says the MC brother.”
“It’s you teaching them what a tribe is all about, Arch,” he retorted. “They are not looking after their tribe. They need to look out for their tribe, and that includes Gina, Tracee and Mia.”