“I’ll get it,” she said, still laughing. “Can you dredge those cutlets in flour?”
“What’s dredge?” he asked.
She changed her mind. “Never mind. You get the door. I’ll dredge.”
He nodded, kissed her cheek as he passed her and headed to the intercom.
He hit the button. “Yo.”
“Let us up,” Joany demanded.
Needless to say, Joany was not who he expected since his parents were due any second now.
Because of this, he turned his gaze to Archie to see how she wanted to play this.
And as he did, she was saying, “For shit’s sake.”
The intercom sounded again.
“Dude, buzz us up,” Joany repeated her demand.
“Ask her ‘who’s us’?” Archie ordered.
He hit the button.
“Who’s us?” he said into the speaker.
“Me and Lafayette,” Joany answered.
Again, Jag looked to Archie.
The instant he caught her eyes, she queried, “How non-judgy are your folks?”
“Very.”
“Very very?”
“Very very. Why?”
“Dude! Buzz us up!” Joany shouted through the speaker.
He hit mute and waited for Archie’s explanation.
“Okay, Joany is here because Joany is an equal mixture of protective and nosy,” Archie started to explain.
“I’ve been getting that,” Jagger replied.
“And your family is coming, and I’m sure she just wants to make certain it’s cool, but also, she likes Dutch, she likes you for me, and she probably wants in on the sitch to either take my pulse or take my back. That said, after she gets over being protective and nosy, she’s friendly and she thinks of me as family. So I should have predicted she’d horn in on this because I’ve never had a boy’s parents over for dinner and she knows this is big.”
Never had a boy’s parents over for dinner.
Nice.
He grinned at her, she did an eye roll, and he moved them along, saying, “Right.”
Not on speaker, but from outside, they heard, “Dude! Buzz. Us. UP!”
“And Lafayette is super cool,” Archie went on.
Okay then…?
“So…I don’t get it,” he said. “Why did you ask if my parents are judgy if he’s cool and Joany is…Joany?”
“Because La-La is also La-La. Some days, he’s in skirts and makeup. Other days, he’s in leather. He just goes with his flow and you never know what that flow is. If he came to work in a tinfoil hat, I wouldn’t blink.”
This was something else to dig about her.
Her posse ran the gamut and that said seriously cool things about the woman who was Archie.
“So, essentially, anything,” he remarked.
“Yes, but I’ve no doubt he’s only with Joany right now so he can drag Joany out before she invites herself to dinner. But like I said, he could be wearing a tinfoil hat while he does it.”
“My parents won’t care.”
And that was what she got back from him and Chaos, because they not only let people be who they were, they got in the life so they could be free to be whoever the fuck they wanted to be themselves.
“Duuuuuuuude!”
That came from outside.
“Sure?” she asked.
“Your parents are here! Buzz us up!”
Again, from outside.
“Too late now,” he said.
“Go back to the front!” Archie shouted in the direction of the window.
“La-La’s there! The parents are parking out back. Buzz! La-La will open!” Joany shouted back.
Jagger hit the button to let them in and asked Archie, “Do they have the interior code?”
“Yeah.”
It was then he noticed Archie didn’t look upset or anxious.
In fact, she hadn’t been either all night and they’d been prepping dinner for at least the last half an hour.
This was because, for Archie, Joany was Joany and she was there and what would be from that would be.
Lafayette was whoever Lafayette was and what would come from that also would come.
His parents were going to like her, and either she knew that, or she knew Jag liked her so much, he didn’t care if anyone else did, so she didn’t have to worry about it.
And she didn’t.
It was the first time he realized how much like his mother she was.
Keely Black Ironside not only gave zero fucks what anyone thought about her, she understood how cool she was and always would be.
It was just a part of who she was.
And it was a part of who Archie was.
“What’s that look on your face?” she asked.
“Just thinking again about how much of the shit you are.”
“I’m the shit times a thousand.”
Jagger busted out laughing at that.
He also looked around her pad.
She might not care what anyone thought of her, but this night meant something to her.
Joke had come with him to bring up the dining room table, and Archie had been right. It looked great in her space.
Now it was set with plates, silverware and wineglasses, and there was a pretty bouquet of fresh flowers in the middle.
There was another small bunch of fresh flowers on the edge of her bar.
The place always looked lived-in and funky, but she’d tidied, so now it looked lived-in and funky on purpose, with style and flair.
And he’d seen the inside of the fridge. So he saw that she’d made a trifle out of passionfruit and meringues that looked like it took her three hours to put together.
Candles were burning.
She had Ray LaMontagne playing and four types of beer in the fridge.
All of this for his mom.
Hound.
Him.
He recently saw a picture of his mother and father on the night they met.
He saw the way they were looking at each other.
And Jagger felt that look.
He was that look.
With Archie.
She was his.
And she was his entire future.
He was so into this thought, his body jerked in surprise when there was a knock on the door.
Before he moved the short distance to answer it, quickly, Archie asked, “Jagger, baby, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he muttered, and opened the door.
Hound and who he assumed was Lafayette were standing at the back.
His ma and Joany were at the front.
Jag noted that Lafayette was mixed race, Black and maybe Asian. He was also tall. But with the women blocking him, Jag couldn’t see anything else.
He and Hound were staring at the backs of the heads of the women in front of them.
“Jag, honey, hey!” his mother cried, coming forward, grabbing his shoulders, and pulling him down for a kiss on the cheek.
“Hey, Ma, come in,” he said, shifting aside.
“Jag, honey, hey!” Joany echoed in order to take her shot to get a smooch, reaching up a lot higher, since she was so much shorter, to grab his shoulders and pull him down for a kiss on the cheek.
“Hey, babe,” he muttered, chuckling.
Hound came next.
“Son,” he said, pounding Jag on the arm.
“Hound,” Jag returned.
Hound went in and Jag saw that for Lafayette, it was a T-shirt-and-calf-length-pleated-skirt day.