Another reason why she was in love with Jagger was that he was not there.
He’d gotten a text from Mal that said, Can you come get me?
She’d watched Jagger text back, You okay?
To which, Mal replied, Yeah, I just have to get out of here. Mom says it’s OK.
Be there soon.
And with that, Jag asked her if she wanted to come with him, or hang. She’d told him she wanted to hang (so she could give him time with Mal and give the same to Mal).
He’d kissed her quickly and left.
But when they’d arrived, Jag had told her the gang was all there, and like Jag and Archie, a lot of them had changed out of their funeral clothes.
Since their arrival, she’d met Snapper and Rosalie, Hopper and Lanie, Tack and Tyra, Shy’s wife Tabby, Dog’s woman Sheila, Carissa, Rush and Rebel, High and Millie, Boz, Arlo, Hugger, Grizz, Karma, Saddle, the list went on.
Jagger had a huge family.
She liked that.
She was nursing a beer and considering going over to the pool table when Hound slid up on the stool beside her.
“Hey,” she greeted.
“Hey, girl,” he replied.
“Thanks for today,” she said. “Mal’s been leaning on Jag a lot lately. His dad couldn’t come home, communication is spotty, and it seems to give him something, having a dude to hang with. So I think it meant a lot to Mal, you guys showing. Also to his mom,” she told him.
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“And again, sorry about the other night.”
He’d jerked up his chin when he’d settled, and then had been watching Saddle behind the bar go and get a beer for him (Saddle was a man Jagger called a “prospect,” or someone who was putting the work in to become a member of the Club).
But Hound looked to her when she said that.
“Don’t know why you’re apologizin’. It’s understandable.”
She nodded. “I’m glad you sat down. Wanted a moment to say thanks.”
“You already did.”
“Not for that.”
“For what?”
“For Jagger.”
He shook his head, dipped his chin sharply to Saddle when the beer was set in front of him, and looked back at Archie.
“Not my doing,” he said.
“Oh yes it is.”
Hound stared at her hard.
Then his voice dropped low when he asked, “He okay?”
Hers went low too when she answered, “He’s working through things, but yes.”
“Don’t wanna put you on the spot. You don’t have to say dick. But you probably could guess this anyway. His momma is worried,” he muttered.
On first appearances, Hound seemed pretty rough, weathered, definitely had some life under his belt.
But there were things no one could hide.
So she knew, Jag’s dad was feeling the same.
“He might reach out to her,” she told him.
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“I do if it makes you feel better. He wants to watch that Chaos movie with me. I think he needs to share Club history with me. His dad. You. I think he’ll feel a lot better when I know. But it’s hard for him to express.”
“I get that,” he muttered, and turned to his beer.
She took that as what it was, he was letting her off the hook with that at the same time he got what he needed to feel better about it.
And she was grateful for it.
Moving on.
“My mother would lose her mind, the thought of her daughter sitting in a biker club hangout, drinking a beer, surrounded by bikers,” Archie remarked.
Hound returned his attention to her and his tone was wary when he asked, “Yeah?”
“She was kind of proper.” She smiled at him. “She’d come around though.”
“She as pretty as you?”
“Prettier.”
“Not sure I believe that, but okay,” he said.
Aw, that was sweet.
So sweet, Archie listed to the side and bumped her shoulder against his.
Hound grunted and raised his beer to his lips.
“She loved family,” she whispered when he put his beer back to the bar.
Hound again caught her gaze and his expression was no longer worried.
That was when he listed to the side and bumped her with his shoulder.
Archie took that as her invitation to lean into him…and just stay.
So she did.
Which was where she was five minutes later, shooting the breeze with Hound Ironside, when Jagger strolled in with Mal.
Mal’s attention went right to…well, everything. Suffice it to say, a biker hangout that looked like a seedy bar, and proud of it, was new and fascinating terrain for Mal.
Jagger’s attention came right to her with his dad.
And one could say, when he saw them together, his expression was no longer worried either.
* * * *
It was later.
Days later.
Or, precisely, the morning after the night where she and Jag watched the documentary Blood, Guts and Brotherhood.
She went first to her mom just to say hi.
Then, as she usually did, she wandered the quiet space and stood in front of the black marble marker that had a weathered tequila bottle sitting at the base of it, a bottle that was mostly full.
And as she usually did, she wondered how that bottle hadn’t been nicked.
She then looked at the stone.
“Life is all kinds of fucked up,” she said quietly to Jagger’s father. “If you weren’t gone, I wouldn’t have him. And if she wasn’t gone, he wouldn’t have me.”
There was no sound, no breeze, no wind through the trees, nothing.
Just quiet and peace.
“I don’t know what to do with that,” she admitted.
There was no rustle of leaves.
There was nothing.
“I guess the only thing I can do with it is think that you gave me him, and she gave him me.”
The sun shone down on Archie and black marble, it warned her skin, it glinted the stone.
“You were a good man, Graham Black,” she uttered an understatement.
Archie reached out and touched stone that was cold, even under the sun.
“Thank you.”
Still, nothing.
But peace.
And with that, Archie walked away.
Epilogue
Thrill of the Wind
Jagger
One month later…
When Jagger walked into his mom and Hound’s kitchen, Dutch was already sprawled at the table.
There was no Georgie.
Which made Jag feel better since he’d been ordered to come to breakfast and Archie was not invited.
But only a little bit better because this was weird.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Well, hello to you too,” his mother said by way of answer, turning from a counter that had some food prep stuff on it.
Jag didn’t let up.
“Where’s Hound and Wilder?”
“They’re out to breakfast,” she told him.
Say what?
“I thought we were here for breakfast,” Jag noted. “Why are they somewhere else?”
“Okay, getting you caught up,” Dutch put in. “It’s official that this is weird on top of weird because I asked this too, as well as why Georgie was expressly left out of this get-together. Ma didn’t have a lot of answers. And like I’m sensing the same from you, I’m not a fan of the mystery.”