“He died before he taught me,” Jagger repeated.“I don’tremember…” He swallowed.Hard.“I don’t have any of him.I don’t remember hislove at all.”
Archie was rocking him, he felt her lips at his hair, shewas humming nothing, just a sweet sound from her throat, as her body pulsedwith her weeping.
“I don’t know how to love you,” he whispered, the wordsragged.“I don’t know how to take care of you.”
“Baby, what are you talking about?You’ve been taking careof me from the second you laid eyes on me,” she replied.“I felt your love allthe way across a cemetery and you didn’t even know my name.”
A noise came out of him, low and animalistic, and his armswent around her.
He knew by the sound she made when he latched on that he washolding her too hard.
He just couldn’t stop.
“I needed nothing, until I lost her,” she said into the topof his hair.“And then I saw you, and I got what I needed.”
He made that sound again.
She held his head so tight against her chest, she wasprobably giving herself a bruise.
“Everyone loves him so much,” he pushed out.“And I have nofucking clue who he is.”
“Oh, baby,” she whispered, kissing his hair, rocking hisbody, holding on tight.“He’s you.”
That was when it happened, it broke, coming hard and fastand hot, it poured into her shirt.
At the end of it, they were lying on her couch, Archiewrapped around him, Jagger with his cheek resting on her chest, his arms curledaround her body, his mind a fog, his body exhausted.
“I shouldn’t have kept away.I shouldn’t have nursed myfucking pride.I should have come to you sooner,” he muttered to the back ofthe couch.“I should have been there to help you deal with Elijah’s bullshit.Ishould have been there for you.I should have had you.”
“The trigger,” she whispered.
“What?”he asked.
“Nothing, honey.Shh,” she shushed.
“He would have had you.He wouldn’t have waited.”
He was talking about his dad.
Graham Black.
His father wouldn’t have kept his mother hanging.
Jagger didn’t do the same.
He’d failed the woman he loved.
“Jag, honey, it didn’t happen that way.It happened thisway.And for us, this was the way it needed to happen.I’m not angry.I’m nothurt.I have you now.I’ve got what’s mine.I’m good.So good, baby.So, sogood.”
He took in a deep breath, let it go.
And another.
And then, “All my life, she grieved for him.I had to watch,loving her and not being able to help her.”
Archie stroked his hair.
“I didn’t get it, until I saw you.And I was scared as fuckhow I felt about you.Because love for me was mixed up in loss.In pain.Invoid.”
