“She was kind of proper.”She smiled at him.“She’d comearound 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 shoulderagainst his.
Hound grunted and raised his beer to his lips.
“She loved family,” she whispered when he put his beer backto the bar.
Hound again caught her gaze and his expression was no longerworried.
That was when he listed to the side and bumped her with hisshoulder.
Archie took that as her invitation to lean into him…and juststay.
So she did.
Which was where she was five minutes later, shooting thebreeze 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 ofit, 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 expressionwas no longer worried either.
It was later.
Days later.
Or, precisely, the morning after the night where she and Jagwatched the documentaryBlood, Guts and Brotherhood.
She went first to her mom just to say hi.
Then, as she usually did, she wandered the quiet space andstood in front of the black marble marker that had a weathered tequila bottlesitting at the base of it, a bottle that was mostly full.
And as she usually did, she wondered how that bottle hadn’tbeen nicked.
She then looked at the stone.
“Life is all kinds of fucked up,” she said quietly toJagger’s father.“If you weren’t gone, I wouldn’t have him.And if she wasn’tgone, 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 yougave me him, and she gave him me.”
