Still.
Fuck.
Even though it was his birthday, and he was finally legal todrive, and there were a million other things he wanted to do, he didn’t do anyof them.
He hung there until the service was over.
He didn’t get why.Maybe it had to do with the fact that,once she saw him there, she kept glancing at him.Maybe she knew what he knew,and they both just got it.So, if she was looking his way, he needed to bethere for her.
Or maybe it was that she was just that pretty.
Jag had guessed it before, but he figured it out for surewhen the service was over.The way people were with her, the guy who lookedlike her brother, and the man who was probably her dad.
God, Jag had had that shit shoved down his throat for aslong as he could remember.
He was barely old enough to talk when his dad was murdered,and to that day, he got those looks.Especially when folks found out his fatherwas murdered.And more especially when they learned Jag was barely able to talkwhen his old man got whacked.
The looks she and her brother and her dad were getting rightthen.
Looks that Jag knew the person intended to be nice, but theymade you just want to punch them in the throat.
Or shout in their face.
Just be real!I’m not dead, he is!
I barely knew him!
I don’t even remember him!
My real dad is alive.He’s always been there for me.Soyou can just chill!
It was not the same for that girl.
Nope.
She was probably fourteen, fifteen, and Jag was guessing itwas her mom who was gone.
That was a lot of time to have in before you losteverything.
He didn’t know what he’d do if his mom kicked it.
Or Hound did.
Or something happened to Dutch.
No, he did know.
He’d go off the rails.He didn’t even care.End up dead orin prison.
But his birth dad?Graham Black?
Jag didn’t know the man.
So, yeah.
When it came to Jag, people could just chill.
Her though?
