Page 15 of Jagger
I sighed and flopped back in my chair, running my hands through my hair in frustration. It was clear he wasn’t gonna drop this until I spilled my guts all over his desk.
“Fine, there was a woman. I brought her to the bar, we had a nice time, I talked to her Sunday, we were gonna go out to dinner last night, and…she blew me off. Just totally fucking ghosted me and I have no fucking idea why.”
My dad’s brows damned near hit his hairline. He was clearly surprised by my answer.
“Well, hell, son. I wasn’t expecting to hear all that. So, let me get this straight. Instead of you fuckin’ and duckin’, she did it to you this time?” I could tell he was trying to keep the amusement out of his voice.
“There wasn’t any fucking,” I snapped, and could have kicked my own ass as the smile slid from his face, replaced by his serious concerned dad expression.
“You didn’t have sex with her? You just talked and were taking her to dinner…like a date?” The way his voice rose in confused surprise would have been fucking hilarious if it had been happening to anybody else.
“Yeah, Prez, exactly like a date. She was different…she’s a teacher, for fuck’s sake. She smacked my hand when I ate a French fry off her plate at the diner, and then she – “
“Wait, you took her to the diner, too?” he clarified.
“No, that’s where I met her. She came in and warned me that the parking cop was about to write a ticket for my bike and…that doesn’t matter. The point is, I thought we had something going, and I was wrong, and it just fucked with my head a little bit last night, that’s all.”
“And the French fry thing….” He drawled out, trying to prompt me to explain more.
“Never mind. It doesn’t matter,” I repeated. “All I know is, one minute she’s texting me yesterday afternoon that she can’t wait to see me last night. Then the next, she’s a no-show at the restaurant, won’t respond to my calls or texts, until she finally texts back that it should be obvious why she’s not coming, and I should understand why she doesn’t want to see me, then tells me to lose her number. On top of all that, she fucking blocked me!” I hadn’t realized how loud my voice got until I finished, and realized I’d been damned near shouting at the man. “Fuck!” I yelled, grabbing the back of my neck, and squeezing at the sudden tension at the base of my skull.
“So, what, she decided she didn’t want to be a piece of fender fluff after all?” he asked.
“Don’t call her that!” I all but snarled at him, then realized what I’d done. Luckily, he was still in Dad mode rather than acting as my president at that moment.
“OK,” he said slowly. “So, why do you think she changed her mind? Viking said she was a real lady…too much of a lady to handle a biker?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t fucking know and it’s driving me crazy. She was so different, and I pursued her, not the other way around. I had to talk her into even stopping by the bar for a drink, but we had a real connection, or at least I thought we did.” Shit, I felt like such a pussy pouring my heart out like this, and if had been anyone other than my dad, or maybe Rome, I knew I would never dream of it.
“Tell me about her. You said she’s a teacher? What’s her name?” he asked.
I laughed, but there was no real humor there. “I called her Angel,” I said, shaking my head at the memory. “She told me she wouldn’t tell me her real name until I told her mine.”
My dad laughed. “You mean to tell me you didn’t even get her name? Damn, son, I thought I taught you to be a little smoother than that.”
“Fuck you, old man,” I said without heat, and he flipped me off as he laughed again.
“Yeah, I know, I should be the last person trying to give you advice about women or relationships, right? God knows I don’t know shit about either one,” he said with a shake of his head. I knew my dad had hook-ups, sometimes with citizens, sometimes with bunnies – although we’d both made damn sure we never used the same ones. As far as I knew, he’d never actually dated a woman since the clusterfuck he’d called a marriage to my mother had ended.
“So, track her down. Get Bull to check her out. What school does she teach at? What grade? Do you know her address?” I could see his frustration grow with each shrug of my shoulders and negative shake of my head.
“Do you know any-fucking-thing about her besides her damned phone number? Jesus Christ, son, what were you doing with her? You weren’t talking, you weren’t fucking…” he trailed off with a smirk and I just rolled my eyes at him.
“We were talking, just not about anything like that. We talked about the club, and how she called her dad by his first name when she was fifteen, and he grounded her for a week, and she doesn’t like me to eat her French fries because her brother used to do that at the dinner table and…Look, I can’t explain it. She’s just different, that’s all, or at least I thought she was. Hell, I don’t know.”
He had a thoughtful look on his face. “Jag, did you just hear yourself? You sound a helluva lot like Sinner when he gets to rambling on about my mom. Think about that and go talk to Bull.”
I nodded and grabbed my now empty coffee cup, then stood up to leave, glad that our fucked-up version of the Dr. Phil show was coming to an end.
I had only taken a few steps down the hall when I heard him yell, “Shit!” I turned around as my dad came barreling out of his office.
“When did this happen?” he asked urgently as he spotted me. “Yesterday afternoon?”
“Yeah, why? Why does that matter?”
“Dammit, son, you need to talk to Rome or Abby and find out what E’s teacher looks like. Rome was telling me about it last night. He went with Abby to pick Ethan up yesterday, and the teacher got all pissy and hauled ass back into the school when she spotted Rome in the parking lot. She’d been nice to Abby before that, and they figured the sight of his cut spooked her. But, if she’s your Angel, it was the sight of your identical-goddamned-twin and his pregnant wife and kid that shook her up.”
I stood stock-still for a moment, as Rome’s words from last night tried to filter through my memory bank. I’d only been half-listening as he’d said something about E’s teacher. Son of a bitch! That’s what had been fucking niggling at me since I woke up this morning.
