Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 94897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Tack’s been in touch.
Shit.
Tack told her Jag had reached out, then canceled.
His mother wasn’t stupid. They were close. Even not being around him, she’d sense something was up.
The next was, I get when it’s new and you want it all to yourself.
Okay, that was a good excuse, and maybe actually part of why he was hoarding time with Archie.
Then came the next, But I sense that isn’t it. Word is, you’ve known this girl over a decade.
Not exactly.
But still…
I don’t know what’s happening with you. The next began. And went on with, What I hope you know is the path is always clear to me.
He was about to text back, I know and then some words about how she could chill (even though he knew she’d never chill, at least he could try) when he got a text from Archie.
Shit is real, baby. Mal came in and he’s being a little dick. Something has gone down. He won’t talk. I think I need you.
He had no idea why she would need him.
He just saw that she needed him.
So to that, he texted back.
Be there in twenty.
Then he got on his bike.
* * * *
Jag parked at the back of S.I.L., hoofed it around the side of the building and went in, almost immediately hearing a whistle.
He looked right, saw Joany up behind the cash register, ringing someone up.
She jerked her head toward the bookshelves.
Jag nodded, even though he didn’t know if she was directing him to Archie or Mal, and scanning for either, he moved that way.
He didn’t have to find Archie, she found him, coming quickly out of the homewares section with Fabe at her side.
Jag had met Fabe. A very tall, skinny Black dude with a fade at the sides of his head, twists at the top, a bent toward electronic music and a vibe that Jag couldn’t quite put his finger on.
Björk was playing, and Jag wouldn’t put it past Archie to throw that on. Joany, no way in fuck. Fabe, definitely.
Fabe seemed like a pretty laidback guy, usually.
Now he looked pissed.
Shit.
“Hey, honey,” Jag greeted Archie. Then to Fabe, “Yo, dude.”
“Yo,” Fabe bit off.
Archie gave Fabe an I’m sorry look then turned to Jag.
“Okay, well, we’ve had a bit of a name-calling incident.” Archie explained Fabe’s attitude and the I’m sorry look.
“I’m getting smoothies. Do you want a smoothie?” Fabe asked Archie a question Jag didn’t understand since they had a soda fountain stocked with ice cream, so who in their right mind would go and get a smoothie when they could be sucking back a malt?
She shook her head.
Fabe looked to Jag and arched a brow.
Jag shook his head.
Fabe stormed off.
Jag turned to Archie. “What happened?”
“Fabe was trying to do a man-to-man with Mal to get him to talk and Mal called him a poof.”
“Poof” was better than some things Mal could have called him.
Regardless, he shouldn’t be saying shit like that at all.
Jag shouldn’t be, but he was curious.
“Is Fabe, uh…?”
Archie rolled her eyes and told him, “He’s pan.”
“He’s what?”
“He does chicks. He does dudes. He does dudes and chicks together. He does trans. He fucks whoever he thinks is pretty. And he thinks a lot of people are pretty.”
Well, that answered a question that hadn’t been burning in Jag, but he had it.
“The fact remains it’s uncool to call people names,” Archie went on. “Especially people who have been awesome with you.”
“Yeah,” Jag agreed.
“I think Mal looks up to you,” she told him. “He asked me the other day when you were coming around again.”
That surprised Jag.
“No shit?” Jagger asked.
She shook her head. “No shit.”
“Is he in the library?”
“The what?”
“The library, your book section.”
She smiled at him. “I dig you call it that.”
“I dig you dig that, baby. But can you answer the question?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Last I saw of him, he headed in there. He reads. This is another reason I know something is up. When he gets into his head, he gets into it with a book. Problem with that is, we have homework time right after school and he starts reading and doesn’t do his homework. Which is how this all began. I asked him about his homework, he wasn’t cool with me. Fabe waded in. And it went south from there.”
Jag drew in a breath to gain some cool at the thought that Mal gave her shit, then he bent, touched his lips to her forehead, and made his way to the library.
He found Mal in that mini-maze of shelves, sitting in an old armchair, nose in a book.
He didn’t miss Jag showing, his eyes flicking Jag’s way, then he made a point of ignoring him, shifting in the chair to send a shoulder Jag’s way.
Jag tamped down his annoyance and evened out his voice when he said, “Soda fountain, bud. Now.”