Wild Fire: A Chaos Novella

by Kristen Ashley

  She wasn’t either.

  Yeah.

  Perfect.

  “My mom isn’t over my dad and we’ll just say my dad’s been gone way longer than your mom has, A, and it sucks,” he shared. “It fuckin’ hurts. Every day, wakin’ up, and seein’ her in pain. I get it doesn’t feel good seein’ him with another chick or thinkin’ what that means about how he felt about your ma. But trust me, the alternative is way fuckin’ worse.”

  “It just…makes me remember, not that I’d forget. But the pain comes back, you know?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, seein’ as Ma hasn’t gone there. But I just want her to be happy. That’s, like, the only thing in this world I want. Because she’s the mom who made it so I want for nothing else, so it’s more like, I need that for her. You get me?”

  She nodded and said, “I’m sorry, J. That does sound like it sucks.”

  “Don’t be too hard on your dad and don’t make him worry about you. It’s not cool.”

  She nodded again and started to fold into her car.

  He was about to ask her her name, get her number. She was underage, but just.

  And they’d just had the deepest conversation he’d had since Hound sat him down to share about the birds and the bees and how he’d knock Jag’s block off if he took a girl ungloved.

  But someone called his name and he looked to the house they’d exited.

  Some dude he knew was shouting something.

  Jag called, “What?”

  And in that time, she got in her car, closed her door and her Honda started.

  When he heard the engine catch, he looked down and through the window at her.

  She waved, gave him a smile she didn’t really mean because she was sad and had learned too young how big life could suck.

  And he stepped back wide when she pulled her car out of the spot and drove away.

  * * * *

  The next time he saw her was maybe a year later. At a concert. At the Gothic.

  She was coming his way when he spotted her. She’d seen him before he saw her.

  She smiled and waved.

  She looked good, happier.

  He still saw the weight she carried, that he carried too.

  But yeah.

  Happier.

  And he was glad to see that.

  He waved back and started her way.

  But since it was a punk act they were catching, and they were in the mosh pit, a wave hit the pit, they both got caught up in it, he lost sight of her, and even if he looked (all night), he didn’t see her again.

  That was a serious bummer.

  Though, he was glad to know they liked the same kind of music.

  Just because they liked the same kind of music.

  But also because it meant they might run into each other again.

  * * * *

  He saw her a few months later at Taste of Colorado downtown.

  They caught up then.

  She was with a dude.

  He was with a chick.

  But she dragged that dude right to Jagger, smiling big.

  And Jag stood next to his chick, watching her do it, smiling big right back.

  “Hey, J,” she greeted.

  “Hey, A,” he’d returned.

  And Christ.

  Yeah.

  She just got prettier and prettier.

  She barely glanced at his chick when she started up their convo, which did not go over well with his chick.

  Or her dude, who Jag felt no remorse about the fact it seemed she forgot he was even there.

  “So cool to finally run into you again. I was gonna leave you a note at our place, but the last time I went to visit mom, there was this other dude who looked like you there,” she told him. “And I didn’t want him to get it.”

  And he knew what she meant.

  Our place.

  Reaching out using his dad’s grave.

  “That’s my brother, and yeah, no.” He shook his head, for some reason, the thought of Dutch knowing about her, getting her note to him, not understanding what it was, reading it.

  Yeah…

  No.

  “Babe, we’re supposed to meet Slammer, we’re already late,” her dude said, pulling on her.

  Another barely there glance, this time at her guy while she said, “A second,” and looked back at Jag. “He dumped her.”

  “What?” Jag asked, his chick grabbing his hand and tugging on it to get his attention.

  “Dad,” she said. “He dumped the woman he was seeing, and you were right. It made me sad because it made him sad too. So I should have just chilled and let him have it.”

  “Hey, baby,” his chick murmured to Jag, “you said we’d go to that ice cream booth and you’d get me a cone.”

  He glanced at her, “A sec,” then back to A. “Sorry, but he’ll move on again. You’ll get it this time when he does and give him that.” After she nodded, he went on, “Anyway, you look good.”

  When he said that, her dude got closer to her.

  So did Jag’s chick, to him.

  “We gotta go, babe,” her dude said.

  She spared him another glance and then to Jag, “We have to meet a friend, but you want to hook up later?”

  Her dude made a noise.

  Jag ignored it and smiled at her.

  “There’s a band coming on that’s rad,” she told Jag. “You gotta see them play.”

  “We’re in,” Jagger decided.

  His chick made a noise.

  “Okay, four o’clock? Right here?” she suggested.

  “We’ll be here,” he replied.

  She smiled huge, bopped forward, and gave him a hug.

  It was the first time they’d touched.

  She felt good.

  She smelled good.

  He’d pulled his hand from his chick’s to wrap his arm around her waist.

  “Four,” he whispered in her ear, giving her waist a squeeze, and feeling really good that they were finally going to get the opportunity to get to know each other better.

  “Yeah,” she replied, returning that squeeze to his shoulders, and he knew she felt the same way. “Four.”

  She bopped back, her dude claimed her, Jag’s chick claimed him, and they were both tugged in opposite directions

  But they kept eye contact over their shoulders as they walked away. And right before she disappeared from sight, she shot him a devil’s horns, and the way she did was funny, cute and cool, so it was also totally hot.

  Needless to say, Jag’s chick was not happy about this even a little bit.

  So, needless to say, around four, she pitched one helluva fit and he had to deal with her ass.

  This meant he missed the meeting with A. By the time he got back to the area where they met, she was long gone.

  And he was so pissed that she was, he broke shit off with his chick.

  He never saw that girl again.

  As for A, it went so long, he thought he’d lost her forever.

  And thinking that, he felt it.

  Deep.

  * * * *

  It was four years before Jag saw her again.

  She was in a car.

  He was on his bike.

  They were stopped at a stoplight.

  He looked over to her, she looked at him, and when she recognized him past his shades and his longer hair and his Chaos Motorcycle Club cut, she grinned.

  He frowned.

  Because there she was, driving down Broadway like years hadn’t passed.

  Where the fuck had she been?

  No notes?

  No sightings?

  Nothing?

  She made hand motions and he jerked up his chin because, fuck yes, he was gonna follow her.

  And he did.

  To the parking lot at the Albertson’s by the Blue Bonnet.

  They parked.

  He swung off his bike.

  She got out of her car.

  Her hair was longer too, she was
thinner, but somehow with that, her ass was rounder, her tits bigger.

  And she had more tats.

  He gave himself seconds to take her in, and in all that, it wasn’t lost on him that she was even fucking prettier.

  And then, no other way to describe it, he bore down on her.

  “What the fuck, A?” he growled when he was deep in her space.

  She pressed back to her car, but he just moved into the opening she created when she did.

  Through all this, she stared up at him, demanding, “What the fuck, what, J?”

  “You’ve been gone for fucking years,” he pointed out.

  Her head ticked. “Yeah, I went to college out east.”

  Well.

  Shit.

  But.

  Still.

  “And you didn’t leave me a goddamn note?”

  She blinked.

  “You were gone, like, every fuckin’ day for the last four fuckin’ years so you couldn’t leave me a note?” he pushed it.

  “Well, no, but mostly, yeah, ’cause Dad had two kids in college, both out of state, we’re not rolling in it so I couldn’t exactly fly home every weekend. And anyway, J, you stood me up at Taste.”

  And again.

  Shit.

  But still.

  “My chick got up in my shit, I had to deal with her,” Jag explained. “We were late, you were gone.”

  “Yeah, well, my guy got up in mine too. He wasn’t a big fan of me hugging on a hot dude in front of him. We had words. I told him he could relax and deal or he could take a hike. He wasn’t relaxed, but he was ready to deal, and then you didn’t show. After that, I had to put up with him being smug, which was worse.”

  Hang on a second.

  She thought he was hot?

  “So, that’s the only excuse you have?” she pressed. “That your girl threw a tantrum and that’s why you stood me up?”

  That was twice she’d used those words.

  Stood her up.

  But they’d both been on dates.

  “A, I—” he began.

  She didn’t let him get any further.

  “So no, J, I didn’t leave you a note because you blew me off and I’m not feeling this.” She motioned between them, but explained it anyway, “I see you for the first time in years, and you get all up in my face because I didn’t keep connected after you didn’t connect with me and I was just off, living my life.”

  “You gotta know I’d never leave you hanging unless something came up I couldn’t avoid,” he told her.

  “I don’t know that because that’s what you did. You left me hanging.”

  “My chick was throwing a hissy fit.”

  She shrugged. “So walk away.”

  “If you were throwing a hissy fit, would you want me to walk away from you?”

  “Brother, I would not ever throw a stupid hissy fit.”

  She said these words like they were gospel and her face registered nothing but disgust at not only the idea of chicks who did, but that he’d think she would.

  Jag found that interesting.

  As well as promising.

  But again.

  Still.

  “So you’re telling me it wasn’t a four-year long hissy fit that was the reason I got no fuckin’ note after that happened?” he demanded.

  That hit.

  He knew it when she hit back.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not anything to each other, J,” she informed him. “I don’t even know your name.”

  He stepped back.

  She watched him do it and winced.

  But no fucking way.

  Maybe he’d screwed up, and then she’d screwed up.

  But she knew that went too far.

  “You’re right, we’re not,” he agreed. “Sorry to fuck up your day.”

  He headed to his bike.

  She moved with him.

  He was firing it up when he felt her hand over the leather on his forearm.

  He looked up at her standing beside him.

  “J, hang on a sec,” she requested.

  “Do your thing, A, live your life,” he threw her words back at her. Then he finished it. “Hope it’s a good one. Later.”

  With that, he opened up his bike and glided away.

  * * * *

  Jagger lost track of how many times he saw her after that.

  At concerts, mostly.

  Also at some bars.

  Couple of times, out to eat.

  Even at the mall once.

  She’d been with guys.

  He’d been with girls.

  She’d been with friends.

  Ditto with him.

  Also alone.

  She kept her distance.

  He did too.

  Eye contact and then avoidance.

  Through all this, over the years, even though he was born there and he knew a lot of people and there was more than a rare occasion he’d run into one of them, it was the first time he realized how small of a town Denver was, even if it was a big city.

  But it wasn’t lost on him they had the same taste in music, food and social life.

  It also wasn’t lost on him that was way cool and it way fucking sucked because she was enjoying it, so was he, but never together.

  He knew he should boss up, apologize for acting like an asshole and getting in her shit after she got back from college.

  That said, she was the one who lowered the hammer, so on one of those occasions they were in each other’s space, she could have bossed up too.

  She didn’t.

  And the longer she didn’t, he got to the point where he just wouldn’t.

  So he didn’t either.

  * * * *

  In the end, it wasn’t about bossing up.

  In the end, it was about the fact he was on his bike and he saw some kid motoring down the sidewalk, totally being chased.

  And seconds later, he saw it was A doing the chasing.

  So yeah.

  No hesitation.

  He waded right into that.

  Fuckin’ A.

  In both ways he could mean that.

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  Discover More Kristen Ashley

  Dream Bites Cookbook

  Cooking with the Commandos

  Short stories by Kristen Ashley

  Recipes from Suzanne M. Johnson

  Coming November 17, 2020

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  From New York Times bestseller Kristen Ashley and USA Today bestseller Suzanne M. Johnson…

  See what’s cooking!

  You’re invited to Denver and into the kitchens of Hawk Delgado’s commandos: Daniel “Mag” Magnusson, Boone Sadler, Axl Pantera and Augustus “Auggie” Hero as they share with you some of the goodness they whip up for their women.

  Not only will you get to spend time with the commandos, the Dream Team makes an appearance with their men, and there are a number of special guest stars. It doesn’t end there, you’ll also find some bonus recipes from a surprise source who doesn’t like to be left out.

  So strap in for a trip to Denver, a few short stories, some reminiscing and a lot of great food.

  Welcome to Dream Bites, Cooking with the Commandos!

  (Half of the proceeds of this cookbook go to the Rock Chick Nation Charities)

  * * * *

  Quiet Man: A Dream Man Novella

  By Kristen Ashley

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