“Yes! Jagger!”
“Oh my God.”
“I know!” she screeched, and bounced up and down a few times. “He’s having a thing at the gallery place this weekend! We have to go!”
“Wait,” Heather said, grabbing the brochure and looking at it again. “What? What is a jagger?”
“Not a what,” I said, my eyes not focused on anything in the apartment.
“Definitely not a what,” Janie confirmed. “More like a who.”
“Holy shit! Mick Jagger is in Seattle?” Heather yelled.
My lips curved up in a smile, but I still wasn’t able to focus on Heather or Janie. “No, his name is Jagger Easton.”
“Who names their kid Jagger?”
I glanced at Heather and laughed softly. “His mom is kind of obsessed with the Rolling Stones. He even has a sister named Charlie after the drummer, Charlie Watts, and a little brother named after Keith Richards.”
“Okay, so who is he?”
I turned off the stove, and shrugged as my eyes darted over to Janie. “Jagger’s just . . . Jagger.”
Janie was still smiling like it was Christmas, and Heather was now giving me a weird look. “For some reason I don’t think he’s ‘just Jagger’ to you. You’re all smiley and you’re blushing.”
My face fell, and I turned to get plates when Heather turned her stare on Janie.
“And what was this you said? He’s the one with the art show, and there was a picture of Grey in the window? Now that definitely doesn’t seem like a ‘just Jagger’ kind of situation.”
“He’s my friend,” I explained without looking at them.
“Who has pictures of you in an art show?” Heather asked in disbelief.
“Drawings. He does charcoal drawings, he’s really good, actually.” And he has an art show in Seattle this weekend. Does that mean he’s here? A smile slowly tugged at my lips at the same time as the pain in my chest spread.
I hadn’t talked to him since the morning he’d told me he loved me. That’d been almost a month and a half ago, and I missed him. I missed my friend. I missed everything about him. I just didn’t know how to talk to him after what had happened, after I’d run away from him.
“Is he cute?” Heather asked, and Janie snorted.
“Cute is an understatement for him. Hot, rough, rugged, tatted-up-amazing-body-take-me-home is a better description.”
Something I’d never felt when it came to Jagger moved into my stomach, overriding the pain for the moment as I listened to Janie. We’d never talked about the way Jagger looked, so I’d never heard her describe him to anyone. And the way she had . . . I didn’t know how to feel about someone else saying that.
“Well then, I am definitely going just so I can meet him,” Heather said loudly. “God, I haven’t gotten laid in months.”
“What?!” I whirled around, my eyes and mouth wide in horror. Before I could say something stupid—like lay claim to Jagger—I noted both their expressions.
Janie’s smile had turned into some beyond-happy smile that looked painful, and Heather looked like she’d just won something.
A knowing smile crossed Heather’s face. “Do you maybe want to reconsider that whole ‘just Jagger’ bit now?”
Chapter 5
Grey
July 12, 2014
MY STOMACH WAS churning as we walked down the block to where the gallery was. After going back and forth with Heather and Janie for two hours this morning, they’d somehow gotten me into a salon. For the first time in over two years, I’d gotten my nails and hair done while they had gone shopping for me.
That alone should have tipped me off that tonight was going to be too much.
I don’t think I’d been in anything other than leggings or sweats since graduation, and they wanted to make sure I looked completely opposite how I normally did.
Mission accomplished. I wanted to put my hair up in a messy bun and get into comfortable clothes already. I had more makeup on than I’d worn to graduation, four-inch-heel boots, and an outfit I’d expect someone like Janie to wear.
Well, I guess I know who picked it out.
“Stop messing with your shirt,” Janie chastised for the twentieth time tonight.
“It feels like I’m not wearing anything!” I hissed. “It’s awkward!”
I shoved my clutch at her and looked down at myself as I moved the shirt around, making sure I was covered. The tank was already low cut to the point where I was showing more cle**age than was necessary, but the material was too thin, and loose enough that any breeze made even just by walking had it feeling like the shirt had evaporated. The only saving grace of this outfit was that I was wearing jeans—unfortunately for me and my poor legs, they were constricting the life out of me.
“Who wears this stuff?” I groaned, and turned around to look at myself in the window of a store. I refused to admit I was happy with the way I looked tonight . . . I was that uncomfortable.
“Better question, who doesn’t?” Janie asked. “You used to too. You just seemed to replace your entire wardrobe with sweatpants.”
“Much more comfortable than skinny jeans.”
Heather snorted. “No one ever said you were supposed to be comfortable. Let’s go before you find somewhere you can buy something else.”
I snatched the clutch back from Janie and made a face at them before walking in the direction of the gallery again. “At least then I would be sure I’d have full use of my legs after tonight. I swear, there is no blood flow down there.”