“I did it for the culture. Why are you acting so nervous? Who is this famous dude?”
“Okay.” I took a seat on the bed next to my smart-aleck son. “Have you heard of a singing group called Toxic Shock?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “But I don’t listen to them. Girls like them.”
“That’s true. Well, there’s this one from that group and he’s here.”
“It’s like four and five of them and I don’t know their names.”
“There are four.”
“One of them is Black.”
I smirked. “Not that one. There’s one named Jagger.”
“I know who he is. All the White girls love Jagger.”
“Okay well, I’m tired of talking so Jagger is in my bedroom. We met. We’re kicking it. If that’s a thing anymore.”
“We call it boo-ed up now Ma.”
“Okay well that man is here, in this house, but you can’t tell anyone. I mean anyone. You have to promise me. He’s not here to do exposed to TMZ. He’s chillin’.”
“No one says chillin’.”
“Aaron, promise me you will not say anything to your little friends or enemies or cousins or any damn body.”
“I swear. I’m not going to say anything. I think some dude tricked you and told you he was Jagger from Toxic Shock.”
“Boy, I ain’t no dummy. It’s the real Jagger Bowie Adkins.”
He made a face that made me question my level of intelligence. I swear this boy was too much.
“Ma, you the one that taught me not to believe everything I hear.”
I reached into my back pocket and removed my cell phone. I texted Jagger.
[Come here.]
I walked over to the door and opened it. I looked down at my cell. Jagger read it. I could hear him walking when he was getting closer to Aaron’s bedroom.
I stood in the doorway and tried not to smile as Jagger approached me with a huge grin on his face.
“Come in,” I said to Jagger. He stepped inside the bedroom with me. “Jagger this is my son, Aaron. This is Jagger.”
“Hey man.” Jagger walked deep into the room and right toward Aaron.
My son quickly stood. Jagger was in front of him. I thought they were going to shake hands but they did something else. It was some weird new dap. I didn’t know how to do the old dap. My insides shrugged.
“Nice to meet you, Aaron. Your mum talks about you all the time.”
“Hey.” I could see Aaron was taken aback. I think the accent took him by surprise. “Jagger.”
“Yea, I’m hiding out. Came in from London. Your mum said it was okay if I crash here. You cool with it?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m cool.”
“Thanks, seriously. I needed a break. Music shit gets bloody hectic.”
“No one will over find you here in Naperville.”
“Is that your PS4 Pro?”
“Yea, you play?”
“Hell yeah. Do you have Destiny 2?”
“Of course. Ma, I’ll do my homework later.”
I didn’t have a chance to say anything. Aaron darted past me and was out the door with Jagger behind him. Jagger kissed me on the cheek. Then he disappeared down the hall with my son. I heard them both stump down the stairs. I stood there in the hall for a few seconds then I walked back to my bedroom.
If only I knew I could’ve lured him here with a video game.
Chapter 23
KATRINA
I don’t know why I thought there would be an issue with introducing Jagger to Aaron. I had anxiety about it while Aaron was in school yesterday. But today there seemed to be no issues at all. This morning we all had breakfast together and Aaron went off to school like there wasn’t a boy band lead singer sitting in his kitchen. I was happy it was easy. I knew something was bothering Jagger. I didn’t pry. I learned back at Sweet Treats that he would come to me and tell me in his own time.
After Aaron was gone I needed to go out to the grocery store. I had to leave Jagger behind. Neither him or I wanted someone to recognize him. I didn’t want to prove Glynn right. His manager wanted me to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Something about it didn’t sit well with Jagger. So that meant it didn’t sit well with me. I’d never met Glynn but I just knew I wouldn’t like him. He was constantly blowing up Jagger’s phone and that was not just annoying to Jagger. I was annoyed too.
I shopped at the local Meijer with a bit of haste. Jagger would be gone soon and I wanted to spend as much time with him as possible.
When I arrived with the groceries Jagger helped bring them into the house. Since the garage was attached my nosy neighbors wouldn’t see him going back and forward. He helped me unpack but he didn’t know where anything went so he just sat at the kitchen island and watched me.
“Look at what I posted on IG?”
I turned to him and walked closer to see the cell phone he had pointed at me.
“You took that out in the back.” It was a picture of his hand touching flowers in my rose bush. His heart tattoo was visible in the picture, a dead giveaway that it was his hand.
“No one will know where it was taken. There are rose bushes all about.”
“Do your bandmates know where you are?"
“I didn’t tell them.” He twisted his lips. “Glynn maybe wagged his tongue. He’s really pissing me off. He’s being a real wanker lately.”
“What happened?” I went back to putting the groceries away. I didn’t want to act too eager to hear this story.
“There was an incident. It was pretty bad. I needed to take a break. I took this time away to come to see you.”
“Do you want to talk about the incident?”
“It’s a pretty terrible story. I few days ago, Toxic shock, we went to Capital’s Vaughn and Snowdon in the morning.”
I turned to him. He could tell I was clueless.
“It’s a Radio station in London. We went to do the top of the morning interview.
