Page 82 of Rock Chick Bonus Tracks

Fast Forward –WayForward – Hit Play

Jimmy Marker

Jimmy’d had the bottle a long time.

A long…fucking…time.

He took it from the place it had inhabited for years at the back of the fridge, got the glasses and walked out on the deck where his wife was sitting.

She looked to the bottle, the glasses, then to her husband.

“No,” she said, not believing it.

It had been years.

But now…it was official.

He sat, put the glasses down on their patio table, and started to take the foil off the two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar bottle of champagne.

“Jorge called,” he said.

“From Phoenix?” she asked.

“Yup.”

Jimmy’s friend, and ex-colleague, Jorge Alvarez, was now in Phoenix.

In fact, Jorge moved down there fifteen years ago, and now he was Chief of Police in Phoenix.

Jimmy threw the foil on the table and went after untwisting the wire.

“Cap Jackson moved down there. He’s gonna be part of the new NI setup. Their new branch.”

His wife appeared confused. “Cap Jackson? Is he any relation to Roam and Sniff?”

“Yup.” Jimmy popped the cork and started pouring while explaining, “Seeing as heisSniff. Kid got back from the Army and he’s no kid anymore. You might try to call him Sniff if you wanted your face rearranged. They called him Cap in the military, not because of his rank. Short for Captain America. And not just because he’s strong, loyal and fearless. But because he looks like Chris Evans, and word got ’round about the scrawny bugger he used to be. The name stuck when he got back.”

His wife fought a smile as she said, “Oh boy.”

“Oh boy is right,” Jimmy agreed. “And Jorge tells me some vigilante, calling themselves the ‘Avenging Angel,’ is doin’ stupid shit in Phoenix.”

“Oh boy,” his wife repeated, her eyes lighting.

“Yup,” Jimmy said yet again, putting the bottle down, picking up both the glasses and handing one to his wife. “Jorge suspects this Avenging Angel is female.”

She was losing the fight with her smile.

Jimmy kept talking.

“And as we both know, Phoenix isn’t even in the same fucking state as Denver. So way,wayout of my jurisdiction.”

His woman lost it and started laughing.

Jimmy offered his glass for a clink. His wife reached out and clinked.

“Here’s to Jorge having a shit ton of patience. Here’s to that shit happening down there and not up here. And here’s to it finally being over.”

“And here’s to new adventures in true love,” she returned.

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