Disclaimer: I own nothing Sons Of Anarchy related - it is all from the great mind of Mr Kurt Sutter, long may he reign! I do own my own character.
This is the first fanfic I've written in a long while - it just needed to be released!
Summary: With a new house in a new town Hayley finds herself slowly ending up getting involved with some new people in new situations. Possible pairings to come later.
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Pulling her red truck up the driveway Hayley took her second look at the place she'd now call home. It wasn't much to look at, fitting in with all the others in the neighbourhood, but she was just happy to have a place of her own with its own garden, driveway and front door. Having spent the past 10 years moving from flat to hotel room to flat again she was just grateful for the fact that there wasn't anyone living on the other side of her four walls.
Hayley had just left her last job as an accountant for a large, world-wide firm and had finally decided to settle down in one place, doing her accounting work mainly from home without having to travel around the world at the drop of a hat. At 29 she had achieved what the large majority of people her age hadn't and had saved up enough money in her well-paying job to buy her own property.
Starting to unload the trailer she took another look around the neighbourhood. It was relatively early on a Sunday morning, she had stopped at a motel overnight to ensure she'd have most of today to unpack and organise, and she noted that the house next door had a Harley parked up on the drive. Other than that the rest of the houses faded into one, only the occasional flowerbed breaking up the repetitiveness.
'Hmm, wonder what they'd think if I painted this thing lime green?' Hayley thought with a smile as she took one of the boxes into the kitchen. Whilst she liked the idea of a friendly neighbourhood with people watching out for each other, she wasn't one for being little miss suburbia and liked the idea of fitting in but not too much. Just enough to get her over-looked so she could just live her life without interruptions. Not that she had any reason to - she had just never been one for going out socialising all the time, one of the ways she had gotten so far in her job.
Finally putting the last of her boxes in the right room she quickly rummaged through a box and found the kettle with a well wrapped mug. Digging into her overnight/essentials bag she found her bag of teabags that she'd got on regular delivery from the UK as it turned out that a proper brew wasn't the same over here as it was in the UK. She'd also thought ahead enough to pocket a few of those milk tubes from the motel – ready for when she hadn't yet popped out for her grocery shop.
With cup of tea to hand she started unpacking, happy to think that she didn't need to worry about how easy or quickly everything had to be to pack up again at a moment's notice. She had decided to turn the smaller bedroom into her office and took the larger bedroom at the back as hers. It was whilst she was unpacking her books in the office that she heard the bike's engine roar and she caught sight of it as it headed off round the corner. She wasn't a bike expert by any stretch of the imagination but she knew a nice bike when she saw one and also knew which ones she liked.
It didn't take much longer before all the boxes were unpacked and her new place was ready to be lived in. She had arranged for the moving company to arrive with all her furniture the day before and had even paid extra for it all to be set up or put together and put in the right rooms so she didn't have to worry about that when she got there. It had been well worth the extra money just to avoid the stress of looking for the right screws and wondering where the heck she'd put the right sized allen key! With everything done she decided it was about time that the grocery shop should, hopefully, be open on a Sunday. Unhitching her trailer, with a fair amount of huffing and cursing, she was soon headed on her way into Charming high street.
The grocery shop seemed to be one of the only places open and Hayley gratefully pulled up outside, her shopping list already written down in her mind. The high street was a change from what she was used to seeing, there wasn't a chain coffee shop or big brand store in sight, and most of the shops looked like they were family run businesses that had seen generations pass through their doors. This is why Hayley had chosen to move here, the calm pace of life and quaint aspect of the town made her feel more relaxed and more at home than when she had lived in cities or towns with high aims to attract the 'commuter class'.
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Her grocery shopping done she was driving back home, really liking the feeling that came with that word, when she heard a roar of engines and she saw about five or six motorbikes turn out of the local garage in front of her. 'Well, I guess it's a nice enough day for a Sunday ride, but what the heck's up with those leather vests?' They were wearing leather vests with some thing on the back, but she didn't have time to make out what it was before the distance between them was too great. The rest of the drive back was fairly uneventful, her mobile only going off once 'Thank goodness for hands free' and it wasn't even work related. Her friend and old work colleague, Rob, had decided to call to make sure she was moved in safely and was hoping for an excuse to take a holiday if she needed help. After turning down that offer she found she was back at her place and there seemed to be someone heading towards her doorstep.
Stepping out the car she saw the woman turn round at the sound of the door closing. She was an older woman but well dressed and with a figure to die for.
"Hey there darlin', saw your trailer parked up and figured you'd finally moved in. Thought I'd pop round and be neighbourly." Dressed in leathers and with killer heeled boots Hayley didn't take her for the neighbourly type, but as she was new to the area who was she to judge. Anyway, she looked nice enough and she did have cookies in one hand, always a winner.
"Oh wow, thank you, that's very thoughtful. Would you like to come in? You may want to watch out for the boxes though, sorry." With that, Hayley unlocked her door and let them both in, balancing her grocery bag in one arm and hoping the flattened boxes didn't topple over.
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~GEMMA POV ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The house next to them had been up for sale for a while; the old man had to move out after his wife had died and it seemed that potential buyers after that had been put off by the obvious, noisy biker crowd that had conveniently gathered next door whenever they'd come looking. However, this girl hadn't seemed too bad and had somehow managed to get her viewing in the morning, when all the Sons had been sleeping off the night before. Before long the 'For Sale' sign had been replaced with 'Sold' and the next thing they knew a moving van had pulled up and started moving in the furniture.
It seemed that this woman had paid extra for movers who'd put all the furniture together at the end of it as well as put away the crockery and other stuff. Gemma admired her planning ahead and had been watching it all happen, wondering if the furniture could give her a clue about what this new neighbour was like. It had all seemed so 'samey' but she had noticed there was only one bed going in, a double bed, but that meant there was only likely to be a couple at the most, and no kids. Other than that the furniture told her nothing and she realised that she'd just have to wait until she turned up before she could be nosey.
It wasn't that Gemma really cared about the new neighbour, but she did want to make sure this one wasn't going to be a threat or pain in the ass to her or anyone in the club. If that meant going over and acting neighbourly then that was something she was willing to do. That was why, when she woke up this morning and saw the pick up and trailer in the drive grabbed a half empty packet of cookies out of her cupboard and emptied them into a bowl, just to give her a reason to go over later.
It hadn't been much longer after Clay had left that she'd seen the new girl come out and go to unhitch her trailer so she could drive off 'probably needs some food in there, bet she hasn't got a bite to eat'. She wasn't much to look at, if she had been a bit shorter and more 'petite' she probably would've been a lot prettier, as it was she was quite tall with an athletic build - more a swimmer's than anything else – and plain dark brown, short hair with quite pale skin. Although she turned a lovely shade of red hefting that trailer around, if one of the boys had been around Gemma would've been tempted to send them out to give her a hand. As it was she just continued to watch and then, about the time she figured she'd be back, headed out with plate of cookies in hand and 'friendly neighbour' look on her face.
As Gemma entered the house she realised she hadn't even caught the woman's name so, stepping around the boxes inside the front door, immediately went to change that;
"The name's Gemma, by the way. You've been pretty quick unpacking this morning." The place looked like she'd moved in weeks ago not this morning, heck she'd known people who still had half empty boxes from moving years ago.
"Oh right, yeah, sorry. I'm Hayley. Thanks, I think I've got it down to a fine art by now. That or I'm too organised for my own good. Would you like a coffee or something?" Moving into the kitchen she placed the paper bag on the side and put the kettle on to boil, grabbing two mugs from the cupboard.
"That'd be great thanks. Here, I brought some cookies as a housewarming." Gemma handed them over whilst looking round the inside of the house. It was relatively organised for a place that had just been moved into, there were still framed paintings and prints on the floor in a corner and a few ornaments that hadn't found their rightful place but that was to be expected.
She realised that Hayley had noticed the inspection and felt defensive, "I'm not quite sure whether I'm going to be re-painting or keeping the neutral colours so, until I decide I thought I'd keep the pictures to one side." Stirring the coffee she handed a mug to Gemma and, picking up the cookies moved into the living room.
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~~~~~~~~~~~ 3RD PERSON P.O.V ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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The two women sat at either end of the sofa eyeing each other up. Gemma in her tight jeans, leather jacket & boots and Hayley in her regular jeans, loose t-shirt and trainers, they both made an obvious contrast in looks and personality.
"So what brings little miss English to Charming, this isn't exactly an international hub of activity?" Gemma sat back, inspecting Hayley over the rim of the mug.
"Well, I passed through here about 3 years ago and loved how it wasn't some commercialised town that looked like every other one and so, now I've allowed myself to finally settle down I thought about this place and just had to move here. It's small and lovely and definitely something I could get used to." Hayley sat back, this woman definitely had an aura of control around her, like she was used to being in control and having people look up to her. It was intimidating and Hayley was glad that they were just meeting as neighbours and not having an argument.
Finishing up their coffee the two women soon went their separate way; Gemma to contemplate what she knew about her new neighbour and Hayley to unpack her groceries, thinking about what she had learnt about the neighbourhood and town.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~End Ch. 1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Just a chapter to start the ball rolling, hope you enjoyed. Feel free to read & review :)