A/N: Updated 8/21/20

Chapter 17

Eliza POV

When I got to Hap's room, I took a deep breath before walking in. When I opened the door, I looked for Lexi. She was sitting on the bed, with her knees pulled to her chest. "Lexi?" I said, quietly closing the door behind me.

She looked up at me. "You're here? You actually came?" She asked me.

I walked over to the bed and sat down. "Yeah, I'm here. I brought Jax and Opie with me too." I said.

She nodded. "What am I gonna do?" She asked me.

I let out a sigh. "Your gonna come back to Charming with us. After that? I don't know. We'll figure it out." I said and she nodded.

"I can't believe that I was so stupid that I thought that he was going to change." Lexi said.

I put my hand on her shoulder. "Lexi, you're not stupid. You were in love. Love makes you do things that you normally wouldn't do." I said. I had definitely been there. More so lately. I just hadn't told anybody. The bag that I had previously had in my hand was now sitting beside me on the bed. "Now, change into those clothes and come out and meet Opie." I said.

She nodded. "Okay." I stood up from the bed and headed to walk out of the room. "E?" She said causing me to turn around. "Thanks for coming."

"Anytime." I said.

I walked out of the room, shutting the door back behind me and made my way back out to the barroom. When I got to the bar, the croweater, I think her name was Amy handed me a beer. "Thanks, Amy, right?" I said.

"Yeah, you remembered." She said.

I smiled at her. "Yeah, I'm usually pretty good with names and faces. You got an old man yet?" I asked her, leaning against the bar.

"Yeah, finally. He's gone at the moment. Headed to your neck of the woods." She said. Then it hit me.

"You and Kozik?" I asked, trying not to feel pissed off.

She nodded. "Yeah. Been about 6 months now." She said and I nodded.

"Wow. Congrats. You make sure that my guys get beers?" I asked her. Kozik may have made her an old lady but to me she was still a croweater.

"Sure thing. You want anything else?" She asked.

"Glass of whiskey." I said. She nodded.

Forty-five minutes later, Lexi walked out and I was on my third glass of whiskey. She looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "You wanna talk about it?" She asked me.

I downed the rest of the whiskey in my glass and shook my head. "Nope." I said, picking up my beer and chugging the rest of it. Amy handed me and Lexi each a beer. "Come on." I said. She followed me and we walked over to where Jax and Opie were standing. "Jax, you remember Lexi, right?" I asked and he nodded.

"Glad to see you're okay." He said, giving her his trademark smile.

"Thanks, for coming." Lexi said.

Ope wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his side. "Lexi, this is Ope. Ope, this is Lexi." I said.

"It's nice to meet you." Lexi said.

"Thanks. You too." Ope said.

"You guys about ready? We should get back on the road. I wanna get home." I said.

Jax nodded, knowing that I was hiding something. "Yeah. I can drive if you want." He said and I nodded.

"Yeah sure." I said, pulling my keys out of my back pocket.

We said our goodbyes. I noticed that Hap handed Jax a piece of paper as we were walking out the door. I wasn't in any condition to ask questions at the moment, but I would. When we walked out to my car, I climbed into my backseat along with Ope. Jax and Lexi were up front. I think that I was passed out before we were even out of the parking lot.

Opie POV

Before we had even pulled out of the parking lot of SAMTAC, Eliza was passed out. There was something going on with her. I mean I knew that she had been worried about Lexi, but this was something else. "Did anybody notice that Eliza seemed to be acting strange right before we left?" I asked.

Jax nodded. "Yeah, I haven't seen her like that in a while. It was almost like she was drunk and trying to hide it." Jax said.

"When I came out of the room from changing, she was drinking whiskey." Lexi said. "But I don't know how many glasses she'd had."

"How long from the time she left the room till you found her?" I asked.

"Maybe forty-five minutes." Lexi said.

"So, she probably had a couple." Jax said.

Jax and I both knew how many glasses it took for Eliza to get like she had been before we left. The best thing that she could do at this point was sleep it off.

Jax POV

"So not to sound ungrateful or anything, but I don't have any money or anything so where am I gonna stay when we get to Charming?" Lexi asked.

"You can stay with us. You can take my room and I'll sleep on the couch." I said. I looked in the rear-view mirror and noticed that Ope had passed out with Eliza.

"Oh. I wouldn't want to take your room. You need your rest and space. Eliza mentioned that you have a son in the hospital." She said.

"Yeah he was born premature. He comes home tomorrow." I said.

"That's incredible. I bet your excited." Lexi said.

"I'm terrified." I admitted. And it was the truth. I had no idea how I was going to take care of Abel.

"I'm sure that it'll be fine." Lexi said.

She really was a sweet girl. The rest of the ride back to Charming, was silent. It was late when we got back to the Clubhouse. Eliza was still passed out. Ope and I hopped out of the car and onto our bikes, Lexi said that she would drive the car and follow us to the house.

Eliza POV

When I woke up, I realized that we were in the driveway. "Ugh. What happened?" I said.

"You passed out as soon as we got in the car." Lexi said.

"Great. Jax and Opie ask questions?" She nodded as I sat up.

"Yeah. They know that you were drinking whiskey, E."

Great. "Great. This should be fun." I said, climbing out of the car and making my way inside the house. When I walked inside, I made my way into the kitchen grabbing a soda from the fridge. When I turned around, Lexi, Jax, and Ope were staring at me. "What?" I asked.

"What was that tonight?" Jax asked me.

"Nothing. A croweater got under my skin that's all." I said.

Jax looked at me as if he were unsure about my answer. "I'm going to bed." Jax said turning to Lexi. "There's a daybed in the nursery if you'd rather sleep there." She nodded.

Jax walked down the hall and went into his bedroom shutting the door behind him. I walked over to Lexi. "We'll talk more in the morning." I said, hugging her.

I made my way down the hall and into mine and Ope's bedroom. I grabbed a t-shirt from the dresser and put it on before sitting on the bed. When Ope walked in he shut the door behind him, stripping down to his boxers and joining me on the bed. "Now, you wanna tell me what really happened?" He asked me.

I knew that telling him was probably going to cause an argument, but I also knew that not telling him would be bad. I mean, he already knew that I had been drinking whiskey. So, either way there was probably going to be an argument. "I had three glasses of whiskey." I said.

"Okay, why?" He asked.

"I think part of it was to calm my nerves about Lexi."

"And the other part?"

Here goes nothing. "The croweater that was bartending last night?" I said and he nodded. "I recognized her. I remembered her from the parties. Anyway, we were talking, and I found out that Koz made her his old lady. When she told me the time frame, I got pissed off."

"Why?"

"Because he was sleeping with me and her at the same time." I said. Ope rubbed hand over his face. "I don't still have feelings for him, please believe that."

"I know. I just hate the fact that he did that to you." He said, pulling me into his side. "I just wished that you had told me that something was bothering you."

I kissed his chest. "I know. It's just that it's something that I have to deal with on my own. Okay?" I said.

"Okay." It wasn't long after that, that Ope and I fell asleep.

The next morning, when I woke up, the guys were already gone. I'm sure they'd already headed to the clubhouse to fill Clay and the rest of the guys in. I climbed out of bed and got dressed. I was wearing a pair of blue jeans and one of my Teller-Morrow shirts. I put my tennis shoes on and headed out to see what Lexi was doing. She was sitting on the couch watching tv. "Morning sleepy head." She said when I walked into the living room.

"Morning. You about ready to go. I gotta get to work." I said.

"Yeah, let's go." Lexi and I walked out of the house and headed to my car. Five minutes later, I was pulling into the TM lot. I parked in my usual spot next to Ma.

When we walked into the office, Ma was sitting at the desk. "I didn't think I would see you till later." She said.

I shook my head as Lexi and I sat on the couch. "Nope. Figured you'd want to be up at the hospital with Abel." I said.

She leaned back in her chair and raised an eyebrow at me. "Everything okay?" She asked me.

"Not really but it will be. I found some shit out last night that I didn't really wanna hear." I said.

"You need to deal with it? I can keep Lexi company." She said.

I nodded. "You don't mind?"

"Nope not at all. Go." She said.

I stood up from the couch and made my way outside, pulling my cigarettes and my lighter from my back pocket, lighting one as I walked across the parking lot. When I got to the clubhouse door, I noticed a bunch of the guys including Kozik standing by the ring watching Tig and Half-Sack box. I walked over to Kozik blowing out a puff of smoke. "Hey." I said approaching him.

He turned and looked at me. "Hey. Clay said you went to get a friend last night."

"Yeah. Can we talk?" I asked and he nodded. We walked to the end of the row of bikes, almost to the office. "I met your old lady last night." I said.

"Izzy, I can explain." He said.

"Explain what?" I said taking another hit of my cigarette. I blew out the puff of smoke. "The fact that you were cheating on me. That what you want to explain." I said.

He stuffed his hands into his pockets. "It just sort of happened." Kozik said.

"Right, just like it sort of happened that I got pissed off last night and had to explain to Ope why I drank three glasses of whiskey over some dumb croweater." I said, finishing my cigarette and flicking it.

Kozik got in my face. "Hey! She's not a dumb croweater." Kozik said.

"Right. You're just the idiot that I slept with after you lied to me about Ope." I said. I was furious. I had been seeing red ever since my conversation with Amy.

"That's rich."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"Take it how you want. I was ready to build a future with you. A life. I was ready to give you my crow. But you know what, I realized that that was never going to happen. You were dead set that you were gonna end up as Ope's old lady. Nothing was changing your mind from that. So, I did the only thing that I knew, I pushed you away by sleeping with a croweater."

I'd had enough. I slapped him. "YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE! YOU KNOW THAT!" I yelled causing the guys over by the ring to walk toward us. "At least I knew what I wanted. I never pretended. I was always honest. I never lied to you. I was honest with you from the beginning about who I was in love with." I continued to yell, even when I realized that somebody was pulling me away from him. "The least you could have done was be honest with me."

Jax POV

That morning after I'd been to the clubhouse, to give Clay the information that I had about Carlos… I made my way over to St. Thomas so that I could talk to Tara. When I got to the nurses station, I asked them where I could find Tara. They told me that she was in surgery but that they would page her and I could wait. I walked over to the waiting area and sat down. I needed to get some answers about this Kohn guy in Chicago. A few minutes later, Tara walked towards me. "Jax." She said.

"Tara. I need to know what you know about Josh Kohn and his brother Carlos." I said.

"I - Jax I can't." Tara said.

I stood up from my chair. "Answer me this then… Did you come back because you hoped that I would protect you from him." I said.

"Not completely." Tara said.

I ran my hand over my face I couldn't believe it. "Tara, Josh's brother has been hitting a friend of Eliza's. I need information." I said.

Tara let out a sigh, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Josh and Carlos come from a military family. Their dad was very strict. Hard core discipline. I don't know much about Carlos, but what I do know is that if Carlos is in trouble or if he's running, that he probably reached out to Josh." Tara said.

I nodded. "Thanks Tara." I said, walking away.