Chapter 3
***Jax's POV***
Walking out of Gracie's room, I head to the living room. "She okay?" Juice asks. "No. She's not. Sweep the house and toss out any and all alcohol and pills. I'm calling Tig." I say before pulling out my phone. He answers on the first ring. "Brother you need to come home." is all I say before ending the call. A few minutes later, Tig walks in the door. "What's wrong? Where's Gracie?" he asked worried. "She's in her room. She's not just upset anymore, man. She's pissed. I don't know what to make of it. I've never seen her like this." I tell him. "What do we do? I don't know how to help her." Tig says. "Pack her a bag. I'll take her to the cabin for a couple of days. See if I can't do something. I was the same way when Tara left man, she brought me out of it so I gotta do this for her." I tell him and he nods his head. I watch him head down the hallway and call Clay. "Hey. I'm taking Gracie up to the cabin for a few days." I tell him. "She any better?" he asked. "Nah. She's at the pissed stage now. Gotta snap her out of it." I tell him. "Yeah. Shit here's handled anyway so take a few days. Keep us posted." he says. I agree before ending the call.
***Gracie's POV***
My brother walks into my room. "Get your ass up." he tells me. I glare at him. "I said get your ass up." he tells me again a little more forcefully. "No." I throw back at him. He's going through my things and throwing them into a bag. "What are you doing?" I asked. "You're going on a trip." he tells me. "No. I'm not." I tell him defiantly. Next thing I see is Tig leaving the room with my bag and Jax walking in. He picks me up over his shoulder and carries me to my car. "What the fuck?" I yell. "Put me down you stupid fuck!" I yell. He smacks my ass before putting me in the passenger seat of my car. Closing the door, he walks to the driver side and gets in. Pulling out of the driveway, he doesn't say a word and neither do I.
After about a half hour, I ask "Where are we going?" He smirks at me and says "You'll see." before turning his eyes back to the road. I don't say another word until I see a very familiar cabin. "Why are we here?" I asked. "We're going to spend a little time together." he tells me and I roll my eyes. "I thought I said I didn't want any of you around me?" I asked. "You did but you know I don't listen." he says before smirking at me. I just get out of the car and he grabs my bag out of the back seat. "Well, I'm here. Now what?" I asked. We walk into the cabin and I get the whiff of all of the old smells I loved when we were teenagers. Weed, alcohol and pine. I start to tear up thinking about all of the weekends we would come up here. Just me, him and Opie. That was before Donna and Tara came along. Then I was more or less forgotten. They would come up here for the weekends and I would be left at home. Jax walks over to me and pulls me to him and I let him. Finally letting someone touch me after almost a week. He holds me close and I can smell his scent. Grease, leather and cigarettes. I love that scent. I pull away. "Sorry." I say before trying to walk away. He grabs my hand and pulls me back to look at him. "Don't be. I'm here for you." he tells me.
After pulling away from him again, he heads to the kitchen and starts pulling out food. "What are you doing?" I ask. "Cooking." he tells me. "Yeah. Because the last time you did that it turned out so well." I tell him, referring to the time he tried to make hamburgers on the stove and almost burned his house down. I walk over and take the skillet from him and he gets the pork chops out of the fridge. I fry them up and he cuts the potatoes for mashed potatoes. It almost feels normal for us but I can't let myself go there. He's just trying to get me out of my funk.
After dinner is done and we eat, he helps me clean up the kitchen. We still have barely spoken. We walk into the living room and he puts on a movie. Sitting on one end of the small couch, he's on the other, we are watching Road House. One of our favorites. Halfway through the movie, I see him looking at me out of the corner of my eye. "What?" I asked. "You always chew your lip when watching a movie." he says. "What?" I asked confused. "Your lip. You always chew on it when you watch a movie." he says. "Okay. So?" I asked. "It's cute." he tells me. "Yeah. It's time for bed." I tell him, getting up. He stands up and grabs my hand as I pass. I look at him and he looks like something just dawned on him. I pull my hand away and head down the hall to the room I'm staying in wondering what the hell just happened.
***Jax's POV***
I stand there watching Gracie walk down the hall. Thinking to myself, how I never noticed her like this before. Sitting there with her watching the movie, seeing her chew on her lip? It's sexy. Why did I say it was cute. Puppies are cute. I've always thought that she was beautiful but something's different about her. When I grabbed her hand, I felt some kind of shock. When Tig told me she tried to kill herself, it was like the air was shoved out of my lungs. Why? Why would she do something like that? That fucking prick ex of hers needs his ass beat for treating my girl like that. My girl? Where did that come from? She's not my girl. Is she? I walk down the hall, shaking my head. Her door is cracked opened and I see her lying in the bed with her back to the door. Walking to my own room, I close the door and get into bed trying to figure out what the hell is happening here.
***Gracie's POV***
I laid in bed all night trying to figure out what happened last night. I felt a shock when he grabbed my hand. That's never happened before. Walking into the kitchen, it's morning so I decide to make some coffee and start breakfast. Jax walks in as breakfast is done and makes a plate. "Smells good." he says simply. I don't say anything. Sitting down at the table, I finally ask "What's the plan today?" He looks up at me and says "Thought we'd take a walk to the lake." I nod. After we eat and clean the kitchen, I get dressed for a hike.
We get to the lake and climb up onto the rock we used to sit on all the time. We used to come here to talk. He puts his arm around my shoulder like he used to and I leaned in like I used to. "You can't leave me." he says. "I'm sorry, Jax. I really am." I tell him. "Why didn't you tell us he was treating you like that?" he asked. "You guys have enough to deal with than my shitty relationship." I tell him. "No matter what we have going on, you tell us when something happens. You are so important to us, Gracie." he says. I just nod. "You're important to me." he says. When I don't respond, he tilts my face to look at him. "You are important to me." he says as he looks into my eyes before his lips softly touch mine.