Afterwards, she would think of it as the calm before the storm.

The brief shining interlude where everything is light grey and the sky is so close you can reach up and touch it, run your fingers through the silver of it as though it were heated mercury, letting it bead on your flesh until it runs off and pools at your feet. The air is crackling and warm, your bones become lined with electricity and every touch sparks a tingling between bodies, limbs, hands, lips. And if you don't take cover, you risk losing your footing. The world is not required to shelter you. Left exposed, you become soaked until your skin becomes rain proofed. Lightning seeks you out and you raise your arms to meet it. The rivers break their banks and the winds bend the trees until their limbs grab for dirt. The storm carries you away, battering you through the deadfall. And then it's over as quickly as it started. The sun returns to shine through the clean air.

You begin searching through the wreckage. For things that remind you of the life you lived before.


They reached a silent agreement to simply not discuss it again. In their addiction for one another, their desperate need to ride the high each one so willingly provided the other, the strung-out hours to be endured when they were apart, the total dissolution into one another when they were together, the elephant in their room was reality. The monkey on their backs was the masters they served at St. Thomas and Teller-Morrow. The operating theatre and the clubhouse were the shooting galleries where they took their own private trips.

One evening, making dinner, he stopped, standing as though afraid he would come unmoored in the middle of the kitchen floor, he hung his head.

"Fil?" she asked, uncertain.

"We've been carrying on together, wot now? A month's time? Little over?"

She stayed quiet, watching him process something, reach for some small truth.

"People don't just tear their lives down and rebuild because of really really great sex."

She smiled, she knew him so well. Understood his hesitations and fears. His incredible longings. They were mirrors of one another. "People do much more for so much less."

"And arsy versy, as they say. Or vicky verky."

"Who says that?" she was laughing.


She was offered the job. She accepted, standing in Margaret's office, on the telephone, shaking so hard that Margaret rose from her chair to hold her hand while she talked. When she hung up, they hugged and she knew that it was good her surrogate mother bird was launching her, she was ready to fly. Feather a brand new nest.

She texted him and was not surprised when she did not hear back.

When she arrived home, the bike was in the driveway and a dozen roses were wrapped in paper lying on the kitchen table. She found an old vase of her mothers, filled it with water, and one at a time placed each flower, marveling at how fragrant they were. She found him in the shower and he pulled her in with him, fully clothed. She was laughing and then she was kissing him and telling herself tears looked the same as water. She closed her eyes and he kissed her face dry.

They were going to go out to dinner, to celebrate, he said. She watched him methodically pull his clothes back on, the cut thrown on the bed.

She surprised him with a dress. He smiled, crooked, boyish, approving.

He was buckling his belt. "I don't wanta wear that."

She knew, without asking, he was talking about the MC colors. She nodded. "Okay. That's okay. You want to go to Catfish Charlie's then?"

He shook his head, one hand on the vest, fingers tracing the insignia. "No. Let's go to Oakland, do it up right. No one's going to be where I want to take you."

"Alright, Filip."

He pulled her into his arms and rocked her for a long minute.


They took the Cutlass and talked about the car, the San Francisco Bay Area, Scottish highlands, haggis, Irish motorcyclists, and the original Hells Angels of the 1970's. He pulled into the parking lot of a high-end seafood restaurant on the wharf, and handed the keys to the valet. He came around and opened her door and she took his elbow and smiled up at him. She felt overwhelmed by happiness.

He asked for and was given a window table. They looked out over the lights of the slipped fishing trawlers, the City in the distance, and the bridge. An evening fog was rolling in.

"I love you," she told him.

"We love each other, darlin'."

They continued with the light banter of before. She found herself wondering, between obscure subjects, if they would ever acknowledge the earth newly shifting beneath their feet.

They lingered over dinner; he finished the turf part of her surf and turf. He was drinking beer and she was on her third glass of wine and could feel the flush of the alcohol in her system.

She leaned across the table to whisper loud. "We should go home and never come out of the bedroom."

"Tha' right? Never?"

"Never." She finished the wine in her glass. "I'll bring the roses in and we'll watch them bloom and then fade."

He was looking over her shoulder for the waiter and another glass of wine when they both heard Gemma say something, Clay answer her, and Jax laugh. She locked her gaze onto his and felt her heart dry itself of all the blood in each of its pounding chambers. It shriveled inside of her body and she thought she might retch. His face was unreadable and yet she saw everything there. The beginnings of time, the endings of all things.

The group of them walked around the corner and Jax was the first to see them, catching her eye, smiling with recognition before looking across at Chibs, his face falling slack.

She looked away from the confusion in his expression. Watched Chibs lean himself back in the chair, feel out the pose, and then decide, instead, to stand. Jax backed away from him, a dangerous step. Clay and Gemma were flanking his right side.

"What?" Jax shook his head, closed his eyes, and then looked from Chibs to her and back to Chibs. "What the hell is this?"

Gemma elbowed her way between the two men, a tight smile on her face as she looked at the two of them. "Well hello! Chibs. Oh and Tara." Her voice was a smear of sound, the twang of her fake trailer trash talk springing outwards. "Look at you two all cozy." She wrinkled her nose dramatically. "What's this? A date? Pretty expensive digs, Chibsie. You gonna get your money's worth later?" She was sneering at both of them.

"Where's your cut?" Clay asked and his voice was a whip lashing out at Chibs.

She stood and backed herself between the chair and the window. Her hands were shaking, her legs were shaking. She wanted to push past them and run through the restaurant out the door and into the dark night. Run until she reached the edge of the cement pier and fall into the cold waters of the bay.

Jax stood frozen, his eyes slits in his face. "Tara?"

She shook her head at him. She realized now that everything Chibs had tried to warn her of was true, there were no words that could ever explain this to him.

"I don't understand. What going on?" His voice was rising in volume, lowering in male pitch. "Someone had better tell me what the hell is going on!"

"Jackson," she began but Gemma cut her off.

"I'll tell you exactly what's going on, Jax. This little bitch is finally showing her true colors. She's a manipulative gash and she's using Chibs to either get back to you or," she paused, her hands on her hips staring Tara down, "or to get back at you. Which is it?"

"This has nothing to do with you," Tara said to Jax, refusing to look at Gemma.

"That's fucking hard to believe."

"Why would it be hard to believe? We haven't seen each other in a year! We're over, I'm over you."

"We just saw each other last week."

Gemma turned her head sharply to Jax. "You just saw her last week?"

"Mom," he held up a hand. Realization dawned on his face and he turned a venomous look on Chibs. "Ah, I get it. I get it now. You were asking me about Tara because you're fucking her. How long has this been going on? The whole time we were in Stockton, brother?"

"Watch yourself, Jax," Chibs growled taking a long step forward, pushing the chair hard enough to knock it over. Clay stepped in between them.

She could see the wait staff gathering in an uncomfortable group, patrons staring open-mouthed at the unfolding scene.

"You come here without your cut? That's serious shit, Chibs, and you know it." Clay was deflecting.

"Fuck the god damned cut," he said to Clay, "and fuck you, Jackie." He had turned to Jax, his voice a sharpened knife, his hand raised, pointing at him with two fingers. "You don't know half what you think you know."

Gemma gasped.

"I'm going to kill you," Jax threatened.

Chibs ground his jaw sideways. "Oi? You're gonna kill me, Jackie-boy?"

"No!" Tara said, stepping forward now. "Jax, stop. This isn't about you. None of this is about you. I'm not trying to get back with you or back at you. I don't even think about you."

"Stay out of it, Tara," he said.

Gemma had taken a small step towards Tara. "You're such a predictable crazy bitch. What are you doing, Tara? What are you doing with him? You need another bad boy to lick your cunt?"

Tara's mouth fell open. "Shut up. You just shut up, Gemma. I'm a crazy bitch? You're the queen of crazy and bitches." She turned to Jax. "And you're a pathetic little boy letting your mother talk to me like this. What is wrong with you, Jackson? Grow up!"

Gemma's arm came back and she slapped Tara full force on the side of the face. Instantly, Tara pulled her own fist back and hit the older woman in the mouth. Gemma leapt at her, knocking her sideways, over the chair, and both fell hard. Gemma straddling her, pummeling with both fists, screaming incoherently. Tara kicked upwards and Gemma went sideways, bumping the table, plates and cutlery and glasses raining down onto the carpet. She scrabbled in the breakage and grabbed a fork, stabbing at Tara with it.

The scuffle became a tangle. Clay reached down and hauled Gemma up by her arm, pushing her, shaking her loose, behind him. Her hair was torn wild, she was screaming obscenities, dropping the fork. Jax had gone down on one knee beside Tara. Chibs was down on his heels on the other side of her. She had a hand pressed to her temple and was slowly sitting up.

"Jaysus," Chibs said and reached behind him for a napkin in the mess on the floor. He pulled her hand away and pressed the cloth against the side of her face.

"What?" Tara whispered to him, her eyes closed.

"Shhh," he hushed her. "Let me see." He peeked under the napkin. "You're going to need some sewing."

Behind them, Clay and Gemma were fighting, loud and ugly. The manager had approached them and was informing them that he was going to call the police.

Tara folded herself into Chibs' arms, between his knees, as he squatted beside her. He had one hand on her shoulder and the other on the make-shift bandage, cradling her head against his chest.

Jax turned a frantic gaze on Chibs. "She's really bleeding."

"Aye, Jackie. Your mother is apeshit crazy. Why don't you just stand up now and get the fuck away from us?"

Jax pulled himself to his feet, looking down at Tara and Chibs then looking over to where Clay was peeling bills off a wad in his hand and counting them out into the manager's palm. Gemma was sitting in Chibs' up-righted chair, her hair hanging in her face, breathing hard. Jax took the three steps over to her.

"Did you stab her with a fucking fork, Mom? What is wrong with you?"

"Hey, son." Clay turned to him. "Not here." He turned back to the restaurant manager, gruff and in charge. "We're leaving."

Chibs was standing and helping Tara to her feet, urging her to keep pressure on her temple. He leaned over for the chair, and sat her down into it gently. He picked her purse up and handed it to her. She looked at him. He was taking deep breaths, eyes focused on the reflection in the window, before turning away from her.

"We're outta here, but you know this isn't over," Clay said to him through clenched teeth.

"Oh, it's over," Chibs answered.

Gemma was standing, unsteady, glaring at Tara who was challenging her in return. Tara stood and Gemma began towards her until Jax reached out. "Stop, Mom. Just fucking stop already." He turned to Chibs. "Do you remember me telling you that I was protecting her?" His voice was low and angry. "Get her home, man, or to the hospital. Take her away from here. Far away."

Chibs nodded, hooded glance slowly moving between the three of them. "Right. Come on, Tara." He put out his hand and she slipped hers into it and they left.


The next morning she woke slowly. He had insisted she take a Vicodin and wash it down with a large glass of Scotch when they finally returned home.

She reached up and felt at the bandage on her temple, remembering the stitches, the suspicious looks on the faces of the emergency room doctor and nurse at the hospital that was decidedly not St. Thomas.

She sighed, skirting the hard edges of the scene at the restaurant. She smelled roses and looked over to where the bouquet was on the bureau. Chibs must have moved them into the room after she fell into a drugged sleep. A slip of paper was leaning against the vase.

Confused, she rolled to her side. She was alone in the bed. She listened for the shower, the sound of frying eggs. The house was heavy with silence. She sat up, looking around, regretting the haze inside her brain. Slowly she climbed out of bed, not wanting to see the note. Refusing to see it, looking away. She padded down the hallway and used the bathroom, leaning into the glass to look at the bandage, wanting to peel up the edge of it and inspect the doctor's handiwork. Chibs had demanded the plastic surgeon be paged, refused to let the trauma physician touch her. They waited together in the exam room, he rubbed circles into her knuckles with his thumb but stayed mute.

She considered a shower, she felt strangely dirty. Unclean. Fouled. She turned on the hot water, the small room filling with steam. She stepped under the spray and then lowered herself to her knees and began to sob. She didn't need to read the note in his boyish scrawl to know what it said. She covered her face with both hands, the water running hot over her head, soaking the bandage, the wound stinging. Her heart swollen as though it had been cut and sewn.