HOUSE OF CARDS
Chapter Eight
Ava stared at her reflection in the mirror and blew out a shaky breath. She fiddled nervously with her makeup bag and tugged at her skirt a little. It was going to ride up no matter what she did but there was a dress code she needed to be mindful of and her uncle had been very clear about what her role was in the night's events. All she was supposed to do was stay on Eric's arm, look pretty, and be quiet…that wouldn't be so hard, right? It would've been just like another night except for the fact that they were going to Samcro's clubhouse.
This was a first for the Nords and it was painfully obvious from the thick agitation radiating from everyone in her uncle's house. The second her 'driver' brought her over, she'd holed herself up in the bathroom, hoping to stall any contact with Eric for as long as possible. She had a sinking feeling that the night's setting was going to make him even more aggressive than usual. He had a real, genuine audience now and she knew him well enough to know he wouldn't hesitate to put on a show of masculinity in front of Samcro. For some reason, she couldn't stomach the idea of Jax seeing that—Eric with his hands all over her—hell, she didn't want anyone in Samcro to see that. The last thing she wanted to do was give Jax the impression that she and Eric were sleeping together and she had no idea why that bothered her so much.
This wasn't going to be the same as when they were at a party at her uncle's house…she had never been to the clubhouse before and had no idea where she could go to hide. She certainly couldn't lock herself in Jax's room, as appealing as that sounded. Barricading herself in the bathroom would only take her so far as well…her uncle was expecting her to represent the Nords' women, to look and be classier than Samcro's women, and to overall be on her best behavior. Besides, hiding out in the bathroom would mean she'd have to come face to face with every croweater in the clubhouse at some point and that didn't sound like a very good idea either.
In an effort to kill more time, she carefully applied another layer of black mascara and fleetingly wondered if she was wearing too much makeup. She knew she needed to layer it on a little bit to fit in with the crowd tonight but she wanted to avoid the hooker look at all costs—no need to repeat that happy little memory.
A loud pounding on the door startled her and she nearly dropped the tube in her hand.
"Ava? You still in there?" Eric's voice rang out from behind the door. "Open up!"
She stared back at her reflection in shock. For a moment, she was completely frozen and her brain couldn't keep up with the warning bells going off in her head. She glanced warily over to the window…there was no way that was going to work tonight. What the hell was she going to do? He was just going to keep pounding on the door until she finally opened it and when she did…her mind wouldn't let her go there just yet. She had no options, no Plan B, nothing. She was screwed.
After slowly sliding the mascara back into her makeup bag, she bit her lip and winced as she hesitantly opened the bathroom door. A split second later, Eric's hand clamped around doorframe and gripped the doorknob with the other as he pivoted into the bathroom. She stumbled backwards in shock, her heel almost catching on the edge of the bathroom rug, and she kept moving until her back hit her one-time savior—the window. There was no where to go. No where to hide.
Eric leaned back against the door for a few long moments, his black eyes snaking up and down her body like a predator assessing its prey. He was dressed in his typical uniform—white wife beater and dirty, low-slung jeans, his swastika tattoos on full, horrible display. He ran a hand over his shaved head and then started cracking his knuckles in front of him as he stalked closer to her. In her Jax-induced haze, she'd forgotten just how frightening Eric could be; her close-call only over a week ago had been almost completely wiped from her memory thanks to her late-night meetings and obsessing over Jax. But now that Eric was sliding up next to her and her back was against the wall, she felt nothing but the cold hand of fear gripping her body.
"We should probably get going, right?" She started shakily. "I'm sure everyone is waiting for me downstairs-"
"Nah," Eric cut in with a wave of a hand, his skull ring glinted menacingly underneath the glare of the bathroom lights. "We've got some time. I just wanted to come up here and see if you needed any help."
She swallowed tightly and abruptly shook her head. "Thanks but I'm fine. I'm all ready, actually…"
His eyes darkened dangerously at her words and she felt her chest heaving in more rapidly as her anxiety mounted. He was still inching closer to her and she could already smell the alcohol on his breath.
"You know, Ava," he started hotly. "I'm gettin' real sick and fuckin' tired of this little game you're playin' here."
"What game?" She quickly shook her head. At this point, the effort at stalling him was going to be futile but she still had to try.
"You runnin' around here in these heels and your short skirts, driving me crazy?" He gripped her hip as he spoke and held her firmly against him, despite her best efforts to struggle out of his grasp.
"Eric…you're hurting me." She gasped out but he just tightened his grip on her wrist and her hip.
"You've been hurting me every day, baby," he murmured into her hair, making her wince. "I think it's only fair."
With that, he thrust a hand up her skirt and fisted a hold of her underwear. She cried out in alarm but even if he registered her tone as something else, he chose to ignore it and smiled down at her, pulling her even closer until her entire body was flush against him.
"That's right, baby," he groaned as his finger flicked against the skin inside her underwear. She was able to let out one, blood-curdling scream before he clamped his other hand over her mouth.
"Now, that's not how we play this game," he told her sternly. When his finger moved upwards, her eyes widened and her fists were immediately thumping wildly into his chest as she struggled to free herself from his iron grip. He grinned down—was he fucking enjoying this?—and just clamped his arms down around her shoulders. She dug her three-inch heel deep into his foot and when he stumbled back, the back of his hand whipped around and connected with her cheek, his spiky skull ring ripping across her skin.
"Fucking bitch!" He screamed into her face. "I'm fucking sick of this shit!"
At this point, she was in such a daze that she barely heard him. The burning across her face distracted her from anything that was happening on the opposite side of the bathroom and when she gingerly brought her shaking hand down from her cheek, her eyes widened when she realized it was covered in blood.
Her eyes were stinging with tears as she sunk down onto the toilet, haphazardly pulling at the toilet paper to her right. She had just gotten the gash on her cheek covered when someone pounded heavily on the door. She looked up and realized that Eric hadn't moved, that he was still glaring at her with dark, shark-like eyes. A moment later, he turned on his heel and threw open the door.
"What's the hold-up here?" Her uncle's voice echoed through the bathroom.
Of course, it didn't matter to him that Eric had been essentially molesting his niece in his own house. Not like she had expected as much…she squeezed her eyes shut as the memories of another night very much like this washed over her. A tear slipped down her cheek and then she couldn't stop the flood that followed. If her uncle had waited a few more minutes, Eric would've had her skirt up around her waist and would've been raping her. Just that thought alone sent another wave of tears down her already drenched cheeks.
Her uncle pushed past Eric and his eyes immediately flew to the gash in her cheek. A split second later, he abruptly shoved Eric past the doorframe and into the hallway.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Miles?" He spat venomously. "We have to be at the clubhouse in five fuckin' minutes and you're gonna make her show up lookin' like that? What were you thinking? You couldn't have waited until we got back for that shit?"
"I'm sorry, boss," Eric stuttered nervously as her uncle pushed him further down the hallway. "I…I wasn't thinking…"
"You're gonna make me look like a fuckin' idiot!" Her uncle raged into Eric's face and then he abruptly turned back to her still trembling form in the bathroom. "Get yourself cleaned up and be ready to go in five minutes."
Five minutes? What did he expect her to do in five minutes? Somehow, she stood on weak legs and took in her reflection. Blood had dripped down to her jaw line, her eyes were rimmed with black smudges, and her hair was sticking up all over her head like she'd just rolled out of bed. She was going to need more than five minutes to make herself look even remotely presentable. The skin around the gash had already turned a light shade of purple and she hurriedly pressed some more toilet paper into her cheek—there was no way she could possibly cover it up if she didn't stop the bleeding first.
Once the bleeding was somewhat under control, she scrubbed her face with cold water, hoping that would help. It didn't. One look back at the mirror and her eyes were beginning to water again. A sob escaped her throat when she thought of having to walk into the clubhouse like this—of Jax seeing her like this. Her trembling fingers washed away the last remnants of blood on her cheeks just as another tear slipped from her eye. Exhaling a deep breath, she knew she needed to get a grip. In about four minutes, Uncle Ernie was going to be pounding on the door again and she was going to be dragged along whether she was ready or not.
She just couldn't stop crying. She wiped furiously at her eyes and then tore her hands through her tangled hair in an effort to tame it back into place. Digging into her makeup bag, her fingers closed over some powder and her mascara tube. The skin around the cut was turning an even deeper shade of purple and even the lightest dabbing of powder stung like hell. There wasn't a whole lot she could do there so she turned her attention to her eyes, still red and smudged and wiped away as much black as possible before swiping on a quick layer of mascara—if she couldn't get herself to stop crying, it wouldn't do much good anyways. She rummaged through the drawers in search of some kind of bandage to put over her cut but couldn't find anything. A shaking hand ran through her still-tangled hair when she realized that this was really happening…she was really going to have to show up at the clubhouse like this. Jax was going to see her…everyone was going to see her…
A loud pounding on the door jumped her out of her thoughts and then the door was swinging open. Her uncle peered at her with blood-shot eyes and frowned at her still-disheveled appearance. He stepped around her and dug through the bottom drawer by the sink and pulled out two band-aids, unceremoniously thrusting them at her as he stood back to his feet.
Impatiently tapping on the counter, he watched her gingerly put both bandages over the cut and she winced at even the lightest contact. It wasn't pretty but at least it was covered up. Still—there was no hiding what was underneath those bandages or the fact that she still couldn't keep the tears at bay.
"Good enough," her uncle barked out gruffly. "Let's go."
She was in a daze the entire car ride to the clubhouse as tears continued to slip past her defenses and down her cheeks. Each one that hit the sensitive skin on her right cheek stung more than the last and she had no idea how she was going to survive the night without breaking down. She wondered fleetingly if the one positive of this whole mess was that she'd be allowed to take frequent bathroom breaks to check on her cut and keep up appearances, what little was left. When the car pulled into TM's parking lot, her chest started to tighten and she almost felt like she was going to throw up.
The car door opened next to her and someone grabbed her arm to pull her out of her seat. She vaguely registered the cop car that drove past and stumbled out into the gravel towards the clubhouse's main entrance.
"Let's go now," her uncle's voice was in her ear. "Pull your shit together…do not embarrass me tonight. I mean it, Ava."
She nodded and desperately tried to hide her cheek with her hair. There wasn't much she could do now as her uncle pulled her over to Eric. He just draped an arm around her shoulder and grinned down at her like nothing had ever happened. Another hot tear slipped down her cheek as Eric gripped her hip to steer her towards the main entrance. The sounds coming from inside the clubhouse signaled that the party, so to speak, had already started without them and she swallowed tightly as she crossed the threshold.
Her senses were immediately assaulted by smoke, mold, stale beer, and loud music. On any other night, it wouldn't have mattered—it would have been just like any normal night at Lucky's. Same music, same musty smell, same clientele. Except this time, her circumstances were very different and she subconsciously situated her hair over her eye a little more to make sure the bandage was hidden as much as possible. The deeper Eric pulled her inside, the more she felt like she was going to hyperventilate. Maybe Jax wouldn't notice—maybe if she kept her distance and kept her hair in place all night, he would never notice the bandage or her tear-stained face.
She bit her lip as the crowded tables came into clearer view and couldn't stop herself from nervously scanning each one. When she didn't see him right away, she pushed out a soft sigh. She still had a little time to make herself scarce, maybe duck into the ladies' room to put another layer of powder on but her thoughts came to an abrupt halt when Jax's stiff, seated form came right into her line of vision. He was bringing a cigarette to his lips when his eyes found her and then his hand froze in mid-air for only a moment, but it was long enough to know that he'd seen everything she had tried so desperately to hide from him.
When his lips closed around the cigarette, his blue eyes had glazed over with burning rage. She swallowed nervously as his gaze flicked over to Eric, who was taking a seat directly across from him at the table. Jax noticeably stiffened in his chair and his hands curled into tight fists at the edge of the table. Not needing to be further subjected to this torture, she eased away from the table and stepped cautiously to the bar. At this point, it felt like everyone in the room was staring at her. It was like she had a gigantic sign plastered on the top of her head: everyone stop what you're doing and pity me! Even the man she recognized as Clay Morrow had looked at her with remorseful eyes before clamping his teeth around his cigar and dealing out another hand.
She leaned up against the edge of the bar and winced when Opie discreetly stood next to her. He gestured to the guy with the tattooed head behind the bar—she still didn't know his actual name—and he slid a beer to her with wide eyes. She didn't hesitate to take a long pull from the beer, realizing that she was going to need something stronger than a beer to take the edge off.
"You okay, Ava?" Opie leaned over to her, his forehead etched with worry.
She swallowed again and nodded a little too quickly to be all that convincing. "I'm fine. Just having a rough night…no big deal."
"Yeah, I can tell."
Her eyes widened at his words and she nervously looked around the clubhouse. Everyone was preoccupied by the game going on at the center table and no one really seemed to paying much attention to what was happening at the bar. Except for of course, the fact that Jax's hard, ice-blue eyes kept flicking over to them every few moments.
Opie was leaning in a little closer to her now. "Bathroom's down the hall if you need it—last door on the left."
"Thanks; I appreciate it."
He nodded to her as she stepped away from the bar and headed towards the hallway. A quick glance at the center table told her that her uncle and Eric were too preoccupied with the current game to notice her absence. Jax's face, set in a firm, grim line, was turned completely towards Eric in front of him and Ava wasn't sure if this was a good or bad thing. Either way, this was going to buy her some time to retreat to the bathroom for a little while, even if she did have to come face to face with a croweater or two.
The clubhouse's ladies' room wasn't much—just a couple of stalls, cracked tile flooring, and a rusty mirror. But it was surprisingly clean and at first glance, seemed empty which was good enough for her. Her reflection was painful to take in and she quickly dug her powder compact out of her purse, dapping lightly next to the bandage that was already soaked with her blood. Hot tears stung her eyes…god, she looked like complete shit. How could she have ever thought she could've covered all this up? She didn't even want to think about what that had looked like…when she'd walked into the clubhouse looking like this. And here she was, always holed out in a bathroom.
The door swung open and she looked up into the mirror to see Wendy's smug face peering back at her. Ava closed her eyes, willing herself to stay calm, and she quickly wiped a stray tear away with the back of her hand.
"That's gonna be a nasty bruise, you know," Wendy started snidely as she stepped up next to her by the sink. She ran a manicured finger along the edge of her black-rimmed eyes and then set to fluffing her overly-bleached, streaked blonde hair.
It was funny; the more Ava watched Wendy primp herself in the mirror, the better she felt. Sure, she had certainly seen better days but at least she could say her reflection wasn't self-induced, at least not directly. Wendy, on the other hand, was not aging well. Concealer was creased into the lines around her eyes and along her mouth and it was clear that years of partying, drinking, and smoking God knows what had not been kind to her. If Ava looked like she'd just been hit by a truck, Wendy looked like the truck had dragged her ten miles down the road, hitting every bump on the way.
"So you showed up with Miles, right?" Wendy was saying now as she continued her ministrations in the mirror.
Suddenly, all the humor was sucked right out of the situation. What she wanted and needed right now was Wendy to leave her the fuck alone. She didn't have the energy to deal with this, not when she needed to save what little she had left for the brave front she needed to put on outside the bathroom walls.
"Wendy—that's your name, right?" Ava snapped; she waited a beat for Wendy to nod back, her eyes widening with surprise. "Do you think you could find someone else to have this little chat with? I'd really like some space right now if that's alright with you."
Wendy's eyes narrowed into black slits and crossed her arms her chest glaring expectancy like she was gearing up for a fight. But Ava had no interest in cat-fighting tonight—just hours before, she'd been jealous of this woman who'd been all over Jax at the Taste of Charming but now, she just wanted her to leave.
"Excuse me?" Wendy spat and took a step closer to her.
Ava didn't budge. "I asked you to leave. Please don't make me ask you twice."
"Or what? You'll get your big, bad Nazi boyfriend in here to rough me up too? You don't scare me, little girl."
Ava's eyes narrowed and her fingers tightened around the compact still in her hand. "Get out of here, Wendy. You fixed your makeup, you fixed your hair, now leave."
"You can't order me around here—this isn't your playground, sweetie. It's mine," Wendy pointed to herself as she spoke and Ava felt her blood begin to simmer over. "All those cuts out there—mine. That beer in your hand—mine. The fuckin' ground you're standing on—mine. So I'd watch yourself before you say anythin' else that's gonna piss me off."
Something inside her snapped and before she could stop herself, she was advancing on Wendy. She fisted her hands in Wendy's straw-like hair and shoved her backwards into the divider of the nearest stall. With her breath heaving in her chest and Wendy staring back at her with wide, disbelieving eyes, she just started to realize what had just happened. She was beginning to lose her mind—what was happening to her? But when Wendy dared to take a step closer to her, Ava just shoved her roughly back into the stall.
"I'm not fucking around here, Wendy," she spat into the bitch's face. "And if you ever refer to that skin-headed asshole as my boyfriend again, I'll rip those god awful bleached streaks right out of your head."
Wendy blinked back at her for a moment but when she opened her mouth to retort, she quickly clamped it shut by the simultaneous echo of a toilet flushing and then the creak of a stall-door opening. The click-click tapping of heels sounded from down the short distance between them and then Gemma Teller-Morrow came into view, a hand fisted into her hip and her eyebrows raised into her forehead.
Ava was sure her expression was mirrored in Wendy's horrified, open-mouthed visage.
"Everything alright here, ladies?" Gemma asked curiously, her head tilting to one side as she spoke.
Wendy nodded furiously and started moving towards Gemma with her arms outstretched in silent apology but was halted by Gemma's stern glare.
"Why don't you see if the boys need anything out there, Wendy." Gemma said calmly—it was worded like a question but with Gemma's regal delivery, it was clearly a simple order to a minion.
Wendy didn't hesitate to high-tail it out the door and when she was out of sight, Ava felt like she could finally breathe. But when she dared to cast a glance at Gemma, she suddenly wished she wasn't alone in this damp and very empty bathroom with her.
"So," Gemma started casually. "You met Wendy, huh?"
Ava swallowed tightly and nodded. "Yeah…"
"She's quite the peach, isn't she? Listen," Gemma waved a hand dismissively towards the door. "I wouldn't put an ounce of stock in anything that bitch says. I have to say though—you handled yourself pretty well before."
"You heard all that, right?"
"Oh yeah," Gemma nodded with small curve of her lips. "Every word. I didn't think you had that in you."
"I didn't either." Ava exhaled softly.
"Now—I think the more important question here is...are you alright?"
Gemma stepped close enough that she could get a better look at the purple-tinged skin along the edges of her bandage and then was stepping around her to rummage through a drawer next to the sink without even waiting to hear Ava's answer. She turned back to her with a few band-aids in hand and passed them over to her with a sympathetic smile.
"That really is going to be a nasty bruise, you know. I guess that was the only thing that junkie whore was right about."
Ava laughed nervously in spite of the situation and winced when she peeled away the first blood-soaked band-aid.
"I can't believe Ernie let you show up here looking like this," Gemma went on as she handed her a tube of antiseptic cream.
"Yeah, well, I've come to expect nothing less from him," Ava retorted with a mirthless chuckle and Gemma just shook her head, her eyes still carefully trained on the cut on Ava's cheek.
"I'm sorry that—"
"Don't," Gemma cut her off sharply. "No apologies. Listen, I'm not gonna pretend like I know what you're dealing with over on the north side of town but I do know that no woman deserves to become a punching bag."
She nodded slowly and pushed out a deep exhale. "Thanks."
Gemma just shrugged. "No need to thank me, Ava. Now, why don't you finish cleaning up and then we'll get a shot at the bar. You sure as hell look like you need one."
Jax had been on edge for a good hour before the Nords were due at the clubhouse. He couldn't sit still—his nerves were bouncing around and nothing successfully distracted him from what was about to go down. The problem was, of course, that he hadn't really known what was going to go down. There were just too many ways it could all go south. But nothing, absolutely nothing, had prepared him for the sight of Ava walking through the clubhouse's doors with her hair barely covering the ugly, purple slice across her cheek.
It had taken all of his willpower not to flip the table over and lunge for that fucking bastard's throat. Instead, he'd had to somehow bridle his rage and sit quietly across from that son of a bitch. There was nothing he wanted to do more than take his knife and plunge it right into Eric Miles' cold, ruthless heart. But he couldn't. He had to sit here and try to pretend like nothing was wrong. Like seeing Ava's terrified and tear-stained face didn't gut him. Like seeing her walk through the clubhouse's doors with Miles' arm around her—the same man who did that to her—meant nothing to him. The worst part of this whole fucked-up charade was having to pretend like Ava meant nothing to him. There was nothing harder.
He couldn't blow their cover now—not here, in front all his brothers and all the Nords. He wouldn't be doing Ava any favors anyways—it would just make a bad situation worse. But his fingers were still twitching against the table as Miles stared back at him, almost willing him to attack. It would be so easy too…to just slide his knife out of its sheath and slide it right into Miles' heart. He deserved nothing less than all the pain and suffering in the world for what he did to Ava.
While Jax didn't know the details of what had gone down before leaving for the clubhouse, he had a pretty good idea and knowing that this wasn't the first time Miles had gone after Ava did nothing for his sanity. All he had to do was stay calm for the next couple of hours…have a couple shots to settle himself down, win the club some money. That was it. Then, he could get over to Ava's as soon as it was safe and make sure she was alright. Hell, she wasn't alright. Not even close and just the thought of that, of that asshole putting his hands on her, made him want to smash his beer bottle into the bastard's face.
All his concentration was currently focused on the poker game at hand. Miles was seated directly across from him, one of Darby's lackeys sat to his right, Tig was to Jax's left, and Chibs sat at his right. It was a decently packed table with some skillful players and, on any other night, he would have thoroughly enjoyed personally taking all of Miles' money from him. But now, all he wanted to do was get the hell away from that table before he killed someone. With his patience and his sanity wearing thin, this game had quickly gotten old. Suddenly, he couldn't even stand to be in the room anymore.
He abruptly threw in all his chips at the next bet—not because he had an ace hand but because if he sat at this table for one more moment, he might do something he was sure Ava would pay for later. Once his chips were gone and he effectively lost the hand, he tossed his cards back onto the table and roughly pushed himself off his chair. Choosing to ignore the eyes on him as he stalked through the clubhouse, he pushed through the main doors and felt his blood pressure immediately lower as the cool air hit his face.
The next thing he needed was a cigarette and he wasted no time in lighting one up, taking a quick inhale that instantaneously eased his nerves. A patrol car passed by TM's parking lot entrance and he shook his head. Hale and his boys were probably just salivating as they waited for someone on either side to fuck up and start something. Unser had promised Samcro he'd do his best to keep Hale out of their business tonight but if shit went down and a patrol car went past, there wouldn't be much he could do about it, which Jax supposed was only fair.
With all the action happening inside the clubhouse, the parking lot itself was pretty empty—save for the rows of cars and bikes—and it was a welcome relief. What he needed right now was some quiet so he could find a way to suppress his urge to put his fist through a wall. But when he closed his eyes, an image of Ava's tear-streaked, bandaged face with her wide, frightened eyes flashed across his mind. All his control was almost completely forfeit right there—despite his best efforts to keep himself in check. Just that one image was all it took to set him off again.
He felt like a fucking coward, coming out here to basically hide from everyone. He just couldn't sit there and pretend like everything was fine. And now, that he could sit out here and think without the distractions inside the clubhouse, all he could think about was what would happen to Ava when she had to leave the safety of the clubhouse tonight. Nothing was going to happen to her here, not with him around. But when she got back in that car, all bets were off. Miles had started something tonight and Jax knew him well enough to know that he wasn't the kind of a guy to just let it go. He was going to make himself crazy just thinking about it and he already knew that sleep was a lost cause tonight.
But when the clubhouse's main door swung open and Eric Miles sauntered outside with a smug sneer on his lips, Jax just about lost any real control he had left. A quick glance around the area told him that everyone else was still preoccupied by the 'peaceful' activities occurring inside. It took all of what little self-control he had left to keep his feet firmly rooted where he stood as Miles strode up just a few feet away from him.
"Nice night out here," Miles started, his upper lip curving as he spoke.
Jax felt the airs on the back of his neck stand on end just at the sound of the motherfucker's voice. He stiffened as he considered how to play this. Part of him wanted to just turn, walk away, and lock himself in TM's office so he didn't do anything that would land both him and Ava in hot water. The other part of him was chomping at the bit to get his hands around Miles' neck. He wasn't sure which part of him was going to win out.
Instead of making a choice, he brought his cigarette back up to his lips and took a deep inhale.
"Mind if I bum a smoke?" Miles asked next to him.
Jax's knee-jerk reaction would've normally been to tell Miles to go fuck himself. But when the patrol car slid by and slowed right in front of the parking lot entrance, he thought better of it. Maybe he would get to pummel Miles after all. Kill two birds with one stone.
So he just shrugged and dug his cigarette pack out of his back pocket, holding the opened package out to Miles. Once Miles had it lit and blew out a puff of smoke, Jax just waited.
"So when do you think this little charade is gonna get old?" Miles asked as he looked up into the dark sky.
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, you know—all this pretending shit like everything's fine between us. How much longer do you think it's gonna last?"
Jax shrugged again, a slow smile spreading across his lips as he took another pull from his cigarette. "Probably not much longer."
"Yeah…here's hoping right?" Miles threw back at him. "I don't know about you but I got some better things to do tonight than fuck around here."
Jax cocked an eyebrow at him. "Oh yeah?"
Miles shot him a cocky, knowing grin. "Oh yeah. Got plans with my girl tonight and this shit here tonight is holding up my game."
Jax fought the urge to roll his eyes. "Your game? What the hell are you talkin' about, man?"
"I'm sure you remember Darby's niece, right?" Miles grinned and didn't even wait for Jax to acknowledge his question. "You know, fine tits and legs…killer ass?"
This time Miles paused for Jax's reaction.
Jax swallowed tightly and reigned in the simmering rage he needed to keep at bay for just a little bit longer. "Yeah, I remember."
"Thought you did," Miles shot back with a smug smirk. "I'm bankin' on some alone time with her as soon as we get out of here. We got a little interrupted before we had to leave for your clubhouse earlier but we'll finish what we started."
"Right—you do that to her face too before you left?"
Miles' face twitched in reaction and he quickly shook it off. "What difference does it make? The bitch had it coming."
"I'm sure she did—what, she say no too many times or somethin'?"
Miles' features darkened and he took a step closer, his arms crossed in front of his chest. "Didn't know you cared so much about her, Teller."
"Never said I did," Jax just shrugged again, the lie tasting like shit as it passed through his teeth. "But that doesn't mean I appreciate you bringing a woman into my clubhouse all banged up like that."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Miles sneered.
"It's fucking disrespectful—we don't treat our women like that and we don't condone that shit in our clubhouse." Jax threw back, feeling his blood boil over with each second that ticked by.
"Yeah, well, I'm entitled to treat my woman however the fuck I want."
"Our turf, our rules, bro." Jax sneered back. "And thank you, by the way, for proving my point."
"What's that, Teller?"
"Exactly what all you fucking Nords are—only pieces of shit like you would lay hands on a woman."
When Miles' face twisted in rage and his lip twitched, Jax knew he had him right where he wanted him. It was hard not to just take a swing at the bastard right now but he still needed to wait.
"Oh really?" Miles shot back, his dark eyes clouding over as he took an aggressive step forward until he was practically toe to toe with him.
"Really. And you know what I like knowing about guys like you, Miles?" He didn't even give the asshole a chance to respond. "Guys like you—they always get what's comin' to them…one way or another."
"Go fuck yourself, Teller."
Miles reached out and roughly pushed Jax right in the chest. He let himself stumble back a little, just enough so it looked like he wasn't going to fight back. When Miles straightened up in victory, Jax lunged forward to shove him right onto his ass. As Miles fumbled back up onto his feet, Jax just grinned back at him—knowing exactly where this was headed. In a flash, Miles' fist swung around and connected squarely with Jax's jaw. Yeah, that's right, Jax thought to himself, this is the only free shot you're going to get.
With that, Jax advanced on Miles and threw a hard, solid punch to his face. Miles stumbled back but Jax didn't even wait for him to regain his balance—he'd allowed his burning rage to take hold of him and there was no going back now. He'd held it back for long enough and now it was time to beat the shit out of this motherfucker in front of him. He grabbed a fistful of Miles' white wife beater to pull him up on his feet and lunged his head forward to collide with Miles' forehead, the sting of the impact barely even registering to him. This time, he dropped Miles right on his ass and then sent his right foot flying into Miles' stomach and then did it again. Jax pushed Miles over onto his back and allowed his fists to connect over and over again until the flashing red and blue lights he'd been counting on grew closer.
Hale shot out of the patrol car, with Unser slowly bringing up the back, and Jax didn't put up a fight when he pulled him off of Miles. He stumbled backwards, chest heaving and still brimming with anger, and cast a glance back at the clubhouse. A crowd had already begun to gather around them and he grinned smugly back at Darby's disbelieving, pale face.
"What the hell happened?" Clay called out to him as Hale pulled his arms behind his back and slapped cuffs on his wrists.
"That fucker disrespected my club. That's what happened." Jax called back before turning to Hale. "You're gonna take that asshole in too, right?"
"Don't concern yourself with him, Jax," Hale growled behind him. "I think you've done enough tonight."
Still, he wasn't completely satisfied until he saw Unser struggling to pull Miles to his feet and drag him into the back of his own patrol car. Once Unser was following them back to the precinct, Jax settled back into the stiff seats.
Jax leaned up against the cool bars of his cell as he waited for Hale to come back with the verdict. Granted, he already had a pretty good idea what it was going to be. But his verdict wasn't the one he was the most worried about. The muffled voices from the hallway continued but he couldn't quite make out what was being said. One of the voices was most certainly Clay, another was his mother's, one belonged to Hale, another to Darby and one more he couldn't quite figure out. Either way, he was sick of waiting. That's all you did when you got dragged here. You waited.
He rested his head against a bar and exhaled deeply. All he could do now was just hope that this had worked and that he hadn't just made shit worse in the process. He'd been counting on the fact that Hale wouldn't hesitate to bring both of them in for starting something. If Hale was persistent enough to patrol around the clubhouse all night waiting for something to happen, Jax figured he might as well oblige him. This was probably the one and only time he would ever be grateful for Charming PD's refusal to leave them alone.
When the metal door opened, echoing across the entire hallway, Jax looked up to see Hale striding towards him. Hale stopped first at Miles' cell, which was about three down from the one Jax was currently standing in.
"Looks like your boys are gonna leave you in here for the night. Someone'll come bail you out in the morning." Hale told Miles.
"What?" Miles yelled. "That's bullshit! Let me talk to Darby…Teller just beat the shit out of me and I'm staying in this cell? What the fuck?"
"Calm down," Hale chided sternly. "I saw the whole thing from start to finish and you threw the first punch. You're as guilty in this as Teller. It seems like Darby feels the same way too."
"What about Teller? He doesn't get to leave either, right?"
"Don't worry about him," Hale told him. "If I were you, I'd use this time tonight to think long and hard about how I'm gonna explain myself in the morning. You know…just a suggestion."
Miles was silent after that and then Hale ventured further down the hallway until he stood directly in front of Jax. He just grinned widely back at Hale, his head tilting back in clear victory. At this point, he couldn't care less what Hale had to say to him. He'd already heard everything he needed to hear. A night in jail was nothing.
"Well, same goes for you too, Jax." Hale was saying to him now with a sober expression. "Clay's leaving you here for the night."
Jax just shrugged and backed off against the bars. He turned around and jumped down onto the hard pallet in the corner to settle in. This was nothing new to him and he'd actually spent a night in this very cell before. If anything, the familiarity was a little cozy—as cozy as a jail cell could be. But as long as Miles was right here with him, then that was all he needed to get to sleep tonight.
"That's it?" Hale asked slowly like he was having trouble gauging Jax's reaction to the news. "You're not gonna fight me on this."
"Nope."
Hale stared at him for a moment before leaning in closer. "You know, Jax, I don't understand you. The last time I brought you in here—you argued and hollered about how I had nothing to hold you on until you were blue in the face. And tonight…nothing? No arguments after I just arrested you in front of your entire club and every Nord in town?"
"No arguments."
"Huh." Hale tilted his head to the side as a frowned creased into his forehead; then he shook his head and started back down the hallway. "Have a good night then, Jax."
"You too."
As Hale's footsteps faded away down the hall, Jax leaned back into the pallet and closed his eyes. He brought his arm behind his head for a pillow and exhaled deeply. He knew he'd have to deal with Clay, his mother, and the rest of his brothers in the morning but that was fine. His pretense outside the clubhouse was airtight. Miles threw the first punch—a fact he now knew could be backed by Hale—and his reasons for beating the shit out of Miles were still legit, a fact that couldn't be denied by any of his brothers. Miles had been disrespectful to Samcro by bringing Ava to the clubhouse the way he did and Jax was well within his rights to defend himself when Miles went after him. Of course, he had no intention of telling anyone he had baited Miles into punching him.
He imagined that Clay and Darby were most likely on the same page with what had happened and that they were both pissed as shit for a fight breaking out during what was supposed to be a friendly display of peace. But that was just a small price to pay. He could handle the club's anger, frustration, and disappointment in him for this one thing. Ava's safety was the only consideration he'd had tonight in every action he'd taken.
Now that he had some free time, that thought began to settle around him. He'd risked an awful lot tonight for a woman. A woman who, for all intents and purposes, he couldn't have—at least not publicly. There was probably no one in his life that would fully understand why he had to do it, why he had to protect her. The thing was, this was all he could do. This was the only way he could protect her tonight without putting her at even greater risk. And in doing so, he'd put his own reputation and goodwill with his brothers at risk.
Because this was the second time he'd had an altercation like this with Miles, he guessed a third would not be tolerated with next to any consideration for facts or reason. Yet, he had thrown all that aside to protect the one woman in Charming he couldn't publicly claim as his. Maybe that was the point—when Miles had thrown it in his face that Ava was 'his woman', he'd almost unsheathed his knife and stabbed him to death because, in Jax's mind, Ava didn't belong to anyone but him.
This was going to be a problem. He couldn't allow himself to go there—to ask himself the question. He had no right to even want to lay claim on her because he couldn't. Even if he could, he wasn't sure if Ava would even want him to. There was no way of knowing where they stood without having an awkward conversation—and he wasn't about to sit around and talk about his feelings. There was little sense in torturing himself about something that could never really be. So instead, he decided to take comfort in the fact that Ava would be safe for one more night and closed his eyes.
A/N-I know that was pretty intense but hopefully it was worth it, right? The next chapter will deal specifically with the aftermath and where Jax and Ava will need to go from here. Thanks to everyone who reviewed/favorited/alerted the last chapter. As always, let me know what you think...love it, hate it, any feedback is appreciated!