4

Little Toy Bikers and a Woman on the Run

Chapter 165 Straw

Tara's memory was too good. She recalled every single minute and everything Jax said to her after she suggested spending one night together. He turned her down. Jax Teller had turned down sex!

She hadn't thought that was even possible. He had been with hundreds and hundreds of girls and he'd turned her down. That hadn't been humiliating enough. He pitied her. She could read it in his eyes.

If humiliation were cancer, every cell in her body would be flooded with the stuff. At least then she would die. Now, she just wanted to die of humiliation and heartbreak.

As soon as she got home she raided her father's extensive liquor collection. Having an alcoholic father had its benefits. Judging by the amount of booze he had on hand, he must have restocked before he died from the heart attack. She had the next three days off and she wasn't on call, so there was no reason she couldn't give in and have a drink or five.

She put four ice cubes, a cup of milk and a big splash of Kahlua in the blender before grinding the mixture into slushy alcohol goodness. She poured the blender's contents into a large iced tea glass and took the glass to her bedroom. She returned to the kitchen realizing she'd forgotten a straw.

She opened a cupboard and found it stuffed with hundreds of wrapped straws from every fast food place in Charming. Her father was a bit of a hoarder and he'd begun to worry about some potential ban on plastic straws. It was sad he'd died before he got to use his stash of straws. She grabbed one of the longest straws and returned to her bedroom.

She sucked down almost a quarter of her drink before she took off her clothes and put on her pajamas. She turned on the television in her bedroom, not to watch it, but to have the sound break up her thoughts. Her mind was locked in a loop remembering just how disastrously her suggestion of sex with Jax had gone.

If she'd had the slightest doubt Jax would turn her sex suggestion down, she would never have made it. He reacted like she'd thrown cold water on him. He had stepped away from her, dropping his arms from around her.

He explained very kindly like you would talk to a child that when he saw her crying, he wanted to comfort her. He claimed it was purely a reflex. The same when she kissed him and he kissed her back. That was also a reflex. He told her again that he wasn't in love with her.

She drank another quarter of her Kahlua slushy as she remembered that he told her that sleeping together was a bad idea because for him she would be just another girl in a long list. It would be purely for sex. He told her she deserved to be with a guy who treated her like she was special and loved her back.

She should have given up then. Maybe, she would have had a little of her self-respect intact. Instead, she told him she didn't care if he just wanted to use her for sex. She was OK with it. And he had still turned her down.

Could his refusal have something to do with Scarlett? Was he just being faithful to Scarlett? Could he have fallen in love with her so quickly? That seemed unlikely, but she had also thought it impossible that he would turn down sex.

She quickly downed the rest of her drink, got the bottle of Kahlua again and drank a couple of shots worth straight from the bottle before topping that off with a sleeping pill. She needed to shut her mind off and this was the easiest way to do it.

There would be more than enough time to relive her humiliation when she woke up. Maybe things would look different then—better.

Probably not.

What's Ahead

I want to share a little about some upcoming chapters and all the fun reading I'm planning for you to enjoy.

The next arc of this story will feature Fun Town. This is a spoiler. There will be no child rape. I know I shouldn't reveal this to build tension and drama, but I don't want to write about child rape. To do it properly, it would cause the story to move down a dark and tragic path I don't want this story to take.

The mystery is how it gets stopped and how that plays out in upcoming chapters.

Into the Future

As Jax and Scarlett draw closer, she makes a jaw dropping confession to him. Jax ponders a big relationship decision.

Before Tara figures out what she's going to do about Jax, she'll meet a new guy, but is he too good to be true? Tara's life takes a potentially deadly turn when everyone's favorite crazy ATF agent Joshy Kohn appears.

Clay meets Scarlett and finds her oddly familiar. Scarlett worries that there is a resemblance between Jax and Clay and fears Jax could be her half-brother.

The MC will struggle with threats from the Mayans and the Nords and run guns with the Irish. Jax steps up with a new plan for the gun warehouse.

Bucky Jeffers survives, but his journey to Charming may prove fatal.