The next day Roxanne went back to work, there was no point in delaying the unavoidable any longer.
Around noon, Tig came into the garage and Roxanne was glad her workmates had already disappeared for their lunch break. What was about to happen was best kept hidden from them.
"Hey, feeling better?"
"I'm fine," she replied quietly, and his smile was replaced by a puzzled frown as she now flinched away from him and he noticed the expression in her eyes. There was no longer any desire in them, as usual, but ... fear. Yes, she really was scared of him!
"What's wrong?!"
"That about us, whatever it was," she managed to say with some effort, taking a deep breath. "This has gotta end now! I'm sorry!"
She turned to leave, and Tig just stood there thunderstruck.
"What?! But ... Roxy!" he called after her as she disappeared toward the locker room. "Wait, hey!"
He tried to follow her, but was held back by Gemma, who got in his way and grabbed him by the shoulders. She had overheard the whole situation from the office window that opened out onto the garage and reacted immediately.

"Tig, come with me!"
"The heck I will, she's breaking up with me completely out of the blue! If you could put it that way, we weren't even ..." he interrupted himself, shaking his head. "I want to know why!"
"And I'll explain it to you," Gemma said emphatically, and he stared at her as if she'd lost her mind. "Let's go to the office!"
Tig was far too shocked by Roxannes action a moment ago that he didn't even bother to ask how Gemma knew in the first place.
He didn't have to wait for long anyway, she told him everything and afterwards he was completely stunned and devastated.
"Oh, shit," was all he managed to get out in the first instant before he closed his eyes for a moment and buried his face in his hands. "Fuck! She should never have witnessed or known about that! So now what? Who else knows about this?"
"Just you and me," Gemma replied. "And let's keep it that way. Roxy won't spill the beans, so it's done for the club anyway."
"Yeah, for the club," Tig echoed bitterly. "Not for me!"

She eyed him intently. Was he really going to harm Roxanne?
"You don't wanna...," Gemma began, but he shook his head and she broke off.
"I don't wanna do her any harm, believe me!" he assured her emphatically. "I couldn't do that at all! She was just in the wrong place at the wrong times, but ... I can't leave it like that!"
"But she certainly won't want to talk to you now. Give her a break!"
"Yeah ... I guess you're right." It wouldn't be easy for him, though; patience had never been his strength.
Whatever! Maybe it was better just to go back to business as usual.

That same afternoon he disappeared with the first two crow eaters into one of the club's back rooms and the news of the break between him and Roxanne was spreading like wildfire.
In the next few days, too, he made sure that she saw him with one or the other, as if he wanted to make her either jealous or provoke her to see her reaction, but he hadn't expected how she would deal with the whole situation. She simply did not react at all. Neither did she make a fuss nor give any other sign that his escapades bothered her at all, and finally one of these women drew Roxanne aside.
"Are you really okay with this?" she asked, referring to herself as Heaven, though whether that was her real name, no one knew, and at least Roxanne doubted it. "Even I, and the other girls, think it's pretty mean what he does by now."
"I don't have and had any claim on him," she replied, calm and composed. "He's not mine, so you guys are just enjoying yourselves!"
She herself wasn't really surprised by her almost complete lack of emotional reaction but she wouldn't have thought that she was already so jaded after all. However, in that particular case, there was something positive about it.

Even though Tig seemed to be back to his old self, his club brothers, especially Chibs, started to worry and one evening he was waiting for Roxanne in front of her house until she returned from one of her trail runs. She had just had a week off and the time away was doing her some good. However, she had first avoided the route through the Indian reservation, which led past this barn, and finally deleted it from her running routes altogether. She would absolutely not run alongside there again!
"What are you doing here?" she asked rather than a welcoming greetig, partly surprised partly annoyed.
Chibs let his cigarette stub fall to the ground and stomped it out.
"I need to talk to you."
Roxanne let out a sigh before taking off her drinking belt and rummaging the house key out of a side pocket. "Is it okay if I take a shower first? You can wait on the porch, in this nice weather. There's beer in the fridge."
"Okay."

After about ten minutes, she came back, tied her still-damp hair into a high ponytail, and flopped down on the other porch chair.
"So? I'm all ears. But if this is about Tig ..."
"Of course it's about him!" Chibs interrupted her. "What got so screwed up with you guys you dumped him all of a sudden?"
"Did you also ask him?" countered Roxanne, and he nodded.
"He said it wasn't any of my business."
She gave no sign of her relief. After all, he hadn't shared the details, nor had he bad-mouthed her herself in some way!
"He's right about that. It's none of your business, or anyone's business at all."
"Roxy, he's not the same anymore," Chibs said forcefully. "Well, on the one hand he is but it's much worse. He's hurting, and he's already one who acts first and thinks or asks questions next anyway. At some point he's going to freak out, and that possibly could be anything but positive for the club!"
Yeah right, Roxanne thought bitterly. For the club!
"I don't know what went on between you two, like you both say, it's none of my business but Tig apparently doesn't have a fucking clue either. He was completely devastated when you dropped that on him just like that!"
Certainly not as devastated as I was when I saw him kill three people in cold blood. Roxanne almost uttered that phrase aloud, but pulled herself together at the last moment.

"Believe me, I had my reason," she said instead. "And even if I don't show it, I'm sorry! God knows it's not as if I don't miss him!"
That was an understatement but she couldn't and wouldn't bring that up to Chibs now.
He had noticed the entire situation anyway, and lately Roxanne and Tig had been avoiding each other almost excessively, which was absolutely not easy for either of them.
She didn't visit the clubhouse at all anymore and he usually didn't show up until the late afternoon, when he could be assured she was already gone. And if he was around at the same time, he stayed away from the garage as far as possible.
"There you go! Ain't you gonna have another word with him? Bobby's birthday bash will be on Saturday," Chibs said. "You're coming, ain't you?"
Roxanne nodded and smiled wryly. "Yes, he's made it abundantly clear to me several times he absolutely won't take a No for an answer."
"Well, then. Thanks for the beer." Chibs stood up and turned to leave. "Even though you might not want to hear it now but ... I hope it all works out, with you guys. You're doing good to him! I'll see you Saturday."

It should have been obvious to Tig from the start that any distractions were pointless.
Even if he was screwing his way through the range of offers and his tendencies, it didn't change the simple fact: He had lost Roxanne, he wanted her back!
He ignored the fact he hadn't really had her.
Hairsplitting, that's all.
However, he had no idea how to handle it. She didn't want to talk, and now she had had a complete week off during which he hadn't even seen her, and he wouldn't start thinking about running after women like a horny dog. Just the idea of it was completely absurd!
Basically, all he could do was follow Gemma's advice to give Roxy the time she needed to get back to him eventually. Just when, and if it would be at all?
She had seen what he was capable of, so on the one hand he couldn't blame her for not wanting to have anything more to do with him. But on the other hand ... that couldn't have been it. Not like that!

Roxanne was a little late and outside the clubhouse the party was already in full swing when she finally arrived and went inside. Quite a few from other chapters were also present and there was already a merry atmosphere.
She immediately spotted Bobby and shortly after found herself in his bear hug.
"Happy birthday, Elvis!" she smiled and he grinned.
"Thanks, glad you could still make it! But otherwise I woulda picked you up in person!"
Tig had noticed Roxanne almost as soon as she had walked through the door and just seeing her ... She was again wearing those skin-tight leather pants that almost drove him crazy, above them a figure-hugging long-sleeved blouse but the biggest eye-catcher was her hair. She had shaved her undercut again and dyed the outgrown hairline, but this time not black but red. If she kept it that way ... it certainly looked awesome!

As expected, she had headed straight for Bobby, and Tig moved discreetly close by, but Bobby must have noticed him.
"He's glad to see you, too, anyway," he said to Roxanne now, fully intending that she wouldn't flee again right away, either. "Right, Tig?"
Now she looked at him and instantly she felt that physical attraction agein. It wasn't as if she immediately got her panties wet when she laid eyes on him, as Donna had once so rightly put it, but ...
"Hey," she finally managed to say.
After all, now it was up to him. "Hey. Can we talk?"
"Yeah," she agreed after a moment's hesitation. "Somewhere outside."
Their exit wasn't unnoticed, and Heaven cheered to one of her 'colleagues' named Shelly. "Seems like we've been dumped again."
"Yeah, thank God," the latter agreed. "Kind of. Been a bit of a strain, hasn't it?"
Heaven nodded before downing her glass on Ex. "But apparently she can handle him."

Since the party had also moved outside, it was not so easy to find a quiet spot, after all, they were standing in front of each other behind the workshop, eyeing each other appraisingly. If things were different or all good between them, they probably would have more or less been all over each other and making out by now.
"You look great," Tig finally said, and a brief smile flitted across Roxanne's face.
"So do you. You seem to be doing well, though, don't you?"
He understood this quip perfectly. "I'm not doing well at all. Didn't any of this bother you the slightest bit?"
"No," Roxanne replied, sincerely meaning it. "You weren't and aren't my own. If you have more fun with the others than with me and feel better about yourself, so be it."
He shook his head. "Action and distraction, that's all it was. But it didn't work. Because they all have one major flaw: They're not you! You shouldn't have seen what happened in the barn, you shouldn't even know about that side of me but it cannot be changed now and I'm sorry! Can you just forget about it?"

Roxanne laughed shortly. "Seriously?! Tig, I cannot dismiss this so easily, as much as I'd like to! Even though it's been weeks now. I've always felt comfortable and safe around you. Until then! And now?"
It was basically just a rhetorical question, he answered it anyway.
"You still can. I would never and could never hurt you. Not you!"
"And I'd really like to believe you," Roxanne said softly, withstanding his insistent gaze. "But ..."
"What do you want me to do?" Tig asked straightforwardly now. "I miss you, and I want you back. At least the way it was before but if you're telling me to stay away from you now, I gotta accept it. I care about you too much for that. Anyway, I didn't think it would happen to me again like this!"
"For what to happen to you again like this?" Damn, she hadn't meant to follow-up, so don't say it. Please don't say it!
"That I'd fall in love."

Okay, he had really said it. Roxanne contorted her face a little painfully, closed her eyes momentarily, and took a deep breath.
"What am I supposed to say now? I've always been overwhelmed by confessions like that!"
"Roxy." He waited for her to look at him before he went on, and now there was neither desire nor fear in her eyes but ... he didn't get to it right away. Vulnerability. That was probably the closest thing to it.
"You cannot say there is nothing there!"
"Of course not! I care about you!" she assured. "A lot! All this must have made it obvious to you! But falling in love, with you or anyone else ..." She shook her head. "Is beyond me! I can't. Not anymore."
"Anyone can," Tig smiled. "You see it on me!"

"There's something to that, though," Roxanne admitted, sighing. "I can't give you a clear answer right now about what's going to happen to us, or what will happen to us, or whatever, and whether I'd be able to handle any of this here in the long run. I'm not saying I wanna hang you out to dry, I just don't know. How long do you give me? I guess I need a deadline."
"Ten seconds. No, seriously," he added. "I don't know. Within the next few weeks."
"Okay. Let's go back inside," she said. "But if you want to hook up with another one of those chicks now, knock yourself out. Like I said, I don't own you, I don't mind it."
"I don't feel like it right now, though," he replied, grinning. "Maybe I'm getting old."
"Yeah, right!" Roxanne laughed. "That'll be it!"

Opie potted the twosome first as they made their way to the bar and then stopped there chatting over a beer.
"Hey, check it out!" He elbowed Chibs in the side and pointed his head toward the bar.
"At least they're talking to each other again."
"Yeah." Chibs watched the couple for a moment. "At least!"
Anyone who looked more intently had to notice both Tig and Roxanne were keeping their composure about getting closer to each other. In any case, this almost frantic distance and these controlled movements did not disguise the sexual tension that was still, and more or less from the beginning, almost palpable between them.
Anyway, Roxanne wondered at some point what exactly they were actually doing right now. Or weren't doing.

Ever since she'd been here they'd only had eyes for each other, even if one or the other club member joined them for a few minutes every now and then, Roxanne had mostly gotten over that issue by now, they'd talked it out, so why the contrived holding back now?
"You know what?" She set down her beer resolutely. "I don't need to wait out the next weeks!" She pulled him close by his cut and before Tig knew what was happening to him, he had gotten himself involved in a long, passionate kiss and Opie and Chibs, who had still been curiously eyeing the two of them from time to time, dropped their jaws.
"Wow!" Opie blurted out and the Irishman grinned as the couple now disappeared into the back. The apartment should be vacant.
"Kudos! Way to go, Roxy!"
"Yeah, about time," Clay said dryly, having caught at least that last part as well and joining his two club brothers. "It was starting to seem like a soap opera!"