The sane thing for me to do would have been to run in the opposite direction and flee for my life the second that I saw his bright blue eyes and bad boy smile. But I'd never been considered completely sane. So I stayed. I fell. I loved. And I broke.
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Chapter Twelve:
It had been thirty-six days since I'd broken up with Jax after he'd slept with Tara.
Thirty-six days of him constantly blowing up my phone with text messages and phonecalls, begging for me to speak to him. Some days it was a soft question, other times the calls came at the early hours of the morning when his words were slurred, once he'd even started sobbing, which broke my heart, but I still didn't return the call.
I'd avoided the clubhouse and I missed the party atmosphere terribly, as well as all of his brothers that I'd grown to know and love. My only silver lining in the very dark clouds I'd found around me were that I still saw Happy every few days when he'd come by my house, and Gemma brought Abel over to see Larry regularly.
The little boy didn't understand why I'd been living with them one day and simply gone the next, but I didn't have the heart to explain that his dad was a lying, cheating asshole who'd broken my heart, so I'd just hugged him and told him that he was still more than welcome to come over whenever he'd like.
Work had been hell the whole month; I hadn't been sleeping well because I'd gotten used to having Jax's arms around me and the smell of him in the bedsheets I'd lay in, so I had been spending nights on the couch with a sad Larry who, like Abel, didn't understand why he wasn't squished into a single bed, hugging his best friend.
"The fucking coffee machine died." Maggie looked like she was about to start sobbing when she came out from the back room. "And my client is going to be here in ten minutes, so I don't have time to go and get any."
I understood the look of defeat on her face, Maggie shared my opinion that a copious amount of coffee was the most important meal of the day, and neither of us could get through a shift without at least three cups.
"Lewis isn't in for another hour, I'll go." I got to my feet. "Hold down the fort for me?"
She grinned and nodded enthusiastically. "Have I ever told you that your my guardian angel?"
"Have I ever told you that you're full of bullshit?" I tapped her shoulder on the way past and called out that I'd be ten, maybe twenty minutes.
I didn't bother to drive because the diner was only a street away, and I enjoyed the sunshine that was beating down on the warm pavement. For the first time in over a month, I could appreciate the bright day, and it all had to do with the fact that Juice - a member of the Sons - had booked in to see me later that afternoon.
"Hey, Ellie!" Maxine, the regular on the counter at our local diner grinned at me when I got to the front to place my order.
We made polite conversation until the barista had finished making our coffees, I paid, and spun around to make my way back to the shop.
And there he stood, in all of his glory.
Jax looked tired, with black bags underneath his eyes and the lines by the corner of his mouth had deepened. But his eyes were wide and he was staring at me like he'd seen a ghost. "El."
It was the first time that I'd seen him since we'd broken up, and I felt my eyes dart around the room in panic.
"El, just-"
"Jax, over here!"
His whole body went rigid at the female voice calling his name, and I looked in the direction that it had come from, where a pretty brunette was waving and trying to get his attention.
"Fuck, El, it's not what it looks like." He took a step towards me and I shook my head.
I looked back at him. "Is that Tara?"
"Yes, but-"
I shook my head and pushed past him. "Glad to see that you didn't break my heart for nothin'."
Maggie noticed my change in mood as soon as I handed her the coffee, but she didn't comment on it. I think she knew that if I spoke about what had happened I would have broken down. I managed to get through my clients, but the happy atmosphere had disappeared, and not even Juice's smiling face could cheer me up.
I was on the way home when I noticed a for sale sign on the side of the road and looked at the house with a sad smile. It had been the one that Jax and I were going to look at before everything had turned to shit, and I was surprised that someone hadn't snatched it up.
Without thinking about my actions, I pulled into the driveway and cut the engine, then looked at myself in my rear view mirror. I questioned why I was torturing myself but, a gluten for punishment, I walked up the porch, past the pillars, and knocked on the door.
An older gentlemen opened it and greeted me with a large smile. "Hi!"
"Hello." I smiled weakly. "I've been lookin' at your house online, I was just wonderin' if I could take a look around?"
"Oh, of course, come on in." He stepped to the side and let me pass over the threshold like it wasn't out of the norm for a random woman to ask to see a piece of property that wasn't having an open-house. Maybe he was just too kind.
As soon as I stepped onto the solid oak hardwood floors, a detail that had sold Jax as soon as we'd read the listing, I felt my body sag. Defeat and happiness was an odd mixture to be stuck in, but when I looked around the room, all I could see was the future that I'd thought I was going to have.
"Come and take a seat." The man who'd introduced himself as James ushered me into the living area and nodded towards the couch as his wife came in and joined us. "What do you think so far?"
"It's beautiful." I looked at the staircase further on through the house and thought of how much fun Abel would have when he was old enough to slide down the railing. "I love it."
We made polite conversation before Pamela tugged on her husband's hand and gave him a pointed look. "We'll leave you alone to look around, sweetheart. Make yourself right at home."
I went in the opposite direction of where they'd gone and looked towards the modern kitchen, the only room in the whole place that didn't fit into the country-style homeliness of the rest of the house.
My imagination was a traitorous bitch, and I could practically hear Jax in there, trying to show off his culinary skills while I played my guitar in the living room. I tried to escape the familiarity of the house that I'd never been in, tried to escape my 'what could have been', but the back yard wasn't any better. I could just picture fairy lights strung up and Happy, as well as all of his brothers who I'd considered my friends, over for dinners in the warm summer air.
When it all got too much for me I thanked Pamela and James with tears in my eyes and promised that I would be in touch, and they gave me comforting smiles. Pamela pulled me into a motherly hug that reminded me of my mama back in Georgia, and I had to pull myself away from her so I didn't sob into her chest.
James called out to let me know that they did have an offer, but the sale hadn't gone through yet and I still had a little time to decide what I wanted to do.
I stared at the for sale sign as I drove away and my tears started to fall. The picket fence disappeared from view and I had to pull over to the curb because I couldn't see the road.
It hadn't mattered how much I'd prayed or had hoped for a happy ending.
