the love that binds us, jax teller

"bertha and maggie"

━━━━━━ THE BLONDE BIKER WAS smoking a cigarette on her back porch when she got home late from work a few days after Abel was born.

"What's wrong?" she cut right to the chase, kneeling to give her riled up dog much needed lovings.

Jax shook his head. "Nothin'."

"I'm blonde, not stupid." she quipped, sitting in the chair next to him after tossing out a tennis ball for Macy to retrieve.

He shot her a look at the blonde comment, his own hair being bright blonde.

"You look all sad," she waved a hand in his direction.

"I'm not sad." he dismissed.

"Mopey, then." she tried.

"Not mopey, either."

"Inquisitive?"

A smile had reformed his lips from the tight frown they'd been in. "I'd quit while you're ahead."

Sloane had a smile of her own on her face, though hers was much softer. "Tell me."

"I was cleaning out the shed at ma's the other day. Found some of my dad's old shit."

"Oh yeah? Anything good?"

"A bunch of pictures. A few of his writing journals. Drawings that me and Tommy made for him when we were kids. An old harley manual."

"What's got you so torn up about it?"

Jax knew that he wouldn't be able to hide his feelings from her. She was too damn smart and could read him like a book. "That old harley manual is actually a manuscript my dad wrote."

She frowned at his revelation. "Did you read it?"

"Bits and pieces. With everything going on with the kid and the club, I haven't had time to sit down and go through it all."

"Can I ask what he wrote about?"

"His vision for the club." Jax's father had been one of the founders of the motorcycle club. There had originally been nine of them but now only Clay and Piney remained.

"You're making it sound like his vision isn't what yours is."

"It's nothing I've ever known, I can tell you that. He wanted the club to be a brotherhood and he wanted peace, not violence. It was real hippie shit. There was no talk about guns in the future, regrets that the club is the way it is. He dedicated it to me and Tommy, wishing that I grew up to have my hands free of blood at the expense of the club."

"Well," she trailed off playfully. His downcast look didn't let up. The girl finally sighed. "Is this why you've been arguing with Clay so much?"

His eyebrows were furrowed when he looked at her.

"Gemma."

The confusion cleared up as he shook his head at his meddlesome mother.

"I just feel like I need to honor my old man, that's all."