You Are My Sunshine

Chapter 34 - Hedging Your Bets With A Heavy Hand

"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions." - Augusten Burrows

--

"Have a good day," she whispered as Jax hurried out of the house. He was late, really late, and his options were slim.

Stopping at Hanna's for donuts, Jax made his way home to find Amelia and Alice were still sleeping. "No way," he whispered in disbelief. Stripping down as he chomped on a donut, Jax jumped in the shower and vigorously washed Tara off of him. Although he couldn't wash his conscious clean his body was pristine and smelled of the soap Amelia bought for him because of how much she enjoyed the scent. Roughly toweling his hair dry he dressed and stretched out on the futon daybed in Alice's room and quickly drifted off to sleep.

Barely an hour later Amelia, concerned but teetering on enraged, found him snoring softly in time with Alice. She smiled dreamily, "You didn't want to disturb me. Sometimes you can be sweet Jackson."

Somewhere in the back of her mind, without really consciously realizing it, Amelia was suspicious especially when she saw the donuts on the kitchen table. She put coffee on and just over an hour later Jax traipsed into the kitchen.

"Morning," he kissed her before grabbing some coffee.

"Morning," Amelia said quietly. "Late one, huh?"

"Yeah," he joined her at the table. "The place looks so much bigger with everything in boxes."

The mere mention of the move distracted her. "Boxes that you haven't helped pack." She scolded him. "As long as you're there to unpack though I don't care."

"Maybe," he grinned. "I can do a little but I gotta tie up lose ends here first."

"I'll save you some." She giggled. "As much as I love flirting with you and talking about Vegas, there's something more serious we have to discuss."

"What's up?" The light drained from his face as he sat forward, concern wrinkling his forehead.

"Your mom, Jax, she's out of line. Yesterday she kept telling me I'm tearing her family apart and how Charming makes you happy, that I can't and you won't be once your in Vegas." As she recounted it all Amelia suddenly felt foolish. It wasn't so much what Gemma said but how she said it all. "She said your heart is in Charming," Amelia added broken heartedly.

"My heart is with my girls," he gave her his patented Teller smile and watched as her frown began to turn. "Let me talk to my mom, okay? Don't worry about Gemma."

--

Juice left the Teller's house around dinner time the night before after a long discussion with Amelia. The focus spanned multiple topics, Vegas, Alice's health, but none was more interesting or spoken of longer than Gemma.

In all the drama and excitement, not necessarily positive, Amelia forgot Juice had the evidence and it now seemed impossible for Gemma to know. It was all a matter of how she knew and what threat that posed. Terrified, Juice dragged his feet into the office at TM for the second time that morning.

"Morning," he nodded at Gemma.

"Morning Juice," she said as she looked at him over her glasses. "Have you talked to your little bestie today?" She said mockingly.

"Huh?" He fiddled with a coffee cup nervously. "Bestie?"

"Amelia," she scoffed and rolled her eyes. "I have to talk to her."

"Uhh not today," he pulled a confused face. "Why don't you uhh you know, call her?"

His confused response proved to Gemma he was being honest and she was being shady. "I'll end up having to do that. I was just hoping to talk to her in person."