Spark in the Dark

Chapter 149

When they arrived back home, Chibs and Happy went into the house first to make sure no one had broken in while they were gone. Jax questioned her on what happened back at the grocery store relentlessly until Shawn became visibly flustered. How many times did she have to explain what had happened? The entire encounter she had with Laroy could have only lasted about a minute, so she couldn't have missed telling them anything. Juice and Tig had to intervene as Shawn became more stressed by Jax's almost interrogation.

"Hey, man. Ease up," Juice told him.

Jax looked like he wanted to rip Juice's head off for interrupting him, but Tig stepped in.

"She told you everything she knows. If she remembers something, she'll call one of us, alright?" Tig told him.

Chibs and Happy came back out to let them know they could go inside. Juice had Shawn sit while they brought everything inside. He was going to put things away, but Chibs told him to check on Shawn instead. He sat down next to her and she moved to be closer to him.

"What's Jax's problem?" Shawn asked quietly so the men in the kitchen wouldn't be able to hear.

"I'm sure he's fine. He's just worried about you. Plus, he just moved up to President. It might take him some time to get his bearings straight, you know?"

"I guess so."

Jax came in from the kitchen just then and sat down on the coffee table in front of them.

"Sorry, kid. I didn't mean to be so rough on you," he said. Shawn just nodded. "We're going to do some digging into this. We're trying to reach out to him to make this beef go away, but until then, you need to stay here. One of the guys will be with you at all times. If they can't, you'll have to be at TM."

"Yeah, okay."

Jax's face changed, looking less like the badass President of an MC and more like her friend she grew up with.

"That's it? Okay? I thought for sure you'd fight me on that," he said with a smirk.

Shawn shrugged. "It's not just about me anymore."

Jax nodded knowingly, then kissed her forehead before looking her in the eye. "Stay put."

"Got it," Shawn agreed.

She did what she was told. She stayed in the house. Juice tried to be around as much as possible. If he couldn't be there, he tried to get Tig to be at the house, so it would feel a little less like being guarded to Shawn, but most of the time the three prospects would take turns being there. Shawn preferred it being Phil since he was less likely to say something stupid than the other two, but he received his top rocker shortly after and started having more duties.

Whenever he could tell Shawn was starting to get cabin fever, Juice would take her to TM to spend time with Gemma in the office. On one occasion, Jax had Tara take the boys to the clubhouse to hang with her. Lyla stopped at either the house or TM whenever she could.

After a couple of weeks, Juice was starting to be away more and more. Clay was going to be released from St. Thomas any day now and Gemma didn't want him to return to their house. Somehow, a majority of the responsibility of getting Clay set up somewhere else fell to Juice. He assumed it was because Jax had taken him off anything to do with the cartel in order to be around more for Shawn, but still wanted him to be useful.

He found a place online they could rent for Clay. Juice showed it to Jax for approval, even though he got the feeling Jax didn't give a shit where Clay lived. Not that Juice blamed him, though. Everyone knew things had been rough between the two, especially after Clay beat the shit out of Gemma.

Juice got the house for Clay, then began packing his things at Gemma's and moving them to the new place, where he unpacked and tried to put everything where he hoped Clay would want it. It took him three days of getting up before Shawn and getting home late at night before things where finally ready for Clay to get out. Just in time, in fact, since he got word he was to take the van to pick Clay up at St. Thomas the following day before Piney's memorial.

Juice walked in the backdoor that night and into the living room to see Rat sitting on the couch, watching tv, alone.

"Where is she?" Juice asked.

"Upstairs. Has been most of the day," Rat answered. "I heard the shower running a little bit ago."

"She stay up there a lot?"

"Yeah, pretty sure she's tired of us. She's being getting sick more, too, so it probably helps to be closer to the bathroom."

"She's getting sick more?" Juice asked, mostly to himself, but Rat answered anyways.

"Yeah, has a hard time with meat. Anything cold she does good with, though."

"Alright, man. Thanks. You can go," Juice told him, feeling like shit. Rat knew more about what was going on with her pregnancy than he did.

Rat left and Juice went up the stairs and to their bedroom. Shawn was looking at herself in the mirror, stressing over the small baby belly beginning to form. Tara had warned him that she might struggle with her body image because of the anorexia. He had hoped Tara would be wrong, but now wasn't so sure.

She hadn't noticed him come in. Juice leaned against the door to admire her.

"Damn," he said and she turned to look at him in surprise. "You have got to be a sexiest pregnant lady ever."

"You say that now, but what about when I'm even bigger?"

"There's absolutely no circumstances where I wouldn't find you sexy," Juice told her honestly. He thought about what Rat said, how she could keep down cold food. "Let's go out for a little bit. We can get ice cream."

"You sure that's a good idea?" She asked.

"It's been awhile and we haven't heard shit from the Niners. C'mon, I bet my baby loves some Rocky Road."

Shawn finally smiled at him. "Just let me do something with this wet hair and we can go."

* * *

Juice woke up to his phone ringing and an empty bed. He answered his phone and heard Chibs on the other end.

Luckily, their ice cream date went smoothly, because it looked like Shawn was going to be on lock down a little longer. Chibs filled in Juice on how the Niners torched their truck the night before. They were able to get the drugs out, but not until after a short gunfight with them. Phil had been in the truck, but wasn't seriously hurt and no one had been shot.

Juice hung up with Chibs and got up and dressed before going downstairs to find Shawn. She was in the kitchen eating cereal.

"Why didn't you wake me when you got up?" Juice asked.

"You've been getting up early. I thought you'd want to sleep in."

"I would have rather had a round two from last night," Juice said and Shawn smirked.

"You got stuff to do this morning?"

"I got to pick up Clay and then we have Piney's memorial."

"Can I go? I really want to be there for Ope."

Juice hadn't been planning on telling her what Chibs had called for, but he felt like she needed to know for her own safety. "Probably not a good idea. Niners torched our truck last night."

"Shit," Shawn muttered.

"V-lin will be here soon. I'll try to be home early," Juice said and kissed her. "You good?"

"I'm better than I was yesterday. I really needed last night, so thank you."

"Anything you need, babe," he told her. "This will all be over soon. I promise."