Fly By Night | Sons of Anarchy Fanfiction | Jax Teller x OC

Chapter Twenty-Four

Allie filled up her coffee cup again, now officially on her third cup before 11:00, but seeing as how she hadn't slept at all the night before, she figured this was going to be the only thing keeping her upright today. She cast Tig, who was on her bodyguard detail during work hours, a wary glance, and he shot her a tight grin. He hadn't been exactly friendly today, but things could always be worse. Chibs was around here somewhere on their usual security patrol, and he did not look particularly happy when they'd crossed paths in the hallway earlier this morning - in fact, his face had just about turned to stone when he saw her. She'd take forced congeniality over blatant hostility any day.

She was more nervous about the fact that Tig had told her Juice would be on the evening night watch until a prospect showed up for what he'd called graveyard duty. Given their conversation only the day before in the parking lot, she didn't exactly like the idea of him sitting outside her house for hours.

Tig trailed after her as she headed back toward her office, and he settled outside in a chair when she closed the door behind her.

And even though she had a mountain of paperwork to get through today, she had a feeling none of it was getting done today. It wasn't just the fact that she hadn't slept all night. It was the radio silence that was killing her. Torturing her. Agonizing her.

Jax was doing exactly what she'd asked him to do. He hadn't followed her. He hadn't shown up at her house last night asking to talk to her - it made her sick to her stomach to think about how much she'd wanted him to show up last night, even if it was just to rehash their fight. And he hadn't called. Hadn't texted.

But she'd told him she needed space. She'd told him she needed a minute. He was just doing what she'd asked him to do.

That didn't make her eyes burn any less.

She missed the way his eyes sparkled when he smirked at her. Missed the way his touch felt on her body. Missed the feeling of his skin against her skin. Missed the feeling of his strong arms around her, protecting her, claiming her, loving her. She just missed him, and she needed him just as badly.

They needed to talk. They needed to work this out before too much time passed. Because it could be worked out, if they just talked about it like rational adults.

So, before she could talk herself out of it, she swiped her phone off her desk, scrolled to his number, and shot off a text:

I took my minute and I'm ready to talk when you are. Thank you for giving me that space.

There. That was calm, and measured, and adult, right? The last thing she wanted to do, or to be, was an irrational, damaged, over-analyzing perfectionist about this.

But then the problem was that two hours passed, and he still hadn't responded. She glanced at her phone for the 100th time in the last ten minutes, and still no response.

She'd been the one to walk away, even though he'd all but got down on his hands and knees and begged her not to leave. That had been a mistake. An epic, epic mistake. She shouldn't have run away from him like that. If she had to do it over again, she would've just gone to the bathroom, taken an actual minute to collect herself, and then went back to her office to really talk to him and tell him how she was feeling about everything.

But she'd needed real physical space. Real time and distance, and while everything that happened leading up to it was still really upsetting, not to mention infuriating, to her, she wished, with everything she had, that she'd handled it differently. Maybe it was fair to assume he needed a little space right now too, and that he'd respond to her when he was ready.