Promising Young Women | Sons of Anarchy Fanfiction | Jax Teller x OC

Chapter Seventeen: Tip of My Tongue

Wednesday, 8:47 pm

Jax pulled the cigarette away from his mouth and ran a hand over his tired eyes. Sure, he could head back down to the clubhouse and pass out in his dorm. It had been a while since he'd crashed here on a weeknight, but who was he kidding? He wasn't getting any sleep tonight anyway, so none of this mattered.

None of this mattered.

Skipping the music and the joint seemed like the right call up here tonight. Reprieve was something to be earned. Something he had to deserve. And he wasn't there yet. None of them were.

He certainly hadn't deserved the sweet, lingering kiss he'd gotten from Grace just a couple hours ago in the cramped bathroom of his messy dorm. And while he'd certainly taken it and savored it and lost himself in it, that didn't mean he'd earned it.

"Hey prez," a familiar gruff voice called from behind him. "Need some company?"

Jax glanced over his shoulder at his VP and shot him a weary smile. Might as well. They had plenty of shit to work through, even though church had let out about ten minutes ago. And judging by the grim expression lining Opie's face, neither of them were going to be getting much sleep tonight anyway.

"Knock yourself out, Ope," he gestured toward the empty chair next to him, the same one Grace had vacated a few weeks ago, and the last time he hadn't been up here on this roof alone. But this particular revelry... the right person was up here this time.

Just like he'd been up here with the right person the last time too.

Opie dropped into the chair to his left, already dipping his hand inside his kutte to pull out his cigarettes and they sat there in silence for a few minutes, quietly blowing smoke into the night sky until they were both ready to hash this out in the open, right where it needed to be.

"When was the last time we had a day like this, Ope?"

His VP turned his head at the sound of his voice and pushed out a rough sigh. "You really want me to answer that? 'Cuz if I had to pinpoint one down, there's a day from about five years ago that stands out in my mind."

Jax nodded tightly, flicking some ash from his cigarette as a tight line ticked down his jaw. Yeah. They didn't need to go there, back to that day, when his mother had come bursting into the clubhouse with a battered face, barely able to walk, barely able to talk... all because the club's former president couldn't face the reality of what he'd done to one of his own and because he wasn't man enough to look his wife in the eye and admit what he'd done. He'd beaten her instead.

"Church was..." Ope pushed out with a rough sigh. "Well, I guess it coulda been worse. But if you're sittin' here, worried that anyone's pissed at you for laying into Kozik or yelling at all of us about needing to start paying more attention to what's goin' on around here," he scratched the scruff underneath his chin he spoke, "I wouldn't lose any sleep over it, brother. We're with you on all this - especially when it comes to dealing with what was going on in those apartments."

"Yeah, I hear ya," he sighed. "I don't know, bro... we gotta make some changes around here, and we gotta make 'em now before shit gets worse."

A long, heavy pause lingered in the air around them, crackling with awareness, weighing them down with the ugly truth that they just couldn't run from anymore.

"All of this..." Opie murmured into the space between them. "This is on us. Everything that's been going on at those apartments. Lucy and Delilah going missing. Dani getting fuckin' strangled in her own apartment, what happened to Grace today, what's been happening to Ivy for years... this is our fault, brother."