The clubhouse hadn't changed much from the last time Ryder had been there right before Harley was born. And it was almost comforting, something that she didn't know she needed until now. She had been so career and mother-oriented that she forgot about the family they had within the club and how familiar everything was. The crow eaters started swarming towards the bike and the handsome vice president only to pause when they saw his infamous old lady getting off the back and shaking her red hair out. It had been one thing for them to push up on him when she was gone and he was messing around. But now that she was back, things were going to change.
Again
Wendy didn't care, Tara wasn't even his old lady long enough in high school to matter. But Ryder was Gemma's hand-picked successor. The one woman that she rarely had jealousy issues with. The princess of the mother charter, the daughter of a founding member, a woman who demanded respect. That respect was given and well earned.
And she was the great love of Jackson Teller's life.
Even just seeing the man then, you could see a weight lifted off his shoulders from having her by his side again. Even the woman looked lighter than the last time that they saw her.
"Ladies." Jax greeted as he swung his arm around his wife's shoulders and steered her towards the clubhouse, "Have a good night."
"Good night," Ryder said with a kind smile, forcing herself to remember that not all of the crow eaters were like Wendy and out to destroy her and Jax's relationship in her hopes of getting in her place. A lot of them were just girls looking for a place where they could be safe. Gemma always had a habit as much as she hated the croweater to check on them and make sure they were okay and Ryder in turn followed suit though she was a lot nicer than Gemma, even when they had tried to get with Jax.
Ryder showed kindness.
"Don't." One of the older girls Rebecca hissed when she saw one of the younger girls, Mallory, going to go toward Jax who was completely enamored with his wife.. "You haven't been around for long, Ryder Teller is a lot worse than Gemma." The other girls nodded in agreement, they had all at one point or another been on the receiving end of a Ryder Teller tongue-lashing or witnessed it, and they always tried to save the new girls from getting the same experience.
"So?" Mallory questioned with a scoff, "Just because she is an old lady and Piney's kid doesn't mean shit." Rebecca laughed and shook her head, most of the croweaters wanted to be in any of the old ladies' places and Mallory was going to learn the hard way that Ryder wasn't one to be messed with. But they never learned until they got into it with her.
***
"I swear these girls get younger and younger every time I come back." Ryder said quietly as Jax led her into the clubhouse and down the back hallway to the dorm room, barely stopping to greet Juice, Bobby, and Chibs before leading her down the hallway towards the dorm room. Her husband paused, he hadn't paid much attention to the crow eaters, and his wife was the only thing he thought about.
Always had.
Not even with Tara did he solely focus on her, he constantly would watch Ryder, ready to jump to her defense if need be. And in the 12 years that they had been together, it happened a handful of times. "Jax?" She prodded softly when he didn't say anything, "What's going on?" He shook his head before leading her fully into his dorm room, he didn't want to risk his brothers overhearing what he was going to say. She was the only one he could fully trust with this, with what he found in storage when he went looking for stuff for Abel.
"I found some stuff of my dad's in storage." He finally said once he shut the door and flipped the lock on it, he knew that Juice, Chibs, and Bobby wouldn't bother them but he could never be too sure.
"JT's stuff?" Ryder questioned as she pulled her purse up and over her head and dropped it onto the desk chair, her eyes fully on her husband. They rarely talked about JT or Jax's brother Tommy, they were just memories they had and it hurt too much to talk about. He tilted his head towards the box that sat on the end of the bed as he peeled off of his kutte and his bloody sweatshirt, 'Just a bunch of Nam shit, pictures."
She could see the pictures on top, "Check out that hair on mother Gemma. And those clothes." She was almost glad they had these pictures to look back on, all the pictures she and Opie had of Mary and Piney were destroyed by Mary when she left Piney and Ryder behind in Charming. "Harley will get a kick out of these."
"But this," He reached around her and pulled out the black binder that he shoved the manuscript into, "is what I want to show you. He wrote this. It's what he thought the club should be. It's real hippie shit." Mostly out of curiosity Ryder took the book from him and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Go clean up." She commented softly, "I am not going anywhere."
**
Juice Ortiz sighed as he printed off the information that he found out about June Stahl and why she was looking into the club or the clients that Ryder worked with. And it wasn't surprising that ATF was on them but for Ryder, it was different. She handled notorious CEOs, mergers and divorces, and sometimes members of motorcycle clubs or crime families. One of them Stahl had been trying to go after for almost a year but they couldn't get their hands on them thanks to Ryder and her quick thinking from what he was able to pull Stahl and her superiors had been furious that every member of the family got off. Jax and Ryder needed to know so the club formulate a plan to keep Ryder out of any sort of crosshairs, career or club-wise.
"I would leave that until morning." Bobby Elvis commented from where he was perched at a table with a bottle of whiskey, nursing a glass. He would have gone home but it had seemed oddly empty without his wife and kids there. They had left a few days before to go to San Francisco to see Jordyn, his oldest daughter. His gig in Tahoe and the looming alimony payments stopped him and he felt guilt for it.
His relationship with Jordyn and all three of his marriages had floundered and suffered due to his ties with the club and serving time. He didn't want to see Jax or Ryder go through that nor did he want to see Harley and now Abel suffer without their father for long periods of time. If letting them be alone together to patch up their relationship and figure out a way to navigate the messiness that came with the outlaw life, he would do whatever he could to help.
Juice looked back at the line of dorm rooms and then at the Elvis impersonator before nodding his head and sitting back at his computer to play one of his games, for once everything could just wait.
**
Ryder was still sitting on the bed with the binder open on her lap, her Converses had been kicked off followed by the cutoff shorts when Jax went back into the dorm room, the towel slung low on his hips. "JT was a brilliant man." She commented, sensing his presence, "Like I remember him being smart but not this smart." She raised her eyes to look at her husband, remembering that she had promised herself that she would hold out and not be intimate with Jax but it all went out the window at that moment.
Seeing him first with Harley and then watching Abel so intently started changing her mind. She was seeing more and more of the man she fell in love with compared to the cold-hearted cheating bastard she had seen in the months before her taking Harley up to Tacoma for good. As if he was reading her mind, he knelt on the end of the bed, grabbed her ankles, and pulled her towards him.
"Jax." She warned tossing the binder to the side, his fingers were ghosting up her bare legs and thighs.
"Ryder." He returned with a devastating smirk, knowing she couldn't resist him, not after being separated for so long. His wife bit on the inside of her bottom lip before letting her legs fall open to accommodate him, this could be just a comfort for them. A one-time thing, tomorrow they could go back to working on their relationship.
Which is what they needed.
**
"I meant what I said about us being better than our parents." He muttered as his hand clasped the one that was resting on his chest. "Our kids aren't going to grow up without me. JT had the right idea about what this club should be doing." "Is this because of what happened with Abel?" His wife questioned as she shifted to rest her head on his chest. "Not just that." His hand tightened on hers while his arm tightened around her waist, "it's the fact that I may lose you. And lose Harley. I don't want that. Tell me what you want to know and I will tell you."
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Charming Town| Jax Teller
फैनफिक्शनRyder Teller never wanted to step foot back into her home town of Charming California, she had been hurt too many times, and the club that her husband, brother, and father all belonged to ruled everything including her law career. But when her husba...
