Guardian Angels ✔

8 - What Fills The Heart...

Alex didn't dare to look to her side. Juice was sitting so close to her that she was scared as hell that her lips would somehow end up on his if she turned her head to him now. He was so sweet and his arm around her felt more comforting than any hug she had gotten since Kip passed away. She knew the guys were constantly tossing their arms around each other and even though some had done that with her as well, Juice's touch seemed a hundred times more intense. Of course, that feeling might have also been due to the alcohol and the fact she was attracted to him. The smell of leather, and smoke mixed with the alcohol he had been drinking, he probably didn't have a different scent from the others, but his aftershave or body spray or whatever it was, that she smelled also, was a welcomed addition and had an intoxicating effect on her.

"I should probably go," she said after a while.

Juice's arm slid off her shoulder and Alex forced herself to look aside.

"Ya ridin'?" he asked hesitating, knowing she wasn't sober at all.

Alex shook her head. "Nah, I'll walk. A walk will do me good."

"Where do you live?"

Alex gave him her address.

"That's only a few blocks away from my house. How 'bout I walk with you?" Juice asked as he got off the picnic table.

She looked at him somewhat dazed. She understood he was touched by her grief, but this was a little over the top, right? "I'm not some chick, you know," she said with a smirk, even though those words made her heart clap up into her throat. "I can get home safely."

Juice seemed to hesitate. Then he shrugged his shoulders. "Gotta go that way anyway. Haven't been home yet this year."

Alex didn't understand why he didn't just sleep in his clubhouse dorm like his brothers did. But the walk would take at least half an hour and she did enjoy his company. She stood up, slid her hands in her pockets and strolled off the parking lot.

. . .

It was one of the nicest walks she'd ever taken. For some of it, they just walked in silence next to each other, looking up to the starry sky or staring forward, wrapped up in their own thoughts, and other times they talked about the club life and a dozen other subjects. When they arrived at the crossroad where they had to say goodbye, they looked awkwardly at each other.

She didn't want to leave him.

She'd stirred up a lot of memories today and she knew her grief was still there, right below the surface, and very raw. It would probably wash over her as soon as she was alone.

"We eh – could head to mine? Got some pot at home, we could share a joint?" Juice offered a blunt, his insecurities showing as he rubbed his forearm.

Alex felt her cheeks glow. He just needs a friend, she told herself. Cause that's what you are, remember? Just one of the guys. "I've never smoked a joint," she admitted honestly, with a tone that should tell him she was open to trying one. You didn't trip from one joint, she thought. She would feel more relaxed at most, and they both needed that. Still, she had a feeling this wasn't the best idea, but all the guys had probably smoked pot at least once in a while and she rather had her first try when she was with a guy who didn't want to mess with her.

"I'll roll a light one," he joked.

It was his subsequent smile that made her give in. That smile would probably even convince her to do something stupid like drink a barrel of gasoline if he asked. "Kay."

A little later they were sitting on the porch of his house. A little nervously Alex had breathed the smoke into her lungs, as Juice had told her to. After she'd handed back the joint, he'd taken a drag himself.

"Bet you'd expected something else from your first night out, huh?" Alex asked after a while. She guessed they hadn't had much to do in prison, so he'd probably imagined what he wanted to do when he got home.

Juice chuckled. "Tell me about it. I'd pictured myself taking a hot chick to bed, instead of gettin' stoned with the new prospect."

"That can still happen." Alex squeezed her lips. Shit. This really had been a bad idea. She couldn't trust her tongue at all. She felt the words 'you could do both with me' roll through her mouth, but she kept them inside. "So why didn't you take a girl?" she asked eventually, pronouncing every word slowly, afraid that other, less suited words would follow otherwise.

Juice shrugged his shoulders. "Dunno. Wasn't in the mood."

"Isn't that the perfect reason to..." She thought about her next words for a while, suddenly unsure how men like he would describe it. "... have a good fuck?" It sounded like a question she asked herself as if she wondered if those had really been words she'd been looking for.

She couldn't help it, suddenly she started to laugh.

Juice raised his eyebrows. Why did he do that? Many people got giggles from smoking joints. She knew that, so he had to know it too.

"Damn dude, you really laugh like a girl." His laughter filled the night air too.

Alex stared at his lips. I want to kiss you and your beautiful lips.

She wasn't sure she'd only thought those words, but since he wasn't punching her in the face she guessed so.

"Maybe I am a girl. Secretly." She moved her eyebrows up and down.

Juice smirked when she picked the joint from between his fingers. "Then we would have done very different things tonight."

Suddenly Alex felt boiling hot and she suppressed the urge to wave some of the cool air to her face. It was bad enough he thought she laughed like a girl. But she wouldn't have minded doing those things with him. Tonight. Now.

Before she could blurt out something like that, Juice was already continuing the conversation. "I think, I needed a good talk more than sex. I shared a cell with Clay for fourteen months and well, he really wasn't in the mood to listen to my whining."

"But you weren't in the mood to have sex with him either, I guess." She frowned and chuckled. You better stop talking about sex now, Alex. "And you're not whining," she said. But she understood him. She'd barely talked to the club president, but she understood why Juice wasn't pouring his heart out to him. She leaned back. Her limbs suddenly felt heavy. But she didn't mind. "Being in jail isn't the easiest thing. Or killin' people. Some people need a therapist for things like that, you know."

Juice chuckled and took another drag from the joint. "Or a prospect."

Alex smiled while watching the stars. This was pretty romantic.

If he'd known she was a girl.

"Only works if I'm the prospect. Don't think Miles would have been the best help."

From the corner of her eyes, she watched how Juice sat up a little more straight and turned toward her. Alex's body felt too heavy to do the same. "What's going on between you two?"

Alex shrugged her shoulder. Or at least she was trying to. "He's just an asshole. He's the type of guy that pushes others underwater to keep his own head above it."

"Hmm."

"You had any annoying fellow prospects?" she asked.

"I was the only one. So I was everyone's whippin' boy. It stayed that way until the next prospect showed up, a few years later."

Kip, Alex thought. She was dying to ask about him, but she didn't trust herself at the moment. "So things are actually easy for me?"

Juice smirked. "Yep."

Alex smiled while her eyes were slowly closing. They felt too heavy to have to open them again. "You know, Juice..." she mumbled, yawning. "This is the best night since I got this kutte. It almost feels like I've found a friend."

She fell asleep before she could hear his reply.