A Family Affair

Chapter Three

Hot water pelted his head as Jax stood in the shower with his hands resting on the wall in front of him. With his head ducked, he watched as the water ran down the drain and steam rose through the air.

After waking up at 7 a.m. with a pounding headache, he finally managed to get off the roof that he had passed out on the night before. He had high hopes that the shower would help cure him of the hangover that he was experiencing.

So far, he hasn't had any luck.

He shut the water off and reached out to grab the white towel off the rack next to the shower. He dried his face before wrapping the towel around his waist and stepping out onto the cold tiled floor. He reached across the bathroom counter to wipe the condensation and fog off of the mirror.

His reflection looked back at him as he took in the purple bruises underneath his eyes. His eyes traveled to the tattoo on the left side of his chest, her name was there in old english above his heart. He had gotten it done when they were eighteen and he had wanted Nora to get his crow tattooed on her. She had refused to get his crow until he had agreed to put her name on him as well. At that point in their lives, she had been planning to go out of state for college. He would never admit that getting her name on him was just one of the things that he had done to keep her in Charming.

His kids' names could be found on his left forearm, Claire on the inside and Charlie on the back. Getting Nora pregnant had been his last desperate attempt to keep her with him in Charming, and to his satisfaction it worked. That was something else he would never admit to, especially seeing as in a roundabout way it had been his mother that planted that idea into his head.

Welcoming a set of twins at the age of nineteen had definitely been rough. It wasn't something that they were necessarily ready for but the way he saw it, they were doing a pretty damn good job of raising them. So did he regret it? No.

After brushing his teeth, he reached down into the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Tylenol. He took two pills out and dry swallowed them as he made his way out of the bathroom.

His room at the Clubhouse was one of the bigger ones, yet it was still a hell of a lot smaller than the one at his house. The double sized bed was nowhere near as comfortable as the king sized one he left, but he figured it would do until Nora finally allowed him to come back home.

Whenever that would be.

Truth be told, this wasn't the first time that she had kicked him out. Two weeks was the longest that he had been out of the house before... until now. That woman was a real sweetheart most of the time, until something pissed her off at which point that fiery ass temper of hers would rear its ugly head.

'Fuckin' redheads'. He thought to himself as he rummaged through his dresser for some clean clothes.

A big part of him understood, he had hurt her after all. She needed time to heal from it. He got that. But damn it, there was also a part of him that was pissed off as well. Enough was enough. He deserved to be in that house just as much as she did. It wasn't right that he was limited to spending time with his children on the weekends. The fact that she had the audacity to meet with a divorce attorney made his blood boil. She had known exactly what she was getting into when she married him so why was it a problem all of a sudden?

That was something that he would have to deal with later, but for now he needed to go see his kids.

He quickly dressed into a pair of jeans and a gray 'SAMCRO' t-shirt. Sitting on the bed, he slipped his white Nikes onto his feet. Walking up to his desk, he hooked the chain of his wallet onto a belt loop before slipping the wallet itself into his left back pocket. On the right side of his waistband, he attached his USMC KA-BAR fighting knife. Shrugging into his kutte, he turned the light off and locked the door on his way out.