Being an outlaw came at a highly dangerous – lethal - price. Sometimes the price was your freedom or even worse it was your own death.
As an outlaw, Jackson Nathaniel Teller was prepared for a lot of unexpected and somewhat unpleasant things in his life.
He was predisposed to accept many life-threatening events from melees, bullets aiming for his body, and explosions set off by a trigger designed to take you out.
All of those things had in common were that they provided addicting intravenous drops of adrenaline-laced with fear. It made his heart pump faster against his ribcage to the point he felt it vibrate his whole body because despite how superior he may believe he was, those moments reminded him how easily the reaper, who he wore proudly on his back and his leather, would come for him.
As an outlaw who recently turned 30, no one wouldn't believe that fear was something he would admit to having, but fear had been a constant presence in his life that refused to lay dormant and let him rest.
Watching his little brother, Thomas Wayne Teller, slowly deteriorate from the family flaw was his first brush with fear. He remembered feeling that terror of what would happen to his brother next. How would his family move on when he and his mother both had that same fatal flaw. He feared, especially for his mother, that her heart would one day take her away like it was doing to Tommy.
He didn't know how his family would move on. He watched his mom try to remain strong for him.
His dad drifted away as his brother did just not from the same disease, but even though Jax wasn't as perceptive as he was now. Jax watched his father distance himself from his family and his brothers. He saw his father's heartbeat slowly every day trying to overcome the loss of his youngest son.
Jax remembered that day very well where his dad's heart tried to stop beating. His dad left for a ride as he had been doing more often despite the bloody headlines captivating Charming. His dad gave him his usual kiss on the head and he walked out the door for the last time.
Jax remembered playing with his Sega with Opie when his mom got the call. He saw Gemma put a hand to her heart and his first fear crept back upon him. During those two days, while his dad was fighting for his life, Jax feared he wouldn't know how to live without his father. He feared his mom would fall apart. He feared for what would happen to his father's club.
It was only three years later when fear snuck up on him again when the women he loved more than himself and almost more than his club left him. She easily walked away from him like he meant nothing at all. All those promises she made him, saying she would stay and she would never leave him didn't mean anything. He didn't mean anything. He feared that he would never move on from her. He feared she would always haunt him like a ghost and his heart wouldn't know how to beat without her. He feared that he would become that love-sick puppy who became weak at the heart and he didn't want that to happen again.
Jackson Teller was accustomed to fear making his body run, just as it did only days ago when he awaited the release of his best friend from Chino. For the past five years, he feared his friend wouldn't walk out those doors and it would leave his wife and kids permanently without him. He feared he would lose his best friend. He dreaded that Opie would be a different man from who he was when he went inside to the man that was released.
For Jax, fear came in various ways.
He knew he had a handle on fear. He knew when to use it to his advantage. He thought it would be highly arrogant of him not to have fear in certain situations. The last thing he needed was to feel like some sort of invincible God. An absence of fear would make him stupid and borderline reckless, but maybe that was got him in this position in the first place.
Jax stared down at the somewhat timid woman before him, peering up at him with her evergreen eyes. She had her bottom lip in-between her teeth and he knew if she kept it there any longer they would split the plump lip. His fingernails mimicked her teeth as his nails were on the brink of breaking skin as he clutched his hands in his fists.
He really wanted a fucking cigarette. But when he saw her first, he became completely distracted and it made him abandon why he was at the store in the first place this late at night.
He looked her over and over, her hair was long and blonde and was naturally wavy, but at this moment she had it confined in a sloppy bun. Jax hated to admit that he itched to pull the hair from its confinement imagining how smooth and silky it would be between his fingers. Her wide green eyes were surrounded by thick dark eyelashes. She was remarkably small, height-wise; her head barely reached his chin. At best she probably reached the end of his neck depending on her shoes.
He had the urge to lean against his bike that was conveniently parked next to her black Jeep. He knew he would topple over with the bike with this revelation making his heart pump faster than it ever did before.
Her name was Delilah Carmine and he had fucked her in his dorm room at the clubhouse.
The dangerous price that came with being an outlaw biker had its perks. They came in the form of money, women, and sex. But staring at Delilah he clearly saw how lethal women could be as well.
Despite the countless women that passed since that night in his dorm, Jax remembered everything. It wasn't just because of the angry red lines that decorated his back the following day, outlining the reaper tattoo that earned him taunts from his fellow brothers, who were clueless as to who was the creator of the marks.
Jax could admit he had been with many women before. He was sure he slept with hundreds of women and he could easily exaggerate he probably slept with half the women in Charming or the equivalent. He wasn't even trying to brag. It was a simple fact, especially since he was the Vice President of a motorcycle club. With that title, women flocked to him like fish on a baited hook.
Despite his popularity, he suspected he wasn't on her radar until that night.
He knew Delilah before that night, or Deli, as he used to call her when they were younger. She grew up in Charming just like him. She was the sister of one of his best friends, who happened to be a member of the club. He wished he could say that it was the first and only time they fucked.
Delilah and her brother, Phillip, who went by Lip, were raised around the club. They were raised by their Uncle Donovan, who owned the local boxing gym, who was a best friend of his dad and Piney. Donovan took over as caretaker considering their parents' tragic story.
Their dad was reported missing and presumed dead, as the body or his whereabouts were never found. Afterward their mom, Lily, was so crestfallen with grief that she turned to drugs that were so readily available in her line of work at Cara Cara. That was when Donovan stepped in to raise them, but it wasn't as if he was an ideal guardian himself, he had a problem with the bottle, but he was a self-proclaimed "functioning alcoholic."
He knew Delilah was a shy and quiet girl and kept to herself, but she excelled at school and sports, and that drew attention from boys all around. He could still remember Donovan claiming he had to clean his shotguns and cool it on the drinks because he didn't want any slow reflexes when it came to scaring away all the boys. Lip was the same before he became distracted by Fawn.
Jax didn't say anything at the time to not feel like a Chester or a cradle robber, but Delilah was a beautiful woman. In his opinion, the small school girl who wore barrettes and briefly had braces transformed into a fucking vixen. He could say that the few times she had to come to pick up her uncle and brother from the clubhouse after too many shots of tequila with Piney he admired her ass and toned legs. Although he quickly berated himself for even entertaining those thoughts.
He knew she got a full ride at the University of California in San Diego for Business Management. She was gone from Charming for six years, but three months ago, she returned after finishing her Master's. Although it was no secret that she came back because her Uncle's drinking was finally catching up to his liver and to help out Lip with Isla. Gemma told him that she had plenty of job offers from various companies in San Diego and even Oregon, but declined to come back to Charming as it was always her original plan. She plans to own her own business.
So on that night, he was surprised to see her at the clubhouse trying to fend off unwanted attention. He looked around to find Lip but remembered that Isla had a dance recital.
Maybe he had a thing for damsels in distress, but he couldn't help himself in using his hierarchy and telling the hang-around to get lost.
He remembered how flushed her skin got as she thanked him. She was there because Rosie, her best friend and Juice's old lady had dragged her to the party. Jax honestly had no real intention in bedding Donovan Carmine's niece, but Jax felt the bold influence of alcohol control his actions. It wasn't as if she immediately let him lead her back to his dorm; it took him half the night for her to get some courage after he whispered sweet nothings in her ear, causing her skin to tint pink. He thinks the memory of them at the streams before she left for college came to her mind.
Thinking about how easy it was to get her to flush connected with the image of her legs wrapped around him tightly as he slammed into her warmth. She made his body tremor from head to toe. It was almost as if he couldn't get enough. It wasn't just a quick hit and quit it, he realized as he basked in the afterglow while his fingers traced her body causing his body to itch to be inside her again.
It was almost as if he felt a craving that could leave him wanting more, but he didn't want to give in to those thoughts. He wasn't looking for an Old Lady, especially after the disaster of his last one, and if it was one thing Jax could be sure of was he would never become a goddamn junkie.
Jax tore his head away from her and tried to focus on the changing streetlight in the distance, but it led him back to the neon sign of the store and back to the woman that the sign seemed to be highlighting, watching his every move – his every reaction.
If you weren't familiar with her body you would miss that tightness of her white t-shirt in her lower abdomen. His keen sense of observation - memory - mocked him. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the situation as his rings scratched his face as he wiped his face trying to overcome the shock.
She was pregnant with his child.
Jackson Teller was going to be a father.
Now he knew why in a small town like Charming that he hadn't seen Delilah at all, or even why Lip had become a little moody. The last time he saw her had to be a month and a half ago at TM when she came for an oil change, but now he knew why she couldn't keep eye contact with him and it wasn't from their one-night stand.
The realization hit him as if he had been hit with a bullet for the first time. It was right in his lower back, he remembered it knocking the wind out of him as if he had been punched in the gut and he gasped loudly just for the fact he had been shot. Fear of what could have happened if he wasn't wearing a vest filtered his thoughts that day. He remembered the bruises and the fear that he could have died. Before that day he feared having to pull the trigger even though it had been practically instilled in him.
Now he was gasping for air for a different reason.
Jax sucked in a deep breath and tried to wrap his head around how the fuck this happened. Logically, he knew how it happened. Jax had experienced a pregnancy scare before with only one woman. With everyone else, he made sure he wrapped up. His mom practically instilled in him that she would not even tolerate him bringing home a croweater as an Old Lady, and for one to be the mother of her future grandchildren, although he could plead guilty to one of those.
Although he should be grateful he didn't impregnate a croweater.
His mind didn't even want to try and figure out how he would tell this to his mother or even the club. Fuck, how in the hell would he be able to look Lip and Donovan in the eyes.
Jax took another shaky breath and finally spoke up, "Is it mine?" He winced immediately after asking the ridiculous cliché question because he already knew the answer. If it wasn't, she wouldn't be acting the way she was. He also knew she hadn't been seeing anyone after asking around after that fateful night.
Jax looked back into her eyes that seemed to be flooding with unshed tears and for a minute he wanted to ask what she was crying for, but he knew this thought was from the blaze of anger that cruised through him as she nodded her head and replied with a shaky, "I'm sorry."
Jax felt like his knees were about to buckle. They were trembling from a combination of emotions. He knew this wasn't the worst news he ever received, and it wasn't as if the gun warehouse was torched by a rival gang or something.
This was something he brought on himself and he was surprised something like this hadn't happened to him sooner, although from how this was going to go Delilah seemed to have no intention of informing him. God forbid there could be another Teller running around in the world.
Jax then felt another indescribable emotion from the thought that Delilah wasn't going to tell him. He wanted to be angry, but then he realized who he was. He was an outlaw and she was a respectable businesswoman who just graduated, and now whatever life plans she may have had they were going to be put on hold because of this. On top of that, her baby's father was an outlaw biker. There was nothing more to be said. He knew he could list all the negative feelings she probably had.
"Jax, listen," he heard Delilah begin as she tried to break through his fog of shock, "If you don't want the baby-"
Jax looked up at her instantly and interrupted, "What?"
She looked at him and spoke very calmly as if she was talking to a child, "If you don't want to be involved, I understand. I won't hold it against you."
Jax frowned. She sounded so mature, so professional and detached, but he frowned because he was confused. He knew he wasn't 17 years old even though he might be acting like it, but the thought that he would bail on his own kid unsettled him, but he still didn't know what he wanted.
How are you supposed to react to this cliché situation of a one-night stand becoming pregnant?
He knew he wasn't ready to be a father. The thought hadn't crossed his mind in over ten years. He was focused on the club. He had just got out of a relationship, and he didn't want to have to be dealing with more domestic issues. He still questioned why he even made Wendy his old lady knowing she had a severe crank problem, but like his mom said he had a thing for damsels. However, the truth was that he was lonely and sometimes he found himself wanting what his best friend had. Wendy was still a very questionable choice that Gemma had no problems in ripping him a new one now and then. While he knew Wendy would have never lived up to his ideal of what or who he wanted, he wouldn't ever cop to feeling that way, waiting for some fairytale despite his best friend having that. Although it seemed it had cracked with his recent prison stint.
Jax looked back at Delilah, who wasn't Donovan Carmine's niece or Lip's little sister anymore. She was now a woman. She was now the mother of his unborn child. She had just unwillingly given him a part of something he wanted deep down inside.
Jax shook his head, "No...that...that's not it." Jax looked at her in her fitted white t-shirt that gave away the slight roundness of her belly under her yoga pants. She wore no makeup, but she looked beautiful especially compared to the women he usually surrounded himself with. She looked young and fresh-faced and he tainted that with his outlaw blood.
He focused back on her face. He wondered if the baby would get his blue eyes or her green. Whose nose, lips, or even eyelashes it would get.
"Do you...uh...know what it's going to be," he asked, shattering the silence that had encased them in the parking lot of the convenience store.
A slow, warm smile graced Delilah's lips as she softly nodded her head and looked down at her slowly expanding belly her hands encased the bump protectively, "It's kind of too early to tell, but I have a feeling it's going to be a boy, a baby boy."
Jax couldn't help the same warm smile that took over his lips as he echoed, "A boy."