Chapter 16
SAYLOR
“Babe, dump his ass and come with me,” the wild looking man in front of her crooned. His cut declared him as Taz, and their club’s Road Captain, and she was sure she had never met another man like him. He was wild and crazy, but with such a subtle air of danger she almost missed it. But she saw it, and realized that the rest of them were the same. The Dragons were scary in their own way, but they had nothing on these men. Still, she didn’t think she had anything to fear from them. At least, not right now.
Taz, however, reminded her of a crazy squirrel on crack, with the way he jumped around so much. He went to each woman to hug them tight, much to the annoyance of the men around them, but his tightest hugs were for Glitch and Karissa. Jax quietly told her that this was the team that Karissa and Glitch belonged to, which explained why both women just laughed and shot back at him when he dared to call them soft. It was also how he ended up on his back on the floor, grinning up at them like an idiot. She still was surprised they managed that so effectively.
Taz wasn’t a small guy. Perhaps not as big as some of the others on his team, or in the Dragons, but there was no mistaking he was fast and agile. He stood at six-two, with dirty blonde hair that was currently shaved on both sides, the top longer and flipped to one side, and brownish-green eyes that were currently bright with laughter. He had a thick, blonde beard, and was covered in ink. He owned the ‘big, bad biker’ persona. Despite all of that, he still somehow managed to give off the jokester vibe. It was a balance few could achieve.
“I don’t know you,” she told him, unable to hold back a grin of her own, and ignoring the scowl that pulled at Jax’s mouth. Since the moment she had been introduced to them, Jax hadn’t left her side. She was tolerating his obvious jealousy, for now, but mostly because she was concerned about him having been shot. Because of her. She’d have to live with that guilt.
“That’s why you need to dump him and come with me,” Taz replied. “I mean, how can we get to know each other if he’s stuck to you like a barnacle? Trust me, my cock’s better,” he added with a wink.
Saylor sputtered out a laugh, unable to help herself. Damn, this man was something else. Who blurted shit out like that?
Jax glared at him. “With how often you use it, I’m surprised you still have it,” Jax snapped at him, his grip on her tightening. She narrowed her eyes at him in warning, which he ignored.
“Dude, this thing is revered all around the country and beyond,” Taz exclaimed. “Which means I take extra good care of it.”
“Gross,” Glitch gagged as she came over. “Stop talking about your dick, Taz. And, Saylor, if he gets to be too much, just let any of us know and we’ll put him in his crate until he settles down.” Saylor couldn’t help but snicker, even as Taz gave Glitch a bland look.
“Are they always like this?” Saylor asked Jax curiously.
He sighed. “‘Fraid so. Though Taz is the weirdest of the bunch.”
“I am not,” Taz argued, pouting dramatically. “The weirdest is Simba. Have you seen his giant ass and the way he’s all growly and shit? I’m the fun one. He’s just the grump.”
There was a round of snorts and scoffs around the room, which had her turning to look at the man himself, who stood with Savage, Steel, and Ice near the entrance to their Church. Anyone looking at him would know he was in charge. He was also six-two, but with dark brown eyes, and hair of the same color. He also had a beard, and she could just make out a few silver strands, giving him a subtle silver-fox look. Like most of them, his arms were covered in ink, and he kept himself in shape, if those muscles he was sporting were anything to go by. “I’m about as weird as you are sane, so, not at all,” Simba said calmly before resuming his conversation.
Taz rolled his eyes. But before he could continue to champion for his cause, the twins made their way over and instantly got his attention. “Well, if it isn’t my two favorite ladies,” he boomed, pulling them both in for hugs. “Who are we scaring off today? You tell Uncle Taz and I’ll straighten them out.”
Both girls laughed and grinned. Then they pulled him away, talking quietly, but even from here Saylor could see the excitement on their faces. It was clear that, as crazy as Taz was, he was someone they trusted.
“Let’s go,” Jax murmured in her ear, tugging on her hand to pull her back toward the stairs. At first she resisted, but the intense look on Jax’s face made her relent. He obviously wanted to talk to her, so she supposed that she might as well get it over with. Besides, she had to clean up her mess in his room anyway.
When they reached his room, he pushed open the door, walked inside, and then stopped, his hand tightening on hers and his entire body going tense. Then he suddenly let go of her hand and pulled away from her, his entire body rigid as he stared into the room. Confused, Saylor looked around. His desk was a bit of a mess with her things, and his bed was still unmade, along with her bag kind of haphazard on the floor, but she hadn’t touched anything else in the room. Hell, she had been too zoned in to even consider doing that. “Sorry for the mess,” she said casually as she stepped around him and walked over to where her bag was on the floor, picking it up. But when she turned around, she saw that he hadn’t moved and his eyes were strained, his fists clenched tight. She frowned. “What’s wrong?” she asked. Her gaze flicked to his stitches worriedly. Was his head bothering him? Jax didn’t answer. “Jax?” she prompted, concern making her stomach knot.
“Do you always leave things a mess when you’re in someone else’s space?” he finally asked, his voice harsh, and almost angry.
Saylor stilled, blinking at him. What the hell? What was his problem? “Excuse me?” she demanded.
“You heard me,” he snapped, angry eyes turning to hers.
She couldn’t believe the audacity of this man. “I heard you being an asshole. You’re the one who insisted that I stay in your room. That I had to work in here because it wasn’t safe for me at the apartment. What did you think would happen? That I would sit in the corner, not touch anything and just stare into space?”
“I thought you would have the decency not to mess up my room,” he bit out.
Anger made her lash out. “And I thought you would have the decency to understand that I don’t want to be here. Not with you. Not in this room. And not in this club. You’re the one who refused to let me leave, and then you took me from the space I was in and forced me to stay in this tiny room because of so-called safety. You make it sound like I trashed the damn place, when all I did was leave the bed unmade, and use the space you allowed. Not to mention, I only used the bed and the desk. So, if you have a problem with that, that’s too fucking bad. Either let me go back to the apartment or give me another space to work.” Her voice rose with each word, until by the end, she was yelling.
“Just because?—”
“Nope,” she interrupted, angry and too worked up to listen to more of his complaints and excuses. “You’re not going to stand here and make me feel stupid or embarrassed because you told me to work here. The only thing I’ll say is that I didn’t clean it up right away because I was hungry. I planned to come right back up, but I got pulled away. If you want to be mad, go right ahead, but I’m not going to stick around and listen to you get upset over some stupid bullshit like this.” She grabbed her bag and moved to the desk, scooping up her stuff and stuffing it into the bag.
“Saylor…” Jax’s voice sounded strained, no longer angry, but she ignored him, continuing to pack up her things. She wanted to only be angry, but she was hurt too. He acted like he wanted her here, had made her come and cuddle him in bed this morning, and even kissed her in front of everyone, but clearly that had only been for show. Or maybe because he thought he would get lucky again. Her stomach soured. Yeah, she wasn’t going to be made a fool of. Not again.
The moment she felt his hand on her shoulder, she tried to wrench away but he held firm. She whipped her head up, but before the cutting words she wanted to yell at him could leave her mouth, the look on his face stopped her. Defeat, guilt, and regret were there, and some of her anger turned to confusion - and maybe a small hint of concern, though it wasn’t enough to make all of her anger disappear.
“Saylor,” Jax said calmly, voice heavy. “I’m sorry. Look…I…I have issues with things being messy. It caught me off guard, and I took it out on you. I shouldn’t have, and that’s on me. Just…Just let me explain. Please?”
She hesitated, but something in her told her to give him a chance. Clearly, this was about more than just her leaving her things around. So she set her bag down and sat in the chair, crossing her arms over her chest and stared at him expectantly. She was still pissed, and he needed to know that, even if she was willing to listen.
Jax sank on to the bed and ran a hand through his hair before his gaze returned to hers. She saw nerves, as well as vulnerability, and her heart twisted. Damn it, she was supposed to be angry, but seeing that, her heart wasn’t about to let her. Finally, Jax admitted, “Only a couple of people know this about me, so I need you to understand this isn’t something I’m all that comfortable sharing. I probably should start at the beginning. Growing up, I came from a crazy, toxic family. My parents kept having kids they couldn’t take care of properly, and honestly, I think they just didn’t want to. We brought in a monthly check, and the more of us there were, the more they got. I have five sisters, and six brothers. I’m in the middle of them all, so a lot of the times I was forgotten or just completely ignored.
“It also meant that we all had to share rooms. We had a rundown four bedroom house, and as I’m sure you can figure out, having that many kids and only that many bedrooms, it meant we had to share. I had to share my room with my brothers, and the girls were split up between two rooms, while our parents took the main bedroom. When you’re in a house like that, and in a room like that, it’s always a mess, especially with a bunch of other boys. My brothers were wild, and they didn’t give a shit about things being clean or organized enough for us to find things. Our parents barely enforced any rules, so we were mostly on our own. I was one of the younger boys, so I didn’t understand why things were like that, and if I tried to clean up, it would end up with my brothers getting pissed at me for touching or moving things.
“By the time we went to school, we were known as the wild kids, the ones that the teachers dreaded having in their classes. I tried really hard to not be like my older brothers, and even my older sister, who unfortunately was wild as they were, but of course, I got painted with the same brush. I’m not trying to say poor me, I’m just pointing out that I didn’t have the best of shots from the beginning, and as we got older, it got worse. We fought, we broke shit, and we hated each other at times. My older brothers got in trouble and my parents didn’t give a shit. And I just felt like it was all swirling out of control.
“So one day, I decided that I couldn’t stay in the house anymore. I was sixteen, and was tired of having to fight every day to find my shit, and fight with the kids at school who bullied me for having stinking clothes that didn’t fit. I couldn’t stand my room anymore. It stank so bad, and we had cockroaches and mice in there all the time. It freaked me out to grab clothes and realize that a family of mice or bugs were in them. And no one cared. So I walked out of that house and found an old, rundown shack in the woods, and I took it over. I don’t know who built it, but it was a one-room spot that clearly had animals living in it at one time, but I didn’t care. It was a new space for just me, and I wanted it. I moved all my shit in there, and that’s where I realized that I could have my own space and finally make it my own. But that’s when I noticed that I couldn’t stand things being messy. I’d flip out if something was out of place.
“When I turned eighteen, I decided to move. My parents never even noticed I was living out there, but my brothers figured it out and when they found my shack, they decided it wasn’t fair that I had it, and they wanted it too. So they invaded my space, and I flipped my shit. It was my space, and was finally clean and organized, and in minutes, it was in shambles. It was the first time I really realized how badly I needed to get out if I didn’t want to do something terrible like kill one of my brothers. After they trashed everything, I grabbed everything I could carry that wasn’t too broken to fix, and I left. I didn’t have any direction, but I had been working at a fast-food joint for a couple of years and squirreled away a little money so I was able to at least stay in hotels until I figured out where I was going. I moved around a lot, working odd jobs and staying in weird places, but eventually I saved up enough to get a bike, and I rode the open roads until I landed in this town.
“I decided if I wanted to get ahead, I needed a good skill, and since I liked working with my hands and I seemed pretty mechanically inclined, I went to school to become a mechanic. From there I found the Dragons, and I’ve been here ever since. But, that feeling of needing everything clean and in its place has never gone away. I need it, or I feel like I lose control. Like things are going to go back to that toxic, dirty way they were before.”
Saylor’s anger deflated completely. Holy shit, she never would have pegged Jax to be this way. Sure, he was clean and tidy from what she could see, but she would never have thought to that extreme. And now, realizing just what he’d been through, she could see why it was such a trigger for him. “Jax,” she said softly, uncrossing her arms and easing forward.
He shook his head and got to his feet, pacing as much as he could in the small space. “Look, I know that I’m not normal,” he said, though he refused to look her way, staring ahead or at the floor. “And I know it’s weird as fuck, but I can’t turn it off, no matter what I’ve done. I’ve tried being messy, I’ve tried to not care, but I just can’t do it. That’s why I’m so protective of my space. I do better in the garage because we have our own bays, and Razor makes sure that his stuff never gets mixed up with mine or on my bench. But it’s also why I don’t let people stay in this room for very long with me. The club girls tried to come in and clean, but I flipped out on them once and they haven’t tried again.” He stopped and turned to look at her, his face carefully blank, waiting as he watched her.
Saylor felt her heart break in her chest for the little boy that only wanted to have a place of his own; that was clean and his and where he felt he belonged. She never had to deal with something like this before, and the trauma of what he’d been through was never going to go away. She hated his family for doing that to him. For making him suffer, even after being away from them for so long.
She also realized how hard it must be for him to be in here with her. To have her in his space; for him to trust her with it. And she had unknowingly disrespected it and caused him a kind of a pain he didn’t know how to handle. She stood and moved toward him. He gave her a wary look, but didn’t back away. “I’m sorry,” she said softly when she stood in front of him, keeping her hands carefully to herself. She wasn’t sure he would welcome her touch right now. “Even not knowing all of that, I should have respected your space. Sometimes I get really busy and I forget where I am. The bed, that’s a separate thing, but we’ll address that later. Right now, I’m just going to say I’m sorry that I inadvertently pushed a button for you, and while I’m here, I’ll try to remember that and respect that from now on. Okay?”
Jax didn’t say anything for a moment, staring silently down at her. Then he reached out and pulled her into him, his head lowering so that his forehead pressed against hers. She let her hands come up to rest on his chest, feeling his heart pounding under her palm. After a minute, the racing beat slowed, once again calm and steady. “I need to work on it,” he said quietly. “I’ve never had to before, but I want you here with me, and it’s not fair to expect you to put up with my weird tendencies and my fucked up past.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she argued, pulling her head back just enough so she could see his eyes as she opened hers. “Jax, this is your space. If this is the place that you feel safest, that you need to stay organized and clean, then it’s my responsibility to change my behaviors to accomplish that. I’ll do that by making sure that if I’m in here working over the next couple of days, that I clean up after myself and keep it tidy. And if I don’t think I can, then I’ll find another space where I can work. Okay? You don’t need to work on anything you’re not ready for. This kind of thing can take a lot of time to work through. Does it affect the rest of your life? Do you have problems seeing other spaces messy?”
He shook his head. “No. Just mine. I don’t have full blown OCD, and Razor and Savage both told me they think it’s a trauma response, but I don’t know anything about that kind of shit, or how to fix it. If you’re willing to be patient with me, I’ll work on it. I just need you to understand I don’t mean to come off as an asshole about it if I lose my temper. Sometimes it comes out before I can stop it.”
Saylor gave him a soft smile. “I can handle it. If you’re too much of an asshole, I’ll make sure you know it.”
He gave a soft laugh. “Yeah, I know you will.”
“Can I ask a question?” He nodded. “Why does only Razor and Savage know about it and not the rest of your brothers?” she asked curiously.
He winced and rubbed at the back of his neck. “I know my brothers won’t think less of me, because we all have our own shit we’re dealing with, but it’s never come up before, other than with Razor when we had to room together as prospects. The whole reason I almost quit was because I couldn’t handle Razor being so messy, or how he was constantly asking me to use things because he forgot stuff. We ended up having a major fight in our room, and Savage came in to break it up. Savage got it out of me, and Razor realized it was a big deal. Savage offered to let me stay in another room, but Razor insisted that we stay together and he would be more mindful about it. And he was. We’ve been best friends ever since. When we started working together at the garage, Razor already knew what I needed to be in a good space, and he made sure that continued there.”
Saylor’s respect for Razor grew tenfold hearing this. It took a lot for a guy that young to understand trauma so well and work hard to correct something, and not treat Jax any differently. Hell, she had seen so many at Mater’s gym having issues and the other guys ribbing or taunting them for it. Using their pain to get the upper hand. If Mater heard it, he threw the offender out, but a lot of times, the person never revealed their struggle, instead taking it and using it to fuel their workouts.
“Alright then, I’ll make sure not to mention anything to anyone,” she promised Jax.
He gave her another one of his soft smiles. “Thanks, baby.” Then he pulled her into his arms and gave her a tender kiss. She felt her heart turn over in her chest at the kiss, and realized that there was some heavy stuff now resting on her shoulders. Not to mention, she was sliding down the slippery slope of falling for a man she knew she was going to walk away from. She was going to have to be very careful, or when she left, she’d be leaving more than memories behind.