Jessica

 

Jessica balanced two cups of steaming hot tea on a plate piled high with cookies, walking slowly over to her couch, where Macie waited for her. They had days like this at least once a month, where they just got together to drink tea and talk about their lives and maybe watch a movie or two to unwind. They were crucial for Jessica’s mental health, especially now that things had gotten so chaotic at the Gorge. She needed time with her best friend to heal, to relax, to feel like her life wasn’t a total flaming trashcan fire.

 

“So, then Tom tried to fire me,” Jessica said, recalling the story from the night before, when Gary and his friends had come to the Gorge to intimidate her boss.

 

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Macie said sympathetically, reaching forward for her cup of tea along with a few cookies to dunk into the hot liquid. “Did he go through with it?”

 

“No, Pax stopped him,” Jessica said with a sigh, curling her legs underneath her body for warmth.

 

“Hmm,” Macie said as she took a sip of her tea.

 

“What does that mean?” Jessica said, smiling teasingly at her best friend, who continued to make murmuring little “hmm” and “mm” noises under her breath.

 

“Nothing, nothing at all,” Macie said with a mischievous grin. “Just that it seems like somebody likes you…” She dragged out the last two words before sticking her tongue out, waving it at Jessica like they were two little girls in elementary school.

 

“No!” Jessica scoffed, shaking her head before taking a drink of the tea herself. “No, you’re crazy. It’s not like that.”

 

“How many times have you fucked now?” Macie asked, raising her eyebrows quizzically.

 

“A few times,” Jessica admitted. “But, really, it’s not what you think, I swear.”

 

“Mm-hmm, sure,” Macie said sarcastically, shaking her head at Jessica like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Jessica, girl, I know you’ve only dated one guy for, like, your whole life, but you really do not understand how men work, do you?”

 

Jessica screwed up her face in disagreement, reaching forward for a few cookies to snack on while she told Macie off. “It’s you who hasn’t been dating recently, since you and Arnold are practically married by now. It’s disgusting, you know.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Macie said, waving her hand to dismiss Jessica’s words. “But seriously, honey. This guy is into you. I can always tell these things. Do you not feel the same way or something?”

 

Jessica shifted uncomfortably on her couch, averting her eyes from Macie’s piercing, investigating gaze. “No. I mean, not ‘no,’ exactly. I care about him a little bit and all, but it’s not like he’s my boyfriend or anything.”

 

“He sounds like he’s something,” Macie said, dipping another cookie into her tea. “Look, don’t be embarrassed by it. I think it’s great that you have another man in your life. Just, you know, be careful.”

 

“Careful about what?” Jessica asked, feeling her nerves go on edge, worried about the potential hidden meaning lurking behind Macie’s advice.

 

“Well, I just mean, don’t get attached too quickly,” Macie said, shrugging a little. “I mean, what do I know, right? I don’t want to tell you what to do. It’s just that we don’t know him, you know? He’s not in the MC. He didn’t grow up in town. Who knows what he could really be like, underneath all that muscle?” She laughed, clearly trying to cut the tension that had developed between them.

 

But Jessica wasn’t having it. She put her plate down on the coffee table, scooting a little farther away from Macie. “So, what, just because he’s not a biker that a thousand townie girls have fucked before, he’s not trustworthy?” she asked.

 

Macie shook her head and waved her hand impatiently. “No, now, come on, you know that’s not what I meant.”

 

“Well, it kind of sounds like that’s what you’re saying,” Jessica said defensively. She didn’t know why she felt so angry all of a sudden. Macie had a point. She barely knew Pax. Nobody knew him, in fact, and she and Macie had been friends for a decade. Why should she take Pax’s side if Macie just had a few reasonable concerns about the guy?

 

But it didn’t matter what the logic inside Jessica’s brain had to say. Her mind was going wild now, resisting any urge to accept Macie’s opinion or just move on and agree to disagree.

 

“You know, there’s this stupid cult mentality in this town,” Jessica said, not letting Macie get a chance to speak even though the other woman opened her mouth to respond. “I’m not finished. I’ve lived here for over fifteen years, and you know what the people in this town have done for me? Nothing. Or practically nothing anyway. Everybody just stood by and watched while Gary cheated on me and mistreated me and acted like I didn’t matter. Nobody stood up for me. Nobody.” The unspoken accusation was still clear, and Jessica couldn’t soften her gaze even as Macie visibly cringed.

 

“Honey, that’s not fair,” Macie said. “The MC is a force for good, too. We’re just very loyal people, you know, so it’s hard to change things or stand up to Gary, but it’s not like the club is just filled with a bunch of bad people who don’t care about you. The boys love you, Jess. Arnold loves you. I love you, of course.”

 

Jessica sighed deeply, feeling the sick sensation of regret start to build in her stomach, but before she could return Macie’s words, there was a sudden sharp knock at her front door. “Oh, Jesus, who could it be at this hour?” Jessica said as she got to her feet, crossing the living room area to the front door.

 

Out of habit, she opened the door without looking, revealing a grinning Gary standing there waiting for her. “Hey, darling,” he said in a sugary sweet voice, his eyes gleaming with something that made Jessica’s stomach turn. “Miss me?”

 

Jessica tried to slam the door right in his face, but Gary reached out with one hand and stopped it, pushing it forward so that Jessica had to step back into her apartment to get out of the way. The next second, Gary was in her apartment, standing there like he owned the place, surveying every inch with a smile like he was hunting for real estate.

 

“Oh, Macie,” he said as soon as he saw her. “I didn’t know to expect you over here tonight. Don’t you want to spend time with Arnold while he’s off of work?”

 

“I wanted to talk to Jessica,” Macie said stiffly. “Isn’t that still allowed?”

 

“Sure, it is,” Gary said in a friendly, sprightly tone of voice, walking over to the living room, passing Jessica on the way without saying anything to her like she was a piece of furniture. “Anyway, do it at another time. I’m horny.”

 

Macie stared up at him, confusion written across her face. “What?”

 

“I need to get some fucking in before I have to go back to work,” Gary said, slowing down his voice in a mocking manner, as if Macie was too stupid to understand things spoken at a normal pace. “Get the fuck out, Macie. We’re busy.”

 

Macie looked from Gary to Jessica, then back to Gary again. She was clearly conflicted, and Jessica tried as hard as she could to silently beg with Macie to stay, to not abandon her like this. She couldn’t be left alone with him. She just couldn’t. She no longer trusted him to respect her boundaries, at all.

 

“Macie…” Gary said again, his voice dropping lower, losing its sugary sweetness. There was a threat within that single word, as short as it was, and both of the women seemed to flinch back from it. But then Macie slowly got to her feet, putting her cup of tea down on the coffee table next to Jessica’s.

 

She walked up to Gary, and for one stretched-out, hopeful moment Jessica thought that Macie was about to yell in his face, to tell him to fuck off. But it didn’t happen that way.

 

“Okay,” Macie whispered to Gary before walking around him, stopping in front of Jessica. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jess.”

 

“Yeah, like hell,” Jessica said, marching over to the door to see Macie out. She had never felt this pissed before in her entire life. She was used to Gary being a dick, demanding sex whenever and wherever he wanted. But one thing that she never expected was Macie to betray her, to put her loyalty to the MC ahead of their friendship. Jessica felt so sick and sad that she almost forgot to feel afraid. Almost.

 

“Why don’t you come sit next to me on the couch?” Gary said as he walked over to take a seat, picking up one of the cookies off the plate and putting it in his mouth. Jessica could tell that he was in a shitty mood. He always ate lots of sweet things and commanded her to fuck him whenever he was stressed out.

 

“I’m fine here,” Jessica said stiffly, leaning back on the wall opposite the couch so she could keep looking at him. The door was a few feet away. If she absolutely had to, she could make a break for it, maybe run for one of the more major streets a few blocks away from her apartment and try to flag down a car. Maybe basic human decency still counted for something in this godforsaken town, at least enough to save her from fucking Gary.

 

But the risk was too high. He wasn’t that far away from her, and he could probably catch her before she even left the house. Plus, who even knew what he was capable of doing if he got more pissed off than this? If she screamed for help or did anything else to possibly embarrass him, he might call the other boys and beat her up. He hadn’t gotten physical with her ever before, but she wouldn’t put it past him, especially given how some of the bikers around town treated their women.

 

“Okay, that’s fine,” Gary said softly, apparently oblivious to her half-baked plan to flee using the front door. “I figured we would talk first anyway.”

 

“Talk about what?” Jessica said sharply, her voice betraying her anger even though she knew it was the smarter thing to stay as calm as possible when dealing with Gary. But she just couldn’t fight it. He was too much of a prick to be nice to, especially after he’d barged in without invitation. She had every right to be as much of an asshole to him as possible. “Talk about how you tried to get me fired from my job yesterday? Do you want to talk about that, huh?”

 

Gary smirked for a second, the cruelty that Jessica knew always lingered beneath the surface peeking through for a minute before he replaced his honest expression with a sadder, more contemplative one. “Did he try to fire you? I was just stopping by to say hi. You know, if your boss gets so angry at you over such a small thing, maybe it’s a hostile work environment. You know, maybe you shouldn’t work there in the first place. You always have a role back at Sully’s if you want it. Just say the word, and you’ve got your old job back.”

 

“No thanks,” Jessica said as snobbishly as she could. “I’ve moved up in the world.”

 

Anger flickered across Gary’s face like a candle in the darkness, appearing for just one second before snuffing itself out. The next second, he nodded slowly, pressing his fingers together in a makeshift steeple as he pretended to be lost in thought. “Fair enough. You know, we had some good times back there, though, remember?”

 

Jessica didn’t say anything, instead feeling her teeth grit together painfully hard within her mouth. Gary could probably see how pissed she was just from the way her jaw looked, but she didn’t care. She was tired of performing for him, one way or another. It was exhausting, spending years pretending to be the girl too cool to care that her boyfriend was fucking other girls, pretending to be the girl that didn’t care if she got called misogynistic names whenever she disagreed with her boyfriend, the girl who didn’t care if all of the other bikers laughed at her. She was sick of it. It was like Pax said. It was time to fight back, even if that meant just being silent.

 

“Man, I miss having you around,” Gary said, throwing his head back on the headrest at the back of the couch. “Remember that time you got totally smashed on fireball and then we fucked in the stockroom? God, that was great.”

 

Jessica rolled her eyes. She could barely remember that encounter, but from her perspective it’d been nothing special. She just shrugged in response to Gary’s expectant look.

 

“Or what about the time that we went on the rollercoasters upstate, remember, the really big ones? I got you that teddy bear at the dart-throwing table, the really fluffy white one. You used to love that bear.”

 

For a second, a horrible moment that felt like it lasted forever, Jessica felt a flutter of affection, deep in her chest, for the man she used to love. The man who used to profess to love her, the man who was now sitting across from her.

 

But just as soon as she felt her own expression soften, she saw a flash of victory cross Gary’s face, and her stomach turned over, the acids inside screaming in protest as she realized that she was being manipulated. Goddammit, this motherfucker, she thought, staring at the smiling asshole on her couch, chewing away at her cookies. He’s playing me. Just like he’s always played me. First for sex, and now for the Gorge. He’ll never stop playing me.

 

Well, she was going to try to put a stop to it today, at least. “Okay, cut the crap, Gary,” she said. “What did you really come here for?”

 

“I told you,” Gary said, straightening up in his seat to address her. “I just miss you. Like, fuck, I wake up cold from not holding you.”

 

“Oh, I’m so sure,” Jessica said mockingly. “You expect me to believe that you aren’t fucking seventeen girls every day that I’m gone? Oh, oh, what, I’m supposed to believe that you’ve ‘changed’?” She put finger-quotes around the last word, laughing bitterly and shaking her head, even as Gary’s expression fell from his face.

 

“You left me, remember?” Gary said, getting to his feet and brushing the cookie crumbs off his hands. His shoulders seemed to stiffen, like he was trying to grow to his full height. In the past, that would have intimidated her. Hell, maybe it still should have intimidated her now. But she was too angry to feel afraid right now, too consumed by bitterness to grant him any ground, even emotionally.

 

“I left you after you cheated on me with every girl that walked into Sully’s!” Jessica shot back.

 

“So, you’re saying, if I stop fucking the girls, you’ll come back?” Gary asked, stepping a little closer to Jessica.

 

“Oh, come off it!” Jessica said, not believing the words she was hearing. How could this motherfucker be so cocky, after everything? How could he still honestly believe that he owned her? “I’m not going back to you, Gary! Ever!”

 

Gary smirked and shook his head, stepping forward a little bit more, just enough to cause Jessica to back up until her body was flush against the wall behind her again. “You say that now, but you’ve always said that, every time we’ve broken up. What’s supposed to make me believe that this time is any different?”

 

“I mean it,” Jessica said harshly, putting as much force behind the words as she could muster. “I’m done with you, Gary. I’m done with you, I’m done with Sully’s, I’m done with the goddamned MC, all of it! You’re not going to run my life anymore!”

 

Gary walked a bit faster, crossing the room until only about a foot of space separated them. “You think I’m just going to let you go, Jessica? You think I’m going to give up that easily? You don’t do that to people that you love.”

 

“You don’t hurt people you love! You don’t stalk people you love!” Jessica argued back, stepping a bit closer until she was yelling in his face. But she didn’t care. Even as it became clearer and clearer that his breathing was coming out harder and faster, his face going red with the exertion of holding back his anger, she didn’t give a single fuck. Inwardly, she said to him, Hit me. Come on, go ahead, hit me. Do it. It’s what you’ve always wanted to do. You’ve always wanted to control me. You’ve always wanted to have power over me. Just be honest and fucking do it.

 

Jessica looked down to see Gary’s hands clenched into fists, his knuckles shining white with the force of his anger thrumming under his skin. Jessica backed up until she was up against the wall, inhaling deeply to steady herself. No matter what, no matter how hard he hit her, she was going to be okay. At least, that’s what she silently promised to herself, watching as Gary’s eyes grew narrower and narrower, staring at her with as much hate as she’d ever seen in them.

 

Knock, knock, knock. Somebody lightly rapped on the door, causing both of them to tear their eyes away from each other and look to the source of the sound. When neither of them moved to answer it right away, the knocking resumed again, a bit louder this time.

 

“You stay fucking still,” Gary said in between clenched teeth before walking over to the door, opening it wide to reveal…Pax, standing there with a shocked look on his face as he saw Gary. “The fuck are you doing here?”

 

“I could ask the same thing of you,” Pax said, craning his head to see behind Gary, a wave of relief visibly crashing over him when he spotted Jessica.

 

Jessica stepped forward and wrapped her hand around Gary’s arm, suddenly emboldened by Pax’s presence. There was no way Gary was able to hurt her now. Pax was here. She felt safe and strong and capable, like she could do anything. And right now, the only thing she wanted to do was kick Gary out of her life, as far away as possible. “Gary. Come on. It’s time to go.”

 

Gary’s face screwed up in anger and confusion as he turned his head to look at Jessica. “What the fuck? You’re kicking me out? You should be telling him to go!”

 

“No,” Jessica said, shaking her head. “No, I’m not doing that. Please go, Gary. Before things get ugly, okay? I don’t want to fight you.”

 

Gary snarled and turned back to face Pax head-on. “You’re going to pay for this. You know that, right? You might not know exactly who I am, but believe me—you’re going to figure it out sooner or later. And if you keep stepping in between me and my woman, it’s going to be a lot sooner than you think.”

 

Gary’s words settled deep in Jessica’s stomach, twisting around inside of her like they were rearranging her organs, but Pax didn’t even flinch. His eyes were blank and empty, completely unaffected by Gary’s overt threat. Pax stepped aside, giving Gary room to walk past him out of the apartment.

 

Gary turned to give one last look at Jessica, scoffing a little as he turned back to face Pax. “If she weren’t here, you’d be in pieces on the floor by now, brother. Believe that,” Gary said as he stormed out of the apartment.

 

Pax stepped in as soon as Gary was out of the house, shutting the door behind him and quickly setting the locks. “What was he doing here?”

 

“He just showed up. I didn’t invite him,” Jessica said a little defensively, wrapping her arms across her chest.

 

“That fucker,” Pax muttered under his breath, going to the windows by the door and checking to make sure they were locked and secured.

 

Jessica slowly stepped forward until her body was flush with Pax’s back, letting herself lean her head between his shoulder-blades. She didn’t know why she was acting this way, but she needed to be touched. She needed to be held.

 

Pax didn’t flinch the way she was expecting him to, slowly turning around instead and looking her directly in the eyes. She half-expected him to shove her away, to tell her to stop acting all mushy and pathetic, to remind her that they were in the middle of a battle and they couldn’t afford to be weak.

 

Instead, he reached down and cupped her face in his hands, his eyes flicking back and forth between each of hers like they were searching for an answer that only she knew. “You had a hard day, huh?”

 

“Hard couple of days,” Jessica admitted before laughing and shaking her head. “More like hard couple of years.”

 

Pax nodded and slowly rubbed the side of her face, reaching up to her temples, where she kept most of her tension. It was weird that he seemed to know her body so intimately already. But Jessica didn’t question it. She let herself sink further into his touch, her eyes sliding shut as his thumbs worked magic on the sides of her head.

 

“You need to relax,” Pax said softly, one of his hands reaching up to smooth over her hair, scratching up against her scalp in the process.

 

Jessica shook her head back and forth a little bit, careful not to dislodge herself from Pax’s grasp. “No, we’ve got to make a plan. About Gary. He’s just going to keep getting more and more insistent and pushy about the Gorge unless we do something to stop him.”

 

“All right,” Pax said, his tone showing that he wasn’t going to engage in an argument with her. “But not tonight. Tonight, you need to rest. Tomorrow, we can worry about him, okay? Tonight, just relax.”

 

Jessica sighed out deeply, half in exhaustion, half in resignation that she’d never be able to do what Pax wanted, at least not tonight. She was way too wound-up, far too anxious about the whole Gary thing, especially since he just barged into her place looking to fuck her. How could she possibly relax, even for a second, knowing that he was out there, plotting the demise of her new life without him?

 

But Pax’s fingers worked magic over her skin, the heat from his fingertips sinking into her face, spreading out to the rest of her body slowly but surely. “You’re good at this,” she murmured softly, letting her neck go limp, her head rocking forward so that it nestled underneath Pax’s, resting on the top of his firm chest.

 

“Come on, let’s go to bed,” Pax said, right before dropping a soft kiss at the top of Jessica’s head.

 

The next second, Pax’s hand reached down to find hers, his fingers intertwining with hers, pulling lightly as he led her over to the bed. Jessica felt her heart start beating faster within her chest, her fingers tingling where they brushed up against Pax’s. They were holding hands. Jessica had never felt so safe and so scared at the same time before.

 

But as they approached the bed, Pax suddenly pulled away, leaving her feeling cold and abandoned, confused as to what she could have possibly done wrong. The next second, however, he wrapped his arm around her waist, sweeping her entire body into his arms with ease.

 

Whatever happened, tonight, Pax was going to call the shots. He was going to take care of her. Jessica didn’t know why Pax was acting this way, but she needed it, as much as she needed air to breathe.