Jax

Leaning against my bike, I watched Amber move quickly through the school gates; she was jogging to her car. Putting my cigarette out, I quickly mounted my bike and started it.

It had been a week, and Amber was still meeting this secret lover; today I was going to follow her. Every day after school she would take off as soon as the bell rang, and then she wouldn’t be back home until late.

Yes, I did have more important things to do than stalk my ex-girlfriend, but all I needed was an address, and then I would be able to get a name.

I slowed the bike down and followed two cars back from Amber. She was frustrating me, not giving me the time of day. I even bought her flowers last night and left them on her bed. The next morning I woke up to find them thrown out in the hall, outside her door.

To think I wasted an hour picking the bastards. I changed lanes, still following her; why was she going so damn slow? She was holding the traffic up! I crept up behind the car in front, and looked up. Shit.

She had spotted me.

I saw the lights ahead changing, and sure enough, she put her foot down, floored it and ran the lights. I gritted my teeth as I came to a stop behind a car. I had lost her; there was no chance I would find her now. She would be taking every back road possible.

Bloody Amber being too smart for her own good. Maybe I should just take a hint and stop stalking her. She clearly wanted nothing to do with me. I needed to get trashed and forget her.

***

“Jax? Where you been?” Troy grunted when I switched the bike off. I got off the bike and placed my helmet on the handlebar.

“Out,” I shot back, not in the mood to tell him I had been stalking his sister.

“Did you find out who he is?” Cole walked out the front door, with that normal cocky grin on his face, and guessing correctly where I had been.

“Don’t know what you are on about,” I grumbled.

“Right,” Troy smirked. “You ready to go?”

“Go where?” I only had one thing on my mind; drinking my sorrows away.

God, I sounded depressive. Bloody Amber.

“Club meeting, remember?” Cole huffed, still with a cocky undertone in his voice. Cole really knew how to piss me off. “Or did you forget, having other things on your mind,” he added. He was being relentless!

“Shut it Cole,” Troy jumped in, before I managed to answer him.

Damn meeting. I would cancel it, but I had set the damn thing in the first place. Grinding my teeth, I nodded my head. “Right, let’s go.”

“I’ll drive,” Troy unlocked his sedan.

“Why the fuck aren’t we taking our bikes?” Tyler grunted from the back seat, moving uncomfortably between Adam and Cole. “Cole, when the heck did you get so fat?” he grumbled.

I glanced at them in the back; they reminded me of clowns in a tiny car.

“It’s muscle, you tosser,” Cole snapped, and punched Tyler’s thigh.

“Get OFF ME!” Adam yelled and pushed Tyler back to the middle. Tyler had been groaning in pain, rubbing his thigh and leaning into Adam.

“Shut up! All of you!” Troy snapped over his shoulder, taking his eyes off the road. The whole trip into town, all the three did in the back was bitch.

Your leg is on my side, stop leaning on me… the bitching went on.

“CAT FIGHT!” Tyler yelled, loud enough to deafen me. I shot a deadly look in the back at him; he didn’t even notice though, he was too focused on what was happening outside of the car.

Troy slowed down, and sure enough, two chicks were going at it, both wearing orange jump suits. Community service workers, or highway trash pickers. The two guards that were meant to be looking after them were just hanging out, watching the fight.

“Ouch, the one with the dark hair is on a roll!” Tyler said, while Cole cursed him for leaning on his knee.

My eyebrows knitted together as I took a closer look at the girls. “Troy, pull up closer would you?”

Troy frowned, but indicated and pulled up to the side of the road. We were barely crawling along anyway.

“Is that…?” Tyler started, then stopped.

“Nah, it couldn’t be...” Adam added.

“It bloody is!” I fumed and pushed the car door open roughly. Everything was beginning to make sense now.

“Jax, don’t get involved,” Troy yelled out the car window.

“Do you want her up for manslaughter?” I yelled back at him, but kept walking towards the fighting girls. “Can’t you do your job?” I grunted at the guards when I walked past them.

“Not so lippy now, are you bitch!” Amber snarled at the girl after sending a flying right hook into her face, again.

I wrapped my arms around Amber’s small waist, and pulled her off the girl she was beating.

“GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!” she roared at me, before she went limp. “You have to be kidding me,” she groaned, as she glanced at my arms.

I placed Amber on her feet, and she spun around instantly. Her mouth was half hanging open; she was in shock.

“Want to explain?” I arched an eyebrow at her, still holding onto her waist.

“How did you find me?” she frowned, cocking her head to the side. The girl she was bashing up before was cupping a bloody nose behind her. “I thought I’d lost you in traffic.”

“Cat fights draw attention,” I nodded my head in the car’s direction, and when she saw her brothers, she let out a long groan.

“So community service, huh?” I smirked at her, taking my hands from her waist.

“Not all of us can get away with crime, Jax,” she threw back at me.

God, it was nice to hear her call me Jax instead of Jackson. “True. So this is your boyfriend then?” I said as relief washed over me. Looks like I wasn’t going to have to threaten anyone. Wait no, I had decided to stop stalking.

“Yes. Go on. Rub it in. Get it over with,” she said as she crossed her arms and pursed lips. A light pink blush crossed her cheeks. Embarrassment suited her.

“So you don’t like roses then?” I didn’t care about community service. If she thought I would, then perhaps she was stupid after all.

“Wait, aren’t you going to come up with some good lines… aka insults?” Amber looked surprised.

“Your brothers will do that for me.”

“Right, of course then will,” she said as she flipped the bird in the car’s direction; I’m sure they saw it.

“The flowers?” I prompted her, and shifted my weight from foot to foot. I hated this feeling. The nerves.

I should just forget it. Amber didn’t give a shit, why should I? She was over me.

“They were from you? I thought dad had put them there because he was sorry for babbling at tea the other night!” Amber uncrossed her arms, and she actually looked sorry. Well, who knew she could be sorry for anything. “I’m sorry. If I’d known they were from you, I…”

“You would what?” I wanted her to finish that sentence; maybe she wasn’t fully over me yet. She would give me another go, right? She had to! It wasn’t every day that I stood in front of a girl asking if she got my flowers.

“Would’ve thrown them in your face,” she finished.

And there went the little chance I had.

“If you think you can buy me back after what you did, with flowers, you are mistaken,” she said as she jabbed a finger in my chest. “You are going to have to do a lot more Mr Jackson Johnston.”

I took the finger from my chest, and held her hand. “Like?”

She puffed her lips, rolling her eyes at my corniness. “I don’t know...”

Smirking, I leaned into her ear, “Well when you do, let me know.”

I wasn’t giving up, she still cared. It she hadn’t, she would have hit me by now, or at least threatened to.

Watching her face twist, I dreaded her next sentence. I knew that face, and that face only meant trouble.

“I have one thing,” she said sweetly, with a very large smirk. What a surprise. She’d thought of something quick though; was that a good thing or a bad thing?

“Of course you do,” I said. I prepared myself for her evil plan. Clearly, whatever her thing was, it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

“Tell my brothers you are dating me.”

That was easy. “Done,” I promised.

She’d said dating, which meant we were back together. Gee, this had worked out easy.

“And...”

Of course there was an and.

“And that you love me,” she pulled her hand out of my grasp. “Then we can be boyfriend and girlfriend again.”

“Not happening,” I said. A bikie didn’t say the word love, especially when it came to a woman. I would be seen as weak, and them being the Shield brothers would take the piss out of me for life.

“Then we’re done.” Amber turned her back to me abruptly, but I saw the hurt in her face before she did.

Why would she ask that of me? Couldn’t she ask for something easier, like a new car or, I don’t know, a house? Or a new gun? I kicked the ground and walked back to the car.

Well, it really was over between us. I wouldn’t say those words to her brothers. Nothing would drive me to say them. NOTHING. My reputation depended on it.

“You all right?” Troy gave me a sideways glance when I slammed the car door.

“Just drive,” I said.

I looked over at Amber, who was stabbing a piece of trash. She couldn’t expect me to say those words. Not to her brothers. I just couldn’t.