Holding Back

There were things that almost made Lacey Evans nervous about Juan Ortiz. He carried himself like an outlaw which wasn’t far from the truth. He was in a motorcycle club, and it looked like they did more than just ride the two-wheeled machines. His friends all called him ‘Juice’. It wasn’t hard for Lacey to realize what his nickname was. Her eyes read the back of his shirt that read Sons of Anarchy.

She looked at the way his muscled arms moved as he drank from the plastic cup. Tattoos covered his skin. There were what appeared to be two tribal tattoos flowing along the sides of the slice of hair on his head. He was taller than her by at least a few inches, and he seemed to be smarter than he looked at times.

She had been running into him all over the town of Charming, California for the past month. The first time was in the grocery store, but nothing happened out of it. The second time he had bumped into her, and there was an apology in the mix of a flirt from him. She had ignored the flirting because she wasn’t anywhere near ready to be comfortable around another guy again. She still had nightmares, raging in her head at night.

Lacey had been raped when she lived in Los Angeles. Eventually, she wanted out of the big city, fearing it might happen again. The guy who raped her had been caught, but it didn’t settle her nerves. She was on edge whenever she was around any guys besides her brothers. She wanted to find a small town where the chances of an attack like that was low.

Juice turned to see the girl he had been running into around town. He was curious about her, but she looked so frightened when he talked to her. It saddened him, thinking about what could have happened to her. She had dark brown hair with green eyes that sparkled against her light skin. He had been imagining her naked since he had met her. Sure, he was filled with something close to lust, but he knew better than to just force themselves onto someone.

“Who’s the girl?” Jax asked, standing beside Juice. It wasn’t hard for any of his friends to know where Juice’s attention had gone to.

Juan shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve only talked to her once. I only now her name is Lacey,” he answered.

“Go talk to her,” his blonde friend encouraged, pushing Juice towards the girl. Jax already had a girl who was supposed to be there in a few minutes anyways.

He knew that he wasn’t going to get anywhere, but he was going to try. He had taken an interest in her when he first saw her in the grocery store. Something about her made him want to hold her in his arms. He wanted to protect her from the world and whatever she had once faced.

Lacey noticed the tanned man, walking up to her. Fear was beginning to build in her as quickly as she looked away from him. She didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t ready to be alone with a guy. It was bad enough the café didn’t have very many people in at the moment. She began looking for escape routes and places to hide. It had become natural for her to behave that way.

“So, I felt that it was time to actually get to know each other,” Juice said. He gave her a warm and welcoming smile as he sat down in the booth. His arms rested on the table.

“Oh, um,” Lacey replied nervously. She could her heart, beating in her ears. Her voice was small, and it was clear how much confidence that she held inside her. “Yeah, I’ve met you in town.”

He nodded. “So where are you from?”

He asked questions about her, and she answered them as quickly as she could. Juice could tell that she wasn’t comfortable, and he hated seeing that terrified look on her face. He didn’t think that he was that intimidating. Deep down, he knew that it wasn’t because of him. Something else caused this to her. He just didn’t know what to do.

“Do you not like me?” he asked, wondering if she would tell him.

“It’s not that. You seem nice,” Lacey answered. She looked into his dark brown eyes for a few seconds. For a moment, she felt safe until she heard a loud noise to the side of her. She jumped, scooting further into the booth.

She turned to see a tray fallen on the ground with a waitress drenched in soda. The floor was covered with the flavored carbonated water and ice. Lacey settled down, realizing it was just a false alarm. There was more noise, but it was more of the movement of feet and of cleaning materials.

“You’re so jumpy,” Juan pointed out with a concerned look.

Lacey turned her attention back to the man, sitting across from her. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, looking at her hands. She didn’t know what else to say. What could she say to justify her jumpiness?

“What happened to you?” he asked. Juice was genuinely curious about it. He just wanted to know what it was.

She didn’t know what to say. She wanted to tell him about how her ex-boyfriend raped her in the middle of an alley. She wanted to tell anyone that would listen. She wanted to be like she was before where she could talk to any guy, and nothing went wrong. She was naïve before the incident. Now her family treated her like glass, and she felt like she was made of glass most of the time.

She wanted to be able to blindly trust the man across from her like she would have before. She didn’t want to restrain herself from ever dating again. She was stuck holding herself back because of the hell she had been through. She hated that she couldn’t trust her gay friend anymore. She hated that she restrained herself from actually going out in the world more than she needed to.

“It’s not like I’m going to tell anyone,” he promised, holding up his hands. “I’m not a rat.”

Then something came over her. It was an impulse that she would never know would be good until afterwards. She told him what happened in three simple words. “I was raped,” she confessed.

That shocked Juice. He never expected that, and then he was filled with anger. No one raped women. It just wasn’t right. Not in this town. He wanted to ask more, but he figured that she wouldn’t want to talk about it. He reached out and touched her hand. She gave him a weak smile, and he changed the subject, knowing that would be the best thing to do.

Lacey couldn’t believe she had just told a stranger that. He was considered a stranger to her, but by the end of the night, he had somehow convinced her to go on a date with him. He even promised her that it would be in a place where others could see them.