Lungs

When I got home, I was wholly unsurprised to find that Juice was already gone. There was no coffee in the pot; he’d left in a hurry. Either that, or he simply hadn’t been able to stand being here alone. That was a feeling I could relate to.

I took my sweet time showering and cleaning myself up. I unpacked the bag I’d hastily thrown together the night before. I knew that I could gather everything up again in a few seconds flat. I was trying to be optimistic about where I would wind up sleeping that night.

Somewhat reluctantly, I headed for the TM lot. Maybe I would get lucky and Chibs would be there, but Juice wouldn’t. I parked next to Mom’s ever-present Cadillac, and glanced along the line of bikes. Juice was here. I was torn. Should I risk going into the office to talk to Mom? Juice was in one of two places: either the garage or the clubhouse. If he was in the clubhouse, the office was safe. If he was in the garage, he would see me for sure.

And what was I even going to say to Mom? I didn’t want to let her know that Juice had tried to kill himself. This secret would die with me, no matter what happened between us. I couldn’t take the club away from him, and them knowing that he had done something this stupid was just asking for trouble.

A sudden knock on my car window made me jump. I looked over to find my brother bent low, peering in at me through the glass. I let out a breath, though I wasn’t sure if it was from relief over not having to make the decision of where to go, or the sudden onslaught of fresh nerves. He stepped back as I opened the door and clambered out.

“We need to talk.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I think we do.”

I followed Jax into the clubhouse, passing the other club members silently as we headed into the apartment. I kept my eyes on the floor, afraid to look up and see who might be nearby. As I closed the door behind us, he sat down on the foot of the bed and rested his elbows on his knees.

“Tell me what you know,” he said.

I hesitated. This could go very badly if I knew more than he did. I gnawed on my bottom lip as I sorted through what might hurt Juice. Even after everything, that was something that I didn’t want to do.

“I know about Juice,” Jax continued, sensing that I was unwilling to confess everything. “He lied and told us he got clotheslined by a security fence. Chibs came to me this morning. I know, Lexi. Now I need to know what you know.”

I drew in a slow, steadying breath, but my whole body quivered as I exhaled. “He won’t tell me anything. He won’t talk about Miles, or why Roosevelt is picking on him. I don’t think he would have even told me what he did if Chibs hadn’t forced him to.”

Jax’s eyes narrowed minutely. “Do you still trust him?”

“Honestly?” When he nodded for me to go on, I frowned. “I don’t know right now. I want to. He’s never been like this before. I’ve never had a reason not to trust him. I mean, I still love him.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I shook my head. “At this precise moment, no. I don’t trust him. If he did this and lied about it, what else might he do? And I won’t know about any of it until it’s too late.” I started to tremble, and I blinked to try and stop tears from forming. “What are you guys going to do?” I fought to keep my voice steady.

“I don’t know. I’m trying to figure it all out,” he ran a hand through his close-cropped hair.

“What happens to me?” I breathed, slumping back against the closed door.

“What do you mean? Lexi, nothing changes with you. First and foremost you are my sister. That’s it.”

I shook my head. “No, I mean…” I paused. “I get that that applies if you kill him, or if he’s out of the club and I stay. But if he’s out and I go with him, like an old lady should, then what? Do I lose everything? You’d never tell me anything again, I know that. But would I still get to see everyone?”

Jax stood abruptly, holding up his hands up in a defensive position. “Nobody is killing anyone.”

“But you’re considering taking his patch,” I said, filling in the blanks he’d left.

“You’d still be my sister.”

“I would lose everything. My life and my family is this club. Without it, I have nothing.”

His blue eyes were measuring me up. “I thought that was why you got a job outside of the club.”

“I’m not even done my apprenticeship, Jax. If I’m out of Charming, I don’t even have what it takes to get that same job somewhere else.”

“So you think you would stay with him?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I was so hurt and angry last night that I took off and slept on Madison’s couch. I couldn’t even look at him. But I still want to try and talk it out. I just want to understand.” My voice broke, and I could feel the burn of building tears in my eyes.

Jax’s fraternal instincts seemed to kick in, and he reached out and pulled me onto his chest. I clutched onto him, my fingers digging into his back as I finally let myself cry over Juice.

“What didn’t I do?” I sobbed. “Why wasn’t I enough for him like he was for me? Jax, what do I do here?”

His strong arms were around me, and he patted my back in an attempt to comfort me. “It’s okay, Lexi. We’ll figure it out. He’s not himself, that’s all. You’ll get past this.”

Jax had gone from acting as though Juice was entirely untrustworthy to reassuring me that he would be alright so quickly that it made my head spin. I knew that he was only trying to console me. I would have done the same for him if he’d needed me to. But still, I was having a hard time breathing when I thought about what the future might hold for me now.

“How could he do this to me?” I whimpered, trying to contain my frantic emotions. “He said it had nothing to do with me, but what would I have done if he actually did it?”

I could feel Jax’s muscles tense, pressing starkly against his skin. Still, his voice was gentle. “This is why I didn’t want you getting mixed up with a club member. If this was anyone else, I could just go threaten him and he’d either piss off or treat you right.”

“I know, I’m sorry. But please, don’t hurt him.”

“I’m taking him off the cartel duty. I’ll give him jobs to do around the clubhouse. Talk to him, okay? Get this sorted out.”

I pried myself from my brother’s embrace, sniffling slightly and wiping hurriedly at my eyes. “Don’t… Just please don’t tell anyone about this.”

His gaze softened even further. “Lexi, I have to tell them what Juice did eventually.”

“What? No, I meant about me being a baby.”

“A baby?” he laughed suddenly, startling me. “I think you have every reason to be upset. Want me to send him in?”

I shook my head. “No, I need a minute. Thanks, Jax.”

He nodded. “You’ve got me, Lexi. You’ve always got me.”

I wanted to argue that if he left Charming, I likely wouldn’t have him anymore. I would lose my only brother, and I was far closer with Tara than I was with my real sister, Trinity. But I found that now was not the time to say those things. I couldn’t lash out at Jax when he was being so kind to me.

As soon as he was gone, I retreated to the bed. I pulled my knees up to my chest, curling myself into the tightest ball I could manage. It wasn’t enough. I could never physically be as small as I felt in that moment. My eyes unfocused as I stared blindly at a bikini-clad model on a Harley poster on the wall.

“Jax said you were in here.” Juice’s voice was timid and distant as he stood somewhere behind my back. I hadn’t even noticed the door open. I didn’t react as he came all the way into the room and closed us in together. He took a few steps toward the bed. “Will you at least look at me?”

I stayed exactly where I was. An icy silence dragged on like a cold, desolate arctic winter. I knew that I was hurting him by saying nothing. But it was nothing compared to how he had hurt me. In my mind, I cursed Jax for thinking he knew what I needed better than I did right then and sending Juice in here.

“I’ll do anything,” Juice’s voice cracked pathetically.

I sniffled and wiped at my leaking eyes, still feeling like I should have been able to pull myself together more effectively than I was. I just wanted him to talk to me. Maybe if I understood what Roosevelt had on him, I would understand why he had done it. Or maybe I would just be angrier. But either way, I would know how to feel. Right now, all I felt was lost and hopeless.

“I chose you,” I whispered finally. I had no idea why I said it. Deep inside, I figured that it was the only thing that would make him talk.

“What?” I hadn’t been expecting the dread that echoed in his voice.

“I told Jax that whatever happens, I choose you. If you have to leave, I will too.”

“God, Alexis, why would you do that?”

I tried not to flinch as he used my full name. He hadn’t called me Alexis since we’d first met. I could hear the tremor in my tone as I relayed that thought to him. “It’s Alexis now, is it?”

The silence returned. My vision came into sharp focus as I saw Juice walk around the bed and approach me. He knelt down so that he could look me in the eye. I could see how dismayed he was by the lie I had told.

My eyes burned with a fresh wave of salty tears. “I’m just so scared,” I confessed.

Juice leaned in. He carefully touched the side of my face, pushing my hair back. He pressed faint, pleading kisses along my cheek. I could feel his apology in the gesture.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I love you, Lex. So much. But you can’t choose me. You can’t give up your family. Not for me.”

I reached out, catching him by the collar and holding him close. I blinked back my tears, willing myself to stay strong. “I love you, Juice. You’re my family.”

He shook his head. Slowly, his forehead came to rest against mine. “That’s stupid. I would give everything to be with my family.”

“Put yourself in my shoes. You would do it for me.”

“But you wouldn’t do what I did.”

“I would have said the same thing about you. So tell me why you did it.”

Juice crumbled. I pulled him close, letting him curl up beside me on the bed. He continued trailing kisses across my skin, as if his lips could cure everything. I wished that they could do just that. After a moment, I was forced to put my hand up, pushing his face back from mine. If I let him carry on like this, we would never get anywhere.

“Juice, I need to know what I’m doing here. Please don’t shut me out.”

“Lex, I fucked up. I will do anything to make you forgive me. Anything,” he reiterated. His eyes told me that he was serious. “But we can’t talk about this here. I promise you that I’ll tell you everything.”

I kept my hand on his cheek, feeling more dismay than relief at his promise. “I can’t do this anymore, Juice. I can’t live on the idea that someday you might come clean. It has to be now.”

His eyes were so apologetic and sorrowful that it hurt to look into them. “I can’t, Lex. Not here.” Juice’s voice dropped so low that I had difficulty hearing him. “They’ll kill me if they know.”

My insides turned to ice. “What have you done?”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

I pulled away a few inches. “Are we safe? Is that seriously why you said all those awful things to me? I’m really in danger?”

“Not from this,” he said hurriedly. “But yeah, I’m really concerned that something might happen to you with this whole cartel thing. I mean, there was the threat against Tara, and they target families.”

“Then I’m on that list, regardless of my relationship with you. I don’t want to leave, Juice. Especially not when you’re like this.”

“Can we talk about it when I get home?”

“Do you promise we’ll talk about it? Really talk?”

“Do you promise that you won’t hate me?”

I chewed on my thoughts for a moment. He had clearly done something bad. Something that he believed warranted taking his own life. But if Jax was getting out of the club, maybe we could, too. Juice was smart; he could get a job. The criminal record might be an issue, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if he knew how to hack into the police databases to change them.

“I promise you that I’ll listen,” I bartered. “And that I’ll try my best to understand. But you’re really scaring me here. I don’t know what I’m going to feel when I finally hear the whole story.”

Juice gnawed anxiously on his lower lip, which I noticed was chapped and raw. It seemed that he had been biting at it a lot lately. “I guess that’s the best I can hope for,” he said finally.

He began to get up from the mattress, but I pulled him back down and nuzzled up against him. I could feel his surprise, but he gave in and held me.

“It bothers me that you’re both the person I least want to see and the only person who can bring me any kind of comfort,” I whispered against his chest.

Juice’s arms tightened reflexively around me. “Somehow I feel like that’s a compliment.”

“It’s not. But it’s not an insult either. It’s just the truth.”

He paused. “Have you changed your minds about kids yet?”

“For the moment? Yes. My dad died, Juice. I can’t put my kids through that. Especially if it’s because you-” I cut off the end of my sentence abruptly. Neither of us needed to hear the words to know what I meant. It was bad enough that my dad had been killed in a bike accident with a semi; I couldn’t stand the idea of children knowing that their father killed himself. “Let’s start with something you can talk about now,” I suggested. “What was the vote about?”

“Oh, that,” he let out a deep breath. “Bobby challenged Clay’s presidency. But as you know, the vote yesterday got interrupted.”

“Yeah, something about severed heads. You know what? I don’t actually want to know about that part. You can just go ahead and leave it out.”

Juice smiled for the first time in far too long. “Hey, look at that. Sometimes you do get that there’s some club stuff you’re better off not knowing.”

I nuzzled up even closer to him. “Just make sure you come home tonight so you can tell me about the stuff I do need to know.”