Chapter Text
I own none of these characters.
"Why do you have to be a heartbreaker? Is it a lesson that I never knew? Got to get out of the spell that I'm under. My love for you.”
Flying under the radar in Charming when you’re Jax Teller’s Old Lady, well former Old Lady, is no easy task. Since she was 14 years old, Tara’s identity in Charming had been intrinsically tied to Jackson Teller.
Jax’s California golden boy good looks made him a magnet for almost every girl in town. On Valentine’s Day in 8th grade he received so many cards the teacher had to put them in two separate bags. She was in 6th grade and like every girl had a crush on him. She didn’t send him a card though because she figured, based on the sheer volume of offers he received, that he had enough girls to keep him occupied for the rest of his life.
Jax also had a reputation, even at 14 years old, as the bad boy who fought, drank, smoked, and hooked up with as many girls as possible. At one party, he hooked up with two separate girls. Both thought they were his girlfriend but when they found out they weren’t exclusive, a catfight for the ages ensued.
Tara never understood fighting over another person. If you liked someone enough to expect exclusivity, well that should be firmly established before “giving up the goods” as her dad liked to say. Sacrificing your self-worth for a hook up was just plain sad.
She was also raised Catholic. Her mother was devoutly Catholic and they all went to mass regularly when she was alive. After her mom’s death, her dad stopped going to church, saying that he was now agnostic. He told her once that he had trouble believing in a God that could take her mother away from them. He started attending the Irish-Catholic Church of Jameson (his words exactly) and Tara continued going to the actual Roman Catholic Church because it was a happy reminder of her mom.
Her dad was Irish-American and his great-grandparents survived the potato famine by leaving Ireland. Her mom’s family was Ukrainian. They had left the Soviet Union when Stalin decided to starve the Ukrainians into submission in the 1930’s.
Both families knew if they didn’t leave their respective homelands that their children would either die from starvation and her mom’s family didn’t want them to fall victim to indoctrination too. They had to break those cycles and knew the only way to do it was to leave behind everything they loved to save their families.
Her mother and father met in college and moved to her father’s hometown of Charming, California. They taught her to respect herself and to never compromise her beliefs and values for any reason except the safety and love of her family. It’s exactly why her grandparents escaped from the Soviet Union and her dad’s family made it out of Ireland.
October 1994
Tara was 14 years old and absolutely beautiful for her age. Dark hair, porcelain skin, and almond-shaped hazel eyes made her the prettiest girl in her grade, if not the whole school. She was popular and had just started her freshman year in high school thanks to skipping the fourth grade.
Tara’s social group was mainly the kids in clubs like the Young Astronauts, theater, science fiction and fantasy, and the National Honor Society. She was obsessed with shows like Highlander, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and read all the science fiction she could find. Ray Bradbury and Robert Silverberg were her favorite authors.
On the flip side, she loved watching the E! Channel for celebrity gossip, fashion, and MTV. She was also on the cheerleading and dance squads. Her mom had her take ballet lessons starting when she could walk. She quickly learned to love the routines and muscle memory of ballet, cheerleading, and dance. She was a perfectionist and quickly became the captain of the JV cheerleading and dance squads.
This is how she crossed paths with the human spider web known as Jax Teller.
She was getting ready to cheer and dance at the Homecoming football game. She was running late and was supposed to enter the field from the gym’s girls locker room. Instead, she had to run through the designated smoking section* to get to the game on time to start the routines she had to lead. The area was pretty much populated by the burnouts, stoners, skaters, and bikers.
She knew this was going to be a nerve-wracking route but couldn’t afford to be late. She felt like a complete idiot in her cheerleading uniform based on the stares she was getting when suddenly the loudest wolf whistle she’d ever heard broke the silence. She knew exactly who it came from and her heart skipped a beat.
Jax Teller stepped in front of her and blocked the path to the football field. As she ran into him at full speed, it was like hitting a brick wall when her face planted right into his leather jacket. The smell of cigarettes, motor oil, and an aftershave that could only be described as sex in a bottle completely invaded her senses, causing her to become dizzy.
She was desperately trying to avoid falling by grabbing onto Jax’s arms which caused both of them to fall to the ground together. He landed on top of her in what ended up being a very embarrassing missionary position. If she hadn’t been taking AP Human Anatomy and Physiology this semester, she would have sworn she lost her virginity in the process. Hell, the only reason she knew the name of the position was from watching some seriously Rated R movies snuck into the cheer camp slumber party by her best friend a week before school started.
To make the situation even more awkward, the new cheerleading uniforms the school had gotten at the beginning of the year left little to the imagination. Hers was a half top and mini skort that barely covered her butt; what little discretion it provided was in the form of built in biker shorts. Her dad said they were borderline stripper outfits and only half-jokingly said they needed built-in chastity belts.
So she was already beyond anxious at hopefully not having a boob slip out mid cheer during the actual routines and now here she was with Jax Teller on top of her with the skort completely rolled up to her waist. She could only thank Jesus, Joseph, and Mary that the biker shorts prevented complete nudity.
Up close, Jax was unbelievably good looking. Before she could linger on how the hell does a guy in high school have a beard, and how much she liked the feel of it on her face, his mouth hit hers. She struggled to get back up and they practically kissed as she tripped forward. Jax did help her get back to her feet but almost immediately cornered her against the tennis court fence bordering the smoking area in front of everyone currently in the smoking area.
“Well, well, if it isn’t little Tara Knowles, the picture of innocence, tackling me in the smoking section of all places. If you want me, all you have to do is ask and we can get you completely out of that bikini they call a uniform right now.”
Tara was horrified. She wasn’t prude, but she barely just had her first kiss with David Hale during a game of spin the bottle that summer. Now she had Jax Teller cornering her like a wolf, looking like sex on legs, and smelling like pheromones gone wild whispering all the filthy things he was going to do to her in her ear while peppering her neck with kisses; electrical currents traveled from those kisses to her brain and then to the warm pit of her stomach.
Her brain turned to mush and her face blushed fifty shades of red. Her senses kicked in though and she tried ducking her way out of his grasp. Unfortunately, he was at least a foot taller and 200 pounds of sinewy muscle to her 110 pound petite yet shapely frame. He held her against the fence while trying to kiss her, but she was quicker and kneed him in the balls.
As he doubled over in pain, she made a break for it and just barely made it to the sidelines, starting the first routine. Everything went perfectly and she almost forgot the earlier embarrassment until the end of the drill when she heard that same wolf whistle.
As she looked up into the bleachers, she saw Jax Teller with Opie Winston and what looked like the entire motorcycle club his family ran. He stared straight at her and looked furious. At that moment, she felt the Earth shift on its axis and instantly regretted the shortcut she took to get her to the game on time.