Chapter Text
I own none of these characters.
"The night is calling. I have to go. The wolf is hungry. He runs the show. He's licking his lips. He's ready to win. On the hunt tonight for love at first sting“
Tara gave her statement to Hale and the most she could go with against Gemma and Unser was disturbance. Apparently, Unser was in some shit for saying he needed to see permits because if there was an issue with permits, that office would contact her directly. He was looking at disciplinary action too.
Gemma and him would get fined since there wasn’t a direct threat. Gemma might have community service too. That was rich considering she reigned over the Taste of Charming every year. Tara was fine with that too. As long as Gemma faced some consequences for acting like she was the actual Queen of Charming instead of an obnoxious, menopausal biker mom with a serious reverse Oedipal complex.
Tara really enjoyed talking to Hale. She didn’t realize how much she missed his friendship and easy way of just listening and actually finding what she liked interesting. Back in high school they could talk about stuff like science fiction and fantasy for what seemed like hours.
He asked her to lunch and she agreed to meet him the next week on one of her days off from the hospital. She was happy just to be living in a good space on her head where she wasn’t worried about caring for anyone but herself and the little nugget on the way.
As Hale left Tara’s, he drove past the prospect Jax had stationed a block down from her place and had to laugh. Jax’s territorialism over Tara had not changed in the 15 years since they started dating. Now that she wasn’t his to claim ownership over anymore, he was going to be her friend again. If that led to something more, well he was more than ready to pursue and persist, no matter how long it took.
All Jax could do was get updates from the prospect on how Hale was at Tara’s for almost two hours. It didn’t take two hours to give a statement, did it? Hale was loving this turn of events and definitely milking any time he could get with Tara. She’s pregnant with his child though and he’ll be damned if Captain America thinks he is going to worm his way back into Tara’s life, pregnant or not.
December 1994
It was now basketball season and Tara was busy with Donna planning all of the cheer and dance routines for the season. Jax had not let up in his quest to aggravate her, but she honestly didn’t care. She was still harboring the crush, but since he decided to try and play her, she was actively ignoring him. They didn’t run in the same crowd, except for Donna was now dating Opie Winston.
Opie had no issue with Tara avoiding Jax, because he didn’t blame her. He knew Jax was in deep but would never admit to anything beyond claiming he was just proving that she was a snob. Opie had no issues with being pussy-whipped by Donna.
She was the best thing that ever happened to him, especially since his mom tried to take off with him and he had pretty much hitchhiked his way back to Charming. He spent any time not working at TM with Donna. It was only a matter of time before Jax would admit too that Tara had ties in him and the pull would overcome his pride.
Jax was still was the town pussy hound. When he wasn’t irritating Tara, he was fucking girls and getting blow jobs under the bleachers. This was par for the course for him. The thing that was changing was that he was starting to see Tara’s face every time he hooked up with anyone, high school girls or Croweaters.
He brushed it off as coming up with better ways to annoy her. In the back of his head, he knew it was more than that, no matter how hard he tried to explain it away. The night he hung out with her at Opie’s party at the clubhouse was always on his mind. No amount of sex, booze, or weed seemed to be able to rid his mind of how much he actually missed the connection they made.
He was obsessed with that kiss they had when he dropped her off. He knew he was into something because the minute they started kissing he wanted to take her right then and there. As if by telepathy, her father opened the door and the moment was over. All he could do was think of it on a loop in his head no matter how hard he tried to stop, he couldn’t.
When Hale walked with her in the halls, it drove him absolutely insane. He could not let Captain America go any further than that with her. She wasn’t his, but he knew that this shit was going beyond any kind of just hoping for a hookup when he made sure to follow them everywhere to bother her. He even started trying to figure where she was after school in case Hale was trying to push up on her without him around to keep that shit in check.
Tara had been talking to David more since he was walking her to class. They would go out on weekends as a group with the cheerleaders, football, and basketball players. Jax knew this but couldn’t follow them all over the place without looking like a psycho stalker so it drove him nuts. He figured they weren’t doing anything past PG-rated with a group of other kids around though.
The point of no return for Jax was the pep rally for the first basketball game of the season. The girls had planned a routine and dance number that topped anything they had done so far. They worked with the varsity squads and were excited for the rally.
David was on the sidelines with the rest of the juniors for the rally and Tara had told him they had a pretty intense cheer and dance routine planned. As the girls came out, for the first dance routine the outfits they had were, to say the least risqué. They had Bowie lightning face paint and black and gold leotards with low cut necklines. It was the music that took it to the next level though.
The first routine was to You’ve Got Another Thing Comin' by Judas Priest. Jax was sitting with the smoking section crowd who were pretty much all heavy metal fans. Holy shit, who knew cheerleaders listened to heavy metal?
If that Lita Ford, "Kiss Me Deadly", routine at Opie’s birthday was hot, this was a teenage boy’s fantasy come to life, right in front of them, and at school. The whole section started catcalling and head banging. The principal had to get on the air horn to quiet them down.
As if that wasn’t the best thing since Baywatch, the next dance was to the radio edit of “Rock You Like A Hurricane” by the Scorpions. Even Opie was shocked. Talk about love at first sting. Jax was absolutely done. This shit was for real now and he had to get to Tara as soon as possible.