Ashes & Asphalt

Chapter Eight - A New Rhythm

The roar of engines hummed low in the background as Jax stood outside the garage, wiping grease from his fingers with an old rag. Kellan leaned against the wall nearby, a cigarette dangling from his lips, boots crossed at the ankle, completely at ease in the leather and heat of the compound. It was almost too easy—this unspoken rhythm they’d fallen into. Like oil finding the threads of a well-worn machine.

They didn’t talk much. They didn’t have to.

Jax didn’t say it aloud, but he knew Ghost would’ve approved.

“Bike’s runnin’ smoother than she has in months,” Kellan noted, flicking ash onto the gravel. “That sound’s clean.”

Jax nodded once. “She’s got good bones. Just needed someone to listen.”

Mason interrupted the quiet flow, walking up from the far side of the compound, his expression tight. Jax could read him instantly—something had shifted.

“What’s the update?” Jax asked, standing straighter.

Mason didn’t sugarcoat it. “Denny’s crew is splitting routes. They’re covering more ground now, crossing into territory they don’t belong in. We intercepted two of their guys asking questions about our warehouse runs. They’re poking.”

Jax’s jaw flexed. “You think it’s more than just curiosity?”

Mason nodded. “Feels like a test. See how close they can get before we bite.”

Jax turned his eyes toward the open lot. The sky was cloudless and sharp. It felt like tension coiled beneath the surface, waiting for someone to break it.

“We’re not biting,” Jax said, his voice calm but cutting. “Not yet. Keep eyes on them. I want details—who they meet, where they stop, who they pay off.”

Mason looked like he had more to say, but he paused. “There’s something else.”

Jax raised a brow.

“They’re not just talking to middlemen. Word is, they’re looking to shake hands with people we used to run with. People loyal to the Ghost name, not the patch.”

That was a low blow—and a calculated one.

Jax’s silence thickened the air. Ghost’s name still carried weight, even in death. Using it to splinter what he built felt like dragging a body through the dirt.

“They think I’m asleep at the wheel,” Jax muttered.

Kellan stubbed out his cigarette, standing beside him. “Then it’s time we remind them who’s still behind the handlebars.”

Jax looked between them—Mason, loyal as hell, and Kellan, stepping into Ghost’s shadow with quiet conviction.

Things were shifting. The rhythm was changing.

And Jax was finally ready to match it.

Later that day, the sun dipped low as Jax and Kellan rolled up to the rundown truck stop where Denny’s crew had been circling too long. It was the kind of place that stank of stale coffee, motor oil, and desperate men clinging to low-paying hustles. A neutral zone, technically. But Jax had no use for technicalities when a warning needed to be delivered.

They didn’t roll in loud.

They rolled in prepared.

Kellan scanned the lot as they dismounted. Three of Denny’s men lounged near the corner of the diner, all patched in and pretending to laugh. But the way they tensed when Jax approached? That told the real story.

Jax adjusted his leather jacket. No weapon drawn, no flash of aggression. Just that calm, controlled look that made men twice his size rethink everything.

“Evenin’,” he greeted smoothly.

The tallest of Denny’s men—Corey, if Mason’s intel was correct—gave a tight smile. “Didn’t expect to see you this far off the map.”

Jax took a slow step closer. “You expected wrong.”

Corey shifted his weight, the other two watching Jax like prey realizing the lion didn’t come alone. Kellan stood behind Jax with quiet precision, a hand resting casually near the back of his belt, posture easy—dangerously easy.

“I’m only gonna say this once,” Jax continued, voice low. “Whatever game Denny’s playing? It ends here. Now. You’ve been sniffing around things that don’t belong to you. That’s not just reckless. That’s a death wish.”

Corey scoffed. “We’re not looking for a fight.”

“No,” Jax agreed. “You’re looking for a crack in the wall. Hoping someone left the lights off long enough for you to slip in.” He took another step. “But the house is awake now. And I’m wide damn awake.”

The silence that followed was thick with meaning.

Kellan stepped forward just enough to let them know it wouldn’t just be words next time. “Tell Denny—Jax is still behind the handlebars. And I’m the one checking his blind spots.”

Jax gave a small nod. “We’re done here.”

And just like that, they turned their backs on the three men. Because real power didn’t need noise. It only needed confidence.

Back on their bikes, Jax lit a cigarette and stared out over the horizon as the engine rumbled beneath him.

“Think they’ll back off?” Kellan asked.

Jax exhaled smoke slowly. “They’ll think about it.”

He didn’t look over. Didn’t need to.

But he knew this was only the start.

Because threats like Denny? They didn’t stop. They waited for a weaker moment.

And Jax Maddox had no intention of giving them one.

The ride back from warning Denny’s crew had barely shaken the dust off their boots when Jax rolled into town the next morning—his mind already spinning through numbers, routes, and Kellan’s logistics report. The usual grind.

Until the universe hit the brakes.

And there she was.

Taylor.

Standing outside a small coffee shop in a fitted cream coat, wind pulling at the soft strands of her hair. Her posture was different—more rigid, more composed. But her eyes, when they met his, hadn’t changed. Not one damn bit.

His heart kicked once, hard.

Jax slowed the bike, engine growling low, gravel crunching beneath his tires. Kellan caught the change in him instantly and looked toward the sidewalk.

“Need a minute?” Kellan asked, already pulling his bike to the curb.

Jax didn’t answer. Didn’t nod.

He just moved.

Parked. Killed the engine. Got off and walked like he’d been rewound in time and set loose in a memory that still burned under his skin.

Taylor didn’t run. Didn’t look away.

She just stood there with her chin up, her hands locked around a paper cup like it could anchor her.

“I didn’t think I’d ever come back,” she said softly.

“I didn’t think you would either,” Jax replied, voice low and firm.

She looked older. Not in years, but in grief. In lessons learned. Her wedding ring was gone.

He noticed.

“You riding?” he asked, lifting a brow.

She blinked. “What?”

He handed her the helmet.

She stared at it for a second longer than she should’ve. And then, without a word, she took it—fingers brushing his.

When Taylor slipped behind him on the bike, her arms wrapped around him, and his chest pulled tight. It was instinct, muscle memory. She still fit there. And God help him, he let it happen.

He didn’t look back once.

They didn’t speak until he pulled into the long dirt drive of the old house. The one Ghost had helped him restore. Their hideout. Their quiet.

Jax parked. She got off slowly, taking in the porch, the chimney, the wind whispering through the trees.

“You kept it,” she murmured.

“I never stopped needing it.”

She didn’t ask why he brought her there. She knew. This was where they had found something real. Where he had read books by the fire. Where she had laid on that rug and smiled like the world wasn’t on fire.

They stepped inside. The silence greeted them like an old friend.

“I’ve been thinking about Elias,” she said finally. “More than usual.”

Jax swallowed hard.

She turned to face him. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

And even though everything had changed—her life, his walls, the rules he made to keep her out—Jax said what he always would:

“You came to the right place.”

But in the corner of his mind, he saw Lark.

And he knew this wasn’t going to be simple.

Not now. Not ever.

Inside the old house, the silence wrapped around them like a weighted blanket. Comfortable. Familiar. Heavy.

Taylor moved through the space like muscle memory pulled her forward. She touched the edge of the fireplace, smoothed her hand across the back of the armchair where Jax always sat, and then settled onto the soft rug near it, the way she used to.

Jax watched her.

She didn’t have the same edge. The spark she used to light fires with had gone quiet. Now, she burned lower—slower. But still, she burned.

“You been back long?” he asked, his voice a quiet rumble as he leaned against the kitchen archway, arms crossed.

Taylor shook her head. “Just a few days. No one knows I’m here but my sister.”

His gaze flicked down to her hand.

The ring finger was bare.

“You leave it at home?” he asked.

She followed his eyes, then pulled in a breath. “No. I left it with the lawyer.”

Jax’s jaw flexed. “You filing?”

Taylor nodded. “This week.”

He didn’t say anything. He just let it land. Let her speak when she was ready.

“I thought marrying him would fix me,” she said finally. “That if I buried everything deep enough, dressed the part, smiled the right way... I’d eventually start believing it.”

She looked up at him then. Honest. Raw.

“But Ghost haunted every corner of my world. I couldn’t cook without remembering him sneaking my food. I couldn’t sleep because I kept waking up expecting to hear his voice... or yours. And the worst part?” Her voice cracked. “I started feeling guilty when I laughed.”

Jax pushed off the wall, walked over, and sat on the floor beside her. Not touching. Just close enough.

“You ever tell Liam?” he asked.

She laughed bitterly. “He didn’t want to hear it. Not really. Not when it came to you or Ghost.”

“Smart man,” Jax muttered.

Taylor shook her head. “He wanted a family. Stability. I was supposed to give him that. But how do you start a future when you’re stuck in the past?”

They sat in silence.

Jax’s voice was low, like gravel and regret. “You came back to say goodbye?”

She met his gaze. “I came back to remember him. Properly. Not just through the pain.”

Jax leaned back on his hands, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “He’d hate all this mourning. He hated when we were quiet.”

Taylor gave a sad smile. “He’d call us both idiots for not screaming at each other by now.”

They both laughed—short, almost sharp.

The silence returned, but this time it didn’t ache.

It settled.

Like maybe they weren’t as lost as they thought. Just... paused.

Waiting to see what came next.

The fire crackled low in the hearth. Jax hadn’t lit it, but the memory of the warmth that once lived in this place between the three of them made the silence feel alive.

Taylor shifted beside him, pulling her knees to her chest. Her voice came soft—barely there.

“How do you do it?” she asked.

He turned his head just slightly. “Do what?”

“Keep going. After everything.” Her eyes met his. “After him.”

Jax looked away, jaw tight, breath slow. “I don’t know if I did.”

She blinked at that.

“I think I just... stopped bleeding where people could see it,” he added. “Made it easier for everyone else.”

Taylor looked down at her hands. “I thought seeing you every day after Ghost died would’ve been too much. I told myself the space would help. That if I left, it would dull the ache.”

Her voice trembled.

“But it didn’t. Nothing did.”

Jax stayed quiet, letting her speak.

She swallowed hard, like the words were knives on her tongue. “In those first days… I blamed you.”

That made him look at her. Not flinching. Not angry. Just accepting.

She pushed forward, voice cracking open. “I hated that he stepped in front of the bullet. I hated that it was you he was protecting. And I hated myself more for feeling that way, because I know he would’ve done it again in a heartbeat.”

Jax nodded once, slowly.

“I didn’t think that anymore,” she whispered. “I just didn’t know how to live in a world where he was gone... and you were still standing there reminding me of everything I lost.”

Her gaze lifted, laced in quiet guilt. “But the space didn’t erase you either. I saw him in everything... but he was always laced with you. You were always part of the memory.”

Jax closed his eyes for a moment.

“You think I don’t walk through that compound and see you in every f*****g corner?” he said, voice low. “Every whiskey glass, every goddamn dress someone wears too well, every night I wake up thinking I hear your laugh down the hall?”

He looked at her now, completely.

“You were never gone, Taylor. You just left the room.”

Her eyes burned. “I didn’t know if I’d ever be strong enough to face any of it.”

“You didn’t have to be,” Jax said simply. “You just had to come back.”

The weight of those words sat between them.

And for the first time since Ghost died, they didn’t feel like survivors clawing for air.

They felt like something else.

Something broken, but still breathing.

Taylor didn’t hesitate.

One second of silence between them, of memories thickening the air, and she moved.

Her hand slipped behind his neck, her lips finding his like they never left. No build-up. No waiting. Just fire—raw and blinding. Jax met her halfway, gripping her like she might disappear again if he let go.

She pressed her body against his, hands dragging down the leather he wore like second skin. Her kiss was rough, laced with grief and longing, like she was chasing every memory they hadn’t made.

He lifted her effortlessly, setting her on the table behind them, lips never leaving hers, their breaths ragged.

It was just like before—but deeper now. More dangerous. More necessary.

He slid his hand under her sweater, finding her skin hot beneath his touch. Her hips arched into him with a desperation that mirrored his own. The way they moved together, the way they unraveled—it wasn’t new.

It was familiar. Primal.

And not once—not for a second—did he think of it as a mistake.

No matter what women passed through his life since she left, none of them mattered.

Not like Taylor.

She was the only woman who had ever been on the back of his bike.

The only one he ever turned his whole life upside down for.

The only one who could kiss him like this and make him forget there were graves between them.

When she whispered his name into his mouth, Jax didn’t say a word. He just gripped her tighter, his forehead pressing against hers as their breathing slowed, the fire still flickering in the space between their skin.

And when they finally stilled, wrapped around each other like no time had passed at all, the world outside no longer existed.

Only her.

Only him.

And the ghost they both carried.

Her breath was still uneven, her lips kiss-swollen and parted, but her eyes never left his. Like she was trying to memorize him again. Every scar. Every shadow. Every sharp edge.

Jax stood between her knees, hands planted on either side of her thighs like she was the only thing anchoring him. Maybe she was. Maybe she always had been.

“I missed this,” she whispered, like it hurt to say out loud. Her fingers traced the line of his jaw, her touch gentle where their kiss had been anything but. “You.”

Jax didn’t answer with words. He dipped his head, his mouth pressing to the hollow of her throat, inhaling her like he’d been starved for the scent of her skin. She was everywhere—his senses drowned in her. The way her back arched into him, how her fingers slid beneath the hem of his shirt like she couldn’t bear not touching him.

He pulled her tighter against him, his hands gripping her hips like he was trying to convince himself she was real. That she’d come back. That this wasn’t another damn dream he’d wake from with clenched fists and blood in his throat.

“You’re in my head,” he said into her skin. “Always have been.”

She kissed him again—slow now, lingering. Like they weren’t just chasing something lost, but trying to find something new in the ruins of it. His hands roamed beneath her clothes, rough palms meeting soft skin, mapping her all over again.

He wanted to feel all of her. Needed to.

Her jacket slipped from her shoulders. Her sweater followed. Her body was still familiar, and yet he swore she had changed—grown sharper in her softness, more powerful in the way she pulled him in without trying.

His lips moved lower, trailing down her chest, her ribs, worshipping every inch he uncovered like she’d been written into his bones. And when she moaned his name—his real name, not his title—it cracked something in him he didn’t know was still breakable.

There was no rush. No one to interrupt them here.

Just her legs around him, her hands in his hair, her body surrendering to him like it was the only place she ever wanted to be.

He pulled her from the table, carrying her across the room without effort. Laid her down slow. Stared at her like a man seeing the moon for the first time.

And when he kissed her again—deep and aching—it wasn’t just lust. It was possession. Reverence. A thousand things he never learned to say out loud.

Because she was everywhere. In his lungs, under his skin, in the marrow of his goddamn soul.

And right now, he needed all of her.

The room darkened around them, only the dim light from the hallway slipping through the crack in the door. But even in shadows, she was golden to him.

Taylor’s fingers traced every inch of him like she was trying to relearn what had once been hers. She explored him slowly—jaw, shoulders, the line of his spine. Her touch wasn’t hesitant, but reverent. A silent acknowledgment of all they’d lost. And all that still lived in the space between them.

Jax kissed her like he had time to waste—long, deep pulls of her lips, his hands gripping her thighs and guiding her closer until their bodies aligned like they’d never been apart. His mouth found the hollow of her neck, the curve of her shoulder. Every kiss a brand.

Every touch a memory reignited.

“I used to dream of this,” she whispered against his skin. “Not the grief. Just us. This.”

He didn’t answer. Just watched her eyes flutter shut as he eased inside her, slow—so slow it almost broke him. She gasped, fingers tightening around his arms, and Jax stilled for a moment, forehead resting against hers.

“This isn’t just wanting you,” he murmured hoarsely. “It’s needing you. Different.”

She nodded like she understood, pulling him in deeper, anchoring him with her body, her hands, her breath against his lips. They moved together like they hadn’t been apart for months. Like nothing had been lost between them.

They didn’t speak much. The silence was filled with the sound of skin against skin, breath catching, bodies reacquainting themselves with the rhythm of belonging.

Jax rolled them, her legs tangled around him, her mouth falling open in a moan he muffled with his lips. His hand slipped behind her knee, lifting it higher, holding her where he wanted her—close, tight, his. And when she whispered his name with nothing but breath, he unraveled.

He lost himself in her again and again, the night stretching on like it didn’t want to end. And when they finally stilled, tangled in sweat and sheets, their bodies wrapped around each other, there was only silence left.

Not the empty kind.

But the kind where nothing else needed to be said.

She rested her head against his chest, fingers splayed across his heart, and he felt her breath slow. Felt her finally let go.

And for the first time since Ghost had died, Jax felt something close to peace.

He held her tighter, kissed the top of her head, and let the darkness cradle them both.