The late autumn sun shone in through the window and lit up the room.
It didn't happen often in Wild Cliff that you were woken up by the sun but it seemed the perfect metaphor for the events of their lives, or at least Lola thought.
She turned in bed with a smile and patted the empty side next to her.
That side of the bed had been made and was cold.
When did Jax leave?
She got up and tied the robe around her before walking out with a yawn.
The smell of a sugary breakfast made her stomach growl and the pleasure-filled pain in her sore bones reminded her of last night. Though it was different from their earlier times, this had been a rollercoaster of pleasure and heat and Jax claimed her body like his life depended on it...several times.
Lola covered her lips with her fingers when a smile threatened to spread.
She walked down to find Jax with his bags packed by his feet and his father dressed in a grey wool coat and a passport in hand.
"I didn't know we were leaving now, I'll pack," Lola said in a hurry and turned around.
"Wait!" Jax grabbed her hand and pulled her back. "You should stay here, I thought about it and I think you'll be bored if you come. It's just CEO business mixed with pack business. We have to visit a couple of other Alphas and reevaluate a few of the terms of the treaty."
Lola smiled and shrugged a shoulder carelessly.
"I won't be bored, that sounds like fun," her smile only grew and she was eager to get up and pack.
The clothes she wanted to bring were thought out last night before she went to sleep. Everything she would need for the trip to New York had been mentally noted and all she had to do was put them in a bag. But something changed on Jax's face and he looked with a dripping shame and a painful gaze as he scanned her face.
"This is my first round as Alpha and CEO and I'm just thinking that maybe it's better if I go alone. Just so everything goes smoothly you know." He lifted the bag further up on his shoulder.
The air shifted and pressed on her lungs. Words were forming but refused to exit in vocal sounds and she felt her tongue twisting in her mouth.
Was this pain something she had to get used to? It had happened often lately and she didn't want to grow accustomed to it.
Lola had done everything she could, the biggest choice yet had been to stay, despite everything. She gave up trying to run- to escape when things got scary or tough or when people died.
Why couldn't he see all of that and instead chose to push her away?
"Sure," she said in an exhale filled with pain but the smile stayed. The smile hid the feeling of being gutted by the man she had come to love.
Jax leaned in for a quick kiss and then left with his father.
They disappeared out the door and Lola looked for him, hoping it was a joke whilst knowing full well that he wasn't about to turn around and grab her hand- pull her into the car and take her to New York.
He was gone, left for the car, and then drove away to enter their jet.
Only when the car was gone and she couldn't hear it did she walk outside and stand barefoot on the paved stairs.
She heard the clicking of heels against the floorboards behind her. The house would soon fill with Mrs. Blackwood's voice but Lola hoped to god that she wouldn't have to be the recipient.
The sky was dark and gloomy, the clouds turned more ominous by the minute and two things were clear as glass for Lola at that moment- the first was that rain would soon fall over the town and the second was that Jax had left for New York without her and she had no idea when he was coming back.
The aroma of the coffee was the first thing she smelled when Ash came walking up next to her. His hands warmed by the cup of steaming hot coffee and his eyes fixated on the road where the car had driven off.
It was clear that he wanted to speak but the words seemed to press against his closed lips. Bed-head hair and a loosely fit t-shirt seemed to be the fit of the day, causal for the first time since Lola had seen him.
"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked.
Lola straightened her back and looked with a distant gaze at where her husband had taken off.
How odd to miss someone who doesn't seem to think about you twice.
"Jax told me once that he was going to earn my love," She said and turned around, her eyes landing on him in a shallow flicker, "I'm trying to figure out where along the way he gave up on that."
Ash's eyes sunk into a pit and his lips parted as his fingers tightened around the cup.
A million thoughts spun in his head when he watched her eyes growing more and more distant with each passing memory of her fated love.
"Lola," her name slid off his tongue with tenderness. She realized at that moment that however he had behaved in the time since knowing her, he had always protected her name, spoken it with care.
The breeze turned colder and circled around them. Ash lifted his head and scanned Lola's face, he saw the pain that his cousin had caused but more obvious was the hope that had shattered at her feet. Hope does that to a person, it leaves you in shackles, broken and burned.
"Get changed and meet in the office in twenty," Ash said and drank his coffee as he walked inside.
She turned her head and walked after him. The only image in her mind was crawling back into bed.
"I think I'll just go back to sleep for a few more hours." She said.
"No, now that Jax is gone you're the leader of this pack and I know you don't know what that means. I'm going to teach you."
"I have to lead?"
"Yes and if someone comes to you with a question or alerts you of danger you have to act on it quickly."
Her eyes flickered to the stairs and the vision of the bed appeared before her. How good it would be to slip under the covers and pretend like her life wasn't her own for a day or two.
Maybe Melissa could come over with some wine and they could stay in her room and get day drunk.
"You're the Alpha's mate and wife. You are this packs' Luna, I'm sorry but the choice of responsibility isn't yours." He said and dragged her back from the daydream she was in.
"Fine, let me get dressed."
Lola walked toward the stairs and groaned.
"I heard that!" Ash said and headed to the office. "Ten minutes or I'm dragging your ass down myself." He said on his way down the corridor.