The night was cool when Kozik and Cassia arrived back in Charming. The weekend had been longer than expected. He hadn't minded that at all. In fact it was a nice break from the chaos of the club. He enjoyed the family dynamic that Cassia, Carter and their grandparents had. It wasn't something he had seen since Cassia's mom was alive. It was nice to see the brunette being genuinely happy in life again. "Cass."

"Yeah?" Cassia turned slightly to look at Kozik as they walked up the pathway to her home. "I'm sorry that the weekend ran long. I just couldn't pull myself away from that handsome little Carter Jace. I also had to give him love and kisses, let him know that I'll be back real soon."

"He was cool." The man opened the front door, watching the young woman walk into the house before he walked in after her, closing and locking the door behind them before setting the alarm. "Except when he started to call me Kozy."

She laughed as she started stripping out of her clothes. "That was a cute nickname, he does the best he can. He's still little and learning names and faces. Be happy he attempted to pronounce your name Kozy. Could've introduced you as Herman, maybe he would've called you Herm the Worm or something."

"No." He chuckled and shook his head as he dropped onto the sofa, his blue eyes on the brunette as she stood before him in just her bra and panties. "Thank you for letting me tag along this weekend, it was pretty nice."

"Don't get sentimental on me." She rolled her eyes as she started to scrounge through her duffel bag. "I'm going to take a shower and get ready for bed, you're free to hangout around here. You know where everything is."

"I actually have to check in with your dad, let him know everything went well." Kozik pointed to her scattered clothes. "He should be coming over soon, so you might want to pick those up. I don't need him thinking we're up to something. I kinda like being alive."

"I kinda like you alive." She picked up her clothes and shrugged as she heard the doorbell. "Yeah, have fun with Clay. Tell him I got a headache and need a long shower to feel better and not to bug me. Alright? Yeah? Cool."

"Not even going to bother to say hi to your own dad?" Kozik stood up, moving towards the front door, opening it up quickly before disarming the alarm system. "Hey Clay, we just got back, Cassia is taking a shower, she got a headache on the drive home."

Clay smiled as he and Gemma walked further into the house. "I'm sorry I put you on babysitting duty this weekend. Just with the Mayans issues, I couldn't risk sending her to her grandparents on her own." He shook his head as he looked at the duffel bags. "She packed like she was going to move out there."

"I'm going to go check on her." Gemma smiled as she kissed Kozik's cheek. "Thank you for looking after her this weekend."

"No problem." The man nodded. "It was kind of a nice vacation for me as well."

Clay nodded his head slowly as he took a seat. "So, it's safe to say that you'll keep the secret then? That you won't tell anyone she has a kid."

"Yeah, I won't say a word." Kozik shook his head, hoping the confusion wasn't apparent on his face as he stared at the man. "Not my place to. I do have to question why it has to be kept a secret? Won't it come out eventually?"

"I don't need enemies of the clubs knowing and I don't want her being judged. She's a young unwed mother." Clay shook his head. "I care about her reputation and that can't be it right now. Her mother would have a fit if she were around to see her daughter get knocked up and dumped by some asshole who didn't even think twice about leaving her alone to raise a kid. She made a good decision, finishing up school and letting her grandparents take the kid."

"I heard her mention bringing Carter here when she finishes up with school." Kozik shrugged. "I can understand that you don't want her to have a bad reputation though."

"Is that so?" Clay shook his head. "I hope she lets him stay a little longer, until she gets her career started. That's not important though. Where's your head at? You ready to come off of babysitting detail and join the club on some real jobs?"

"I'd love that." Kozik nodded his head and smiled. "I'd love to be back out helping the club."

"Good, good." The older man nodded and smiled. "It'll be good to have you as help. Love when you and Happy can work with us."

"We need to get her some food in this house." Gemma walked into the living room. "The girl needs to put some more meat on her bones."

"There's food." Cassia rolled her eyes as she walked into the living room. "You should've knocked before you just walked on into my bathroom like that Gemma."

"Honey, I've seen it all before." Gemma shook her head. "You could stand to put on some weight. No good with starving yourself, no matter how focused you are on your studies, you can't start forgetting to eat again Cassia."

"I'm not forgetting to eat, I'm eating just fine." She sighed. "Three meals a day, sometimes snacks. I've just cut back on all the fast food stops on the way home. I lost a little weight but the doctor told me I'm not unhealthy unless I lose even more weight than this."

"Good news." Clay cleared his throat, sensing that the women were headed for yet another heated argument over his daughter's bad habits. "Kozik is no longer your babysitter, he's coming back to the table. More helping out the club."

"Finally." Cassia smiled widely. "No more Sons trailing me every fucking where I go." She set the beer out on the coffee table and nodded. "Unless you're planning on putting Juice and that prospect back on me. That was fun, it was easy to shake both of them, even more fun when they'd call you freaking out over losing me."

"Juice did say he had fun following you around though, said when you finally let him into the house he was impressed with your electronics and computer setup." Gemma nodded. "Also oozed about how warm and welcoming you turned out to be. Guess he expected you to be a plain ol' ice queen."

"Oh yeah? Juice was pretty cool, he geeked out over the computers but I told him it's what I kinda did when I started college. Computer security and hacking. He laughed that I'm a white hat and he's a black hat." Cassia sat on the end of the coffee table and shrugged. "Carter is doing fine if you wanted to know dad. He's big, talking a lot more too, he's even got a nice collection of hot wheels and Kozik tried sucking up to him and giving him a little die cast Harley. He hated it at first but by this morning he was all about the bike."

"I'm glad he likes the bike. Your grandparents need anything?" Clay touched his daughter's arm. "Anything for them or Carter?"

"No, I took care of it all." She shrugged his hand off her arm. "It's fine, my mistake so I'll cover any and all expenses for him. You don't need to worry about it at all."

"Alright." He nodded his head slowly. "I'm proud of you for taking care of it all Cassia, I promise you that much. Your mom would be proud as well."

"Thanks." She murmured as she took a sip of her beer. "I don't know about that, she always told me to fall in love, get married and then have a child. She might be looking down at me right now, just shaking her head over me going about life backwards."

"You fell in love, just with the wrong guy." Gemma nodded slowly. "You'll fall in love again, with the right man. It'll come unexpectedly. Why don't you get to know some of the prospects?"

"No." Clay shook his head. "She doesn't need to get caught up with a club member. That's the last thing her mom would ever want for her. She can find one at school or in her field when her career starts, Gem."

"I'm not taking relationship advice from cheaters." Cassia glared at the couple. "I'm especially not taking advice from a 'woman' who disrespects another woman for no solid reason. Cheating emotionally is way worse than just sleeping with each other. Yes, I know you cheated on mom with Gemma. Jax and I do talk you both know that right? Tried to say you were friends with my mom yet you're now in love and married to her husband? Same with you dad, married your best friend's wife? That's so fucked up on so many levels. What'd mom and JT do to ever deserve that?"

"Not having this conversation right now." He growled at his daughter. "It's none of your damn business either. You're the child and we're the adults."

"Whatever." She rolled her eyes as she stood up. "Just know that you guys are supposed to be the adults I can look up to. I'm going to bed, you can all let yourselves out. I'll be happily changing the locks and security codes when I wake up in the morning, now that I'm free from having a damn babysitter."

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Four in the morning and Cassia was wide awake. Sitting atop her home as she took a long drag of the cigarette between her index and middle fingers. It was her bad habit, the nastiest one she had yet to break and the one she hid from everyone else. She was stressed and the glee on Kozik's face earlier, when it was announced that he was no longer her babysitter had dampened her spirit to say the least. Now, she needed someone else to fill the time she had between school and work, the time she hated being by herself.

"You know, the clubhouse roof is way more safe than this one, right darlin'?" The man's voice pulled the brunette's attention, earning him an eyeroll and smirk. "You know, you shouldn't be smoking, that's kinda my thing." He took the cigarette from the brunette's loose grasp and took a drag from it. "I haven't got an SOS message from you in a while, what's wrong?"

"Jax did you just ask me what's wrong?" She chuckled, tucking her hair behind her ears as she tightened her denim jacket around her frame. "Your mom, my dad." She shrugged. "Treat me like an adult until I want to have an adult conversation, then I'm a child. You know I hate when they offer up relationship advice."

"My mother is trying to get you to link up with a Son again and Clay isn't having it?" Jax laughed and shook his head as he bumped against the brunette. "Remember when they first announced they were getting together?"

"I nearly passed out." She shook her head as she took the cigarette back. "I didn't like it at all. I hated it in fact. Fresh out of a divorce and the passing of your dad, then they were getting together like it was nothing. Didn't even think twice about my mom's broken heart. I didn't get it and still don't. I know feelings change and that's all fine but I don't get the whole situation. Ugh, change the subject before I get pissed off."

"Um, congratulations on being Kozik free, it's been like years with him watching you and now you're free of any Sons?" He nodded slowly and smiled as he stubbed out the cigarette. "I know you have to be happy about having your life back?"

"I'm loving it, it's only been a few hours but I'm happy to have complete freedom. I can literally just up and leave right now if I wanted to. I was thinking maybe after finals, going to live with my grandparents for a bit, be closer to Carter." She smiled. "It'd be quite lovely, don't you think so? Napa, the vineyards, chasing my son through them without having to worry about being dragged to a lockdown or a bulky man lurking in the shadows."

"I wish I could just up and leave." He shook his head. "Remember when we tried that? Tried running away for a bit? Two days in and Clay was calling us back for some lockdown because he pissed off the Niners. Made it all the way to Monterey Bay though."

"Loved the aquarium. The octopus was so cool, hands down my most favorite sea creature." She laughed. "So much so that it's tattooed on my foot."

"You would love the creepiest thing in that place." He chuckled. "So am I going to get more SOS texts now?"

"I don't know, I just needed someone to talk to that understood the annoying aspect of Clay and Gemma. No offense but you're mom is way to intrusive, she still tries to treat me as if I'm a teenager and needed to be monitored." Cassia shrugged. "I just remember us going off and just talking, venting, smoking and drinking a beer. You never treated me any differently, despite being a few years older than me. You treated me like a friend and I always loved that, still love it."

"I'd like to think of myself as a good friend." He nodded slowly as he looked over the neighborhood and smiled. "We're staying out until sunrise huh?"

"I am but you're more than welcome to leave if you have somewhere else to be." She nodded her head, her eyes trained on the sky before her as it slowly started to grow lighter and lighter. "Even thought I have class in four hours, I'm running on no sleep but nothing a little coffee won't cure for me. I'll sleep when finals are done with. I'll sleep in hopefully until like nine or ten. I'm not too picky." She chuckled. "Would really love to sleep in with Carter like I did over the weekend. Man oh man. I loved it."

"You ever going to bring him around?" Jackson looked at the brunette intently before smiling. "I know Clay wants to keep him as some big ass secret and supposedly spare your reputation. That's what he told me at least."

The brunette scoffed, she knew it wasn't her reputation that the man wanted to save. It was his own because at the end of the day, Clay cared about two things, himself and the club. He didn't know how to love and he definitely didn't know how to parent. Her mom was the parent, she did everything for Cassia all the way until she had taken her last breath. "Oh, how kind of him, wanting to spare my reputation. I don't really care about what people think about me. As soon as I graduate, I'm going to get my boy back. Don't think I'll raise him in Charming though. I was thinking in the city somewhere. I have enough money to buy a nice place there."

"You should get out of Charming, you have nothing holding you here anyways. You can get up and move away if you wanted to." He nodded slowly. "I envy you in that aspect, you not getting tied down here. I'm only leaving Charming in a body bag, let's be honest."

"Ha." She laughed before covering her mouth. "You know that's so morbid and it's sad because it's true but if anything, you're more than welcome to tag along with Carter and I. Your mom would probably fucking die if you quit the club and then you'd have to black out all of that ink that you have for the club. I told you not to get that tattoo on your back but nah, just had to have it to be cool."

Jax looked at his friend and shook his head. "If life were that simple for me, then I'd do that. There's so much more to this that you don't see Cassia, just be happy you aren't tied to the club in the way that I am. Yeah, your dad is the president but you're a girl, you didn't get sucked into the club life and wanting to date a Son like most girls in Charming. Get out while you can or you'll die here too. Don't let your life end in tragedy, get out of here and be better than this life."

"I will." She mumbled as she trailed her fingers through her hair. If only life were that simple. She chuckled softly. If anyone knew how tied to the club she actually was, they'd look at her like she was stupid. Throwing it all away to chase after a man that would never return feelings as strong as hers. "As soon as I'm done with school, I'm moving out of Charming. Hopefully before my dad can piss off another club or gang."