"Lock up if you decide to go anywhere, " Denise said, slinging a small backpack over her shoulder - nearly a week had passed since the incident at the bar on Monday, and now that it was Friday, she was going back down to the Bay Area. Juice, on the other hand, was sitting on the sofa wearing a pair of boxers and an undershirt. Seemingly having gotten past the awkward fact that they'd made out in alleyway when they'd both had a little too much to drink, Denise was surprisingly unfazed by this, but gave him shit for it anyway once it became habit for him.

"Leaving would mean putting pants on," he shrugged, grimacing slightly. Denise rolled her eyes and chuckled as she walked out the door. She made it out to the car and let out a small sigh, pulling out her phone to call her brother and let him know that she was in the car. Denise couldn't admit it to herself or to anyone else, but she was strangely glad that she didn't have much of anything as far as information to pass on about Juice. She was becoming less and less willing to follow through with this.

Juice, however, watched out the window for her to drive off and started to get dressed - he had things to check on that he couldn't risk her getting caught following him. Little did he know, however, that she had pulled off into a side street and switched cars at a location that Charles had set up, leaving the key with a local business owner for her to pick up. Leaving her trademark blue Ford Focus at this location, she returned to the main street in a black Lexus in time to see that Juice had left the apartment and started off somewhere on foot.


Chibs didn't feel completely secure any time Unser told him they needed to be somewhere alone - but again, here he was, sitting in the passenger seat of Unser's old car as they drove up high five.

"I hope this has something to do with Meimei," Chibs said sourly, his gaze planted on the road ahead of them. "I'm supposed to be putting all of my goddamn time into finding it, whatever it is."

"I have no idea about where you're gonna find whatever this Meimei," Unser replied. Jax's current theory, outlandish as it seemed, was that Meimei had to do with a drug deal that they needed to intercept - Chibs had tried to reason otherwise, but he was met with Jax's stubborn insistence that Meimei, which he found meant 'little sister' in Chinese, was somehow a type of code, a reference to 'little sister' in Billy Idol's song, White Wedding. Jax wouldn't listen to any suggestion that he was growing more and more ridiculous, less and less level-headed in his pursuit. "It's a good cover, though," Unser continued. Chibs frowned and gestured with his hand for Unser to continue.

"Listen," he said. "I know that you're putting on this front for the club's sake, but they're not here. They won't know."

Chibs understood now very quickly what this meant, coming from Unser. This had something to do with Juice.

"What's going on with the boy now?" he asked stiffly. "Is he in some kind of trouble?"

"When isn't he?" Unser asked with a heaving breath. "I got a call in from a connection at the Stockton impound lot. They have his bike, no sign of him anywhere. I thought we should go check it out."

"You know I can't do this."

"It's better than taking shots in the dark about what the hell Meimei is," Unser pointed out. Chibs grudgingly admitted that the old man had a point.


Juice waited until dark to sneak into the impound lot under the chain-link fence - he didn't want to pay his bike a visit while Denise was around, because she'd ask questions. She'd want to know why a bike mattered so much to him, and answering that question would lead to more questions that she didn't need to know the answer to.

But she wanted those answers more than anything, evidenced by the fact that she very quietly followed him in, sliding through the gap he'd left under the fence with hardly a sound and nimbly crouching through the next row over.

Juice stopped next to his bike, quickly able to find it as though drawn to it like a magnet. He crouched next to it and patted his hand on the seat with a breath.

"I can't come back for you yet," he explained in a near whisper that Denise had to struggle to hear, even though their surroundings were practically dead silent. "There's too much at stake. But eventually you'll be outta here."

"She'll be out of here tonight."

Denise clenched her jaw to keep from gasping at the arrival of an unfamiliar voice. Juice leapt to his feet and pulled his Beretta out of the waistband of his pants; Denise heard him cock it, and she immediately wondered if she'd gotten herself into a situation she couldn't get out of with her life.

"Don't make me shoot you, Chibs," Juice said, his voice quavering audibly - the request was probably more for himself than anything else, because as badly as he was shaking, he actually might have missed. Denise listened with bated breath from behind another impounded car as a set of footsteps drew nearer with a series of dull thuds.

"Put the fucking gun down, boy, I'm not here to hurt you."

There was a dense thick silence that rolled in like a fog before another sound - Juice had actually dropped his gun to the ground. There was no further sound that indicated her or this Chibs had taken as much as a step closer to one another, and Denise slowly pivoted so that she could just barely glimpse them from the reflection of a reflection in a rearview mirror.

"Unser got his hands on these," Chibs said, holding up a pair of keys for Juice to see. "Only he and I know that you're here. You don't look like you've been on the streets or holed up in a motel. You look well."

"Yeah. I'm doing pretty well for myself," Juice said stiffly.

"I'm taking the bike back to Charming," Chibs said - he paused, as though his statement had surprised even himself. "To Jax. We'll convince everyone you're dead. You can go on with whatever you've got going for you here -"

"You're -"

"I'm going to cover for you, boy, don't waste it," Chibs said through gritted teeth. "Whatever you've got -"

"There's a girl, Chibs," Juice interrupted abruptly, cutting the man off as though the confession had disoriented him and he wanted to say anything he could to put it on pause. Denise, on the other hand, pressed a hand over her mouth and looked away from the mirror she used as a periscope of sorts. She didn't want to start meaning something to him, not now that she was starting to get the information she needed - but it seemed like it was too late.

"Well," Chibs said with a slightly forced laugh after a short pause. "I hope she's a good one."

"She's good. Too good," Juice said before adding, with a certain weakness to his voice, "Like, Tara-good."

Tara. Denise's brow furrowed as she struggled to place whether or not she had even come across the name in her background reading. What did she have to do with Juice, and why did he sound so damaged when he mentioned her name?

"Then… keep her the hell away from Charming," Chibs advised. Juice gave a weak laugh, and the message behind it was clear. he had never had any intention of bringing Denise anywhere near Charming. Another silence, before Chibs gave a heaving sigh and spoke up again in a barely audible voice. "I love you, Juicy."

"I know," Juice replied, chuckling again. And then, slowly, Chibs approached and clapped a hand on Juice's shoulder. Juice did him one better and enveloped the older man in a tight hug, extremely relieved at having achieved some level of peace.

Pulling away from the hug, Chibs cleared his throat and spoke up, this time sounding much more grave. "They'll want your kutte."

"What?"

"It's the only way that Jax will believe that you're dead - as much as he hates you, the only way he knows you'd let go of it is if it's pulled off of your cold, dead body."

Denise's eyes widened slightly. The kutte was still in the townhouse - they were going back there, and if she wanted to follow, if she wanted to keep finding any of the information she needed to get this over with. She scrambled silently back across the lot, out under the chainlink fence, and back home.

"It's back home - I mean, back at… her place," Juice explained. Chibs raised his eyebrows slightly at the fact that whoever this girl was, Juice was actually staying with her, calling her place home. "How about you just follow? I'll hand it over back there."

Chibs couldn't help but throw him a bone, handing him the keys to his bike so he could have one last ride, while Chibs rode along behind him with Unser in the car. Unser kept quiet, but Chibs knew that inside, the old man was smug as hell. They pulled up in front of the small slate blue townhouse. Chibs was again surprised when Juice handed him back the keys to the bike, and in turn, pulled a key out of his pocket to unlock the front door.

He was really living with this girl. They both walked into the empty house, and Chibs felt a strange sense of relief that the boy had a decent setup here, even if it was obvious he was just staying on the couch.

"She's really something," Juice said with a throaty chuckle - he didn't know that behind the closed door to Denise's bedroom, she was waiting and listening. "I.. I think if I don't ever go back to Charming…"

His voice trailed off, and Denise buried her head in her hands at the fact that there was a possibility this had gone too far - she had taken her act too far. It was only supposed to be enough to get the information she needed, but instead, she was beginning to mean something to him. He was beginning to see a vague idea of a future with her, when there was no future to be had. Was there?

"It's good you got away when you did - it's about to go down. Jax is taking us all straight to hell," Chibs admitted, the defeat clear in his voice. "He doesn't give a damn about the club. The Sons are just his tools. He'll go to any lengths for it now."

"For?"

"For revenge," Chibs explain. "Against Lin."

And suddenly, Denise couldn't hold in her reaction - she let out a gasp that, judging by the silence that fell on the living room, she'd been heard. There were a few moments of silence, where she felt herself shaking in fear that she'd now been found out, then the door she was leaning against was forcefully yanked open, and she fell out of the room, scrambling to her feet and facing both Juice and Chibs with a deer-in-the-headlights expression.

"Is this her?"

"I'm Denise. Denise Kwan," she said, drawing herself up as best as she could. Chibs looked to Juice, who gave a slight nod, but looked at her with an expression that strangely resembled hurt. He said nothing.

"You can call me Chibs if you ever see my ugly mug again," the older man said, holding his gloved hand out to her. Hesitantly, she reached out to shake up, withdrawing as quickly as possible. "But I pray you don't." Denise glanced between the two men and saw that Juice's kutte was slung over Chibs' other forearm, and he was pointedly avoiding looking at it. Chibs glanced, in turn, between Juice and his Good Samaritan, and chuckled, shaking his head and looking down at the ground. "You two look out for one another. Good luck, alright?"

And he left abruptly, closing the door behind him and leaving Juice and Denise alone. There was a long silence, where neither of them looked at one another, each with their own bone to pick but neither with the willingness to speak first until finally Denise crossed her arms and shifted her weight resolutely.

"Why did you just bring someone into my house -"

"Why did you lie about going home to Burlingame tonight?" Juice snapped, his face suddenly contorting in hurt and anger - he consciously took a few steps forward, prompting Denise to take a couple of steps back. "You don't trust me? You too?" he said - Denise felt herself shaking again, now at the realization that for whatever reason, her not trusting him had made him snap. "Well, that's fucking amazing!" he roared, slapping the bare palm of his hand on the wall behind her with a loud thud, causing her to jump in surprise and give a small cry. Immediately realizing what he'd done, Juice withdrew his hand, running both hands hard over the sides of his head and turning away briefly, looking upward.

"I'm sorry - Dee, I'm sorry," he said, unable to look at her after what he'd just done. He had no right, he reminded himself. She had every right to be pissed at him, and he had none. But he was angry nonetheless. Hurt. "I'm sorry, I just -"

"I don't trust you?" Denise interrupted, her voice now shaky and filled with fury - it was a tone so unfamiliar from the short weeks he had known her that he froze and turned around quickly to see that her face, too, was red and pinched with anger. "That - that is bullshit. I let you in my house without knowing a damn thing about you, I didn't ask you questions, even when you put a gun in my face. Don't ride me about not trusting you," she hissed angrily. There was a short while of heated, prolonged eye contact and silence before she gave a huff and strode past him.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his jaw tight. Suddenly, she didn't seem like the sweet girl that he'd gotten to know, the waif who had taken him in off of the street. She was hard. She was angry. She turned to him with a challenging expression, raising her eyebrows and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Just so you're happy - just so you don't accuse me of lying," she said pointedly, "I will leave."

She turned and walked towards the door, closing her hand around the doorknob and starting to pull the door open. Before she could open a gap large enough to exit through, however, Juice had practically flown across the room and again slammed his hand on the door, shutting it so hard that it nearly bounced against the doorjamb. He grabbed her by the crook of her arm and turned her to face him.

"You're not going anywhere," he said, his eyes glaring and focused, but his voice filled with something else. Before Denise could even begin to wonder what that something else was, however, he answered the question for her as he brought his mouth down upon hers, kissing her forcefully and pressing her with his muscular body against the door.

He let out a guttural growl when he realized this time, completely sober, she was still reciprocating - her teeth caught gently on his lower lip, and he pulled back momentarily for breath, resting his forehead against hers and roving his hands over her waist, her hips, before clasping onto her thighs and hoisting her upwards. She obliged, wrapping her legs around him as he wolfishly leaned in again, aiming his kisses now on the pale skin of her neck.

"Juan…" she said with a small whimper, the nails of one hand grazing over the nape of his neck. He laughed throatily without pulling back, the sensation of which caused her to give a sensual gasp. He smirked with satisfaction as he pulled back momentarily.

"Call me Juice," he said before he could stop himself - and as he pressed his hips firmly against hers, she willingly obliged.