"Ever shoot a gun, before?"

"No."

"Bullets go here, safety on, safety off, aim, trigger, shoot."

"Okay," Abel said slowly taking the gun from Jax staring at it like it was a foreign object. Which for the record it was.

"No Abel, it isn't okay, this isn't a game anymore, do you understand that? I just gave you a gun, and your about to walk into Mayan territory to buy a shit-load of coke. This isn't a game, this is serious, people are going to get hurt, and I swear I'm not going to let that be you." Jax said loudly.

"You think I don't know that?" Abel cried dropping the gun on the table, "Jax, I am so far out of my league here. Half the time I'm so angry that I turn into a fifteen year old who has absolutely no sense of reason, and the other half of the time I'm driving myself insane with all the things I don't know."

"Then do something about it," Jax said firmly, "Talk to me, Abel-"

"I can't," He cried cutting him off, "I can't because most of the time you're the one pissing me off and driving me insane!"

"Then tell me that Abel, for fucks sake I can't fix anything unless you talk to me!"

"I don't want you to fucking fix anything!"

Abel and Jax fell silent as they stared at each other, breathing heavily.

"My life," Abel said quietly, "Up till now has been pretty simple, I'm not going to say easy, because there isn't anything easy about having a mom who is terrified of the entire world, and a dad who comes home all of three times a year, but it was simple. I'm not used to being told what to do, I'm not used to anyone worrying about me, and I'm not used to anyone trying to take care of me."

"Abel," Jax said just as quietly, "I'm not trying to take care of you, I'm just trying to keep you safe."

"Is there really a difference between the two?"

"I guess not," He paused, "So then what do you need from me? What do I need to do to keep you from being angry at me?"

"Do you want an honest answer to that?"

"It would be appreciated."

"I don't know." Abel admitted, "When I look at you all I see is how much you didn't want me, and then you go on about keeping me safe, and it's just so confusing and frustrating, and the only way I can deal with it is by getting mad. And I know how I come off, but I'm not an angry person by nature, Jax, I just don't know what to do with this, with you."

Abel seriously needed a bastard-no-longer-pledge, he didn't want to be mad at Jax, and he didn't want his father to think he was a spoiled asshole who thought he was better than anybody else, and could do whatever he pleased, and act however he pleased, and maybe if he could be honest with Jax, the idea of a bastard-no-longer-pledge could actually work.

Jax was silent for a little while before he nodded to himself, "I guess you think I'm going to abandon you in the middle of all of this like I did when you were a baby."

"I'm used to being alone," Abel blinked back tears, "But I can't do this alone, Jax. I need you."

Abel nearly breathed a sigh of relief, there had been so much weight sitting on his shoulders that finally admitting that he needed Jax and was scared of that felt so good that it outweighed the embarrassment of feeling like a kid who ran to his dad for every little problem.

"Abel, kid, if you think you are ever going to get rid of me again, then you are stupider than I thought you were."

"That's so easy for you to say, Jax, but it's a lot harder for me to believe when you gave me up in the first place."

"I didn't give you up, son. At least not in the way you think I did."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean-"

"Jackie Boy," Chibs entered the room with an apologetic look on his face, "We need to go."

"Right, okay," Jax shook his head as they both broke out of their little bubble they had been in, "You know how to use that now?"

Abel nodded, grabbing the gun, and tucking it into the waistband of the back of his jeans.

"Here."

"I've got it," Abel shook his head refusing the brown envelope filled with bills, he didn't know how to do any of this, but the one thing he could do was pay for things, he didn't want the club's money, not when he could actually be useful for once.

"Here," Jax said handing Abel a set of keys, "Take my truck, your car will draw attention."

Abel nodded and seconds later he was already on the main road headed towards Mayan territory, and a few minutes after that the sound of about eight motorcycles could be heard, revving up and falling into step with him.

He smiled to himself at the both familiar and unfamiliar sound of it, it was a comforting sound, not in the sense where it let him know that Jax was right behind him should he need anything, but in the sense where it reminded him of Cassidy, and that one perfect moment that was the beginning of everything.

Abel groaned as his phone vibrated loudly against his nightstand, if that was Nick, he was going to throw his phone out the window. Through squinted eyes he barely made out the letter 'c' before he pulled the phone up to his ear.

"Cassie?"

"Come outside."

"What?" He asked sitting up, "It's 3:30 in the morning."

"Just come outside Abel, I'm waiting."

With that she hung up the phone causing him to stare at the phone stupidly for a second before getting up with a groan as he forced himself to get dressed. He quickly pulled on a pair of grey sweatpants and a long-sleeved white shirt, and grabbed his keys, phone, and wallet while slipping into his black high tops.

He poked his head in his mom's room to make sure she was still sleeping, even though he knew she would be, she had taken her sleeping pills – probably more than she should have – and she wouldn't be up for hours.

He quietly slipped out of his house and took a moment just to stare at Cassidy.

She was dressed as lazily as him in a pair of short black sleep shorts that drove him insane – he would never understand how her legs could look like they went on forever despite the fact that she was short – and a long sleeved navy blue shirt with a pair of sneakers.

Her hair was tied up in that messy ponytail that never seemed to stay, and she was wearing her glasses that she hated but made him want to kiss her senseless.

"Is something wrong?" He asked making his way down the driveway.

"No," She smiled holding out her hand, "Come on, I want to show you something."

Abel stared at her hand for just a second too long causing her to pull it back and blush. God, he was such a fucking idiot, he was acting like he was the girl. Why was he being such a pussy? Oh yeah because this was Cassidy Somers and two weeks ago he had kissed her over her drunk mother's body, and they hadn't talked about it ever since.

"Where are we going?" He wondered aloud as she headed towards his car.

"Do you want directions, or do you want me to drive?"

"Are you going to crash my car?"

"It's definitely a hazard."

Abel laughed and handed her the car keys without much thought, he was the one who had taught her how to drive in the first place, she had asked him to teach her a while ago, and it had never occurred to him that her mom was just too drunk to teach her.

He hadn't thought too much into it, he never did when Cassidy asked him for something, all he thought when Cassidy asked him for something was, "How high should I jump?"

He got into the passenger seat of the car, as she got into the driver's seat of it. It was a weird experience, he was used to sitting on the other side with Cassidy next to him, and he was now wishing that he was the one driving because he could've sworn that there was nothing sexier than Cassidy behind the wheel of the car, and the sight was making him stare.

She had to pull the seat forward because she was so much shorter than Abel, but there was something about the way she drove that drove him absolutely insane – though it seemed like everything this girl did drove him insane.

She drove with one hand on top of the wheel, and the other hand had two fingers lazily strewn against the bottom of the wheel. She bit her lip when she drove like she was concentrating so completely on the task at hand, and it put dangerous thoughts in Abel's head, like reaching over and putting his hand on her thigh. There wasn't anything he wanted to do more than distract her.

God, he was so going to hell for wanting to corrupt a girl like Cassidy Somers.

"My dad was a jerk," Cassidy said quietly making Abel's slightly creepy staring completely justifiable now, "Think of the worst person you know, and multiply that by the biggest number you know, and you still won't understand how big of a jerk he was."

Abel was silent, he didn't think she was looking for an answer to that, and something told him his own daddy issues weren't even considered issues in comparison to Cassidy's.

She pulled the car over off the side of some random dirt road just off the highway, and got out, causing Abel to do the same. And he didn't question her as they began walking down the road, instead this time – he held out his hand to her.

And she didn't hesitate, her fingers laced through his own, and she walked one step in front of him, gently guiding him to where she wanted to go.

"When I was a little girl, and things with my dad got really bad," She started as they started some sort of an uphill climb, "My mom used to wake me up in the middle of the night and say, 'Cricket, we're going on an adventure.'"

"Cricket?"

"I don't know where it came from," She blushed, "She's always called me that. Anyway, when things got really bad we used to come up here."

Abel looked around at where they had stopped, it was like a hill, but mostly it was just an extremely elevated patch of land that was completely barren and covered in dirt, and some dead grass.

She sat down, bending her knees, and resting her elbows on them, letting her hands hang off, as she pointed to the empty highway in front of them.

"There's this group of guys who ride their motorcycles down here, almost every night, at four in the morning," She explained as he sat down next to her, in the same position as her, making sure to keep some distance between them, "We used to come here and watch them ride, and she'd ask me what I thought of those guys. I used to tell her that I thought they were scary."

Cassidy laughed quietly as if the idea of being scared of them now was completely ridiculous.

"And my mom looked at me said, 'Cricket when you get bigger, you're going to learn that sometimes, the bad guys are the ones who look like the nice guys, and the ones who look like bad guys, are the best kind of people you can find.' So we used to come here almost every other night and just watch the guys on the motorcycles and pretend like they were rushing off to my house to save us."

"Why did you bring me here?" He asked after she fell silent. He didn't mean it in a way where he didn't want to be here with her, he meant it in a way where he couldn't believe she would so willingly share something so personal about her life with him.

As long as Abel could remember, Cassidy had been incredibly closed off about her family, and now in the space of two short weeks, he seemed to know the darkest secrets of her family, her completely broken and torn family, that he knew nothing yet everything about.

"You scare me, Abel," Cassidy turning to look at him, "It terrifies me how much I want to talk to you, how much I need you, and I have never needed anyone before, never, and everything about you just terrifies me in the most beautiful, incredible, perfect way. And I want to be brave, I want to be brave with you, and I thought if I brought you to my safe place, I could be brave."

Abel stared at her as the sound of motorcycles filled the air, neither of them paid any mind to them, they were just background noise, right now, it was just them, two incredibly different people, who were somehow just the same.

"Then show me," He whispered, "Show me you're brave, Cassie."

Her breath faltered for a second before she lifted one hand to his face, and she was getting on her knees, as her eyes flickered back and forth between his eyes and his lips. God, if he didn't want her to kiss him first, he would've kissed her by now.

Cassidy's lips found his after a moment, slowly, tentatively, but as the motorcycle engines got louder, the kiss got deeper, it got less careful, and instead it got messy. And then Abel was on his back, with one leg propped up, with Cassidy in between his legs, her body on top of his, and her lips kissing his own feverishly.

The kiss was brave, and it was scary, it was tentative, and it was bold, it was innocent, and it was corrupt, it was everything that Cassidy and Abel were.

It was everything they had the chance to be.

Abel shook his head as he tried to get rid of the memory, he couldn't think about that, not right now, he needed to be focused on saving Cassidy, not on moments with her, not if he wanted to make sure they had more of them.

He pulled off into a parking lot, the club had pulled off just at the Lodi border, they wanted to be close enough to help if there was any trouble, but far enough away to not be associated with Abel, even though they were cool with the Mayans, there was no need to start anything, especially anything over drugs.

"What you want so much coke for, ese?"

Oh great, the dealer had good grammar, and a firm grip on the Spanish language. Only one of which Abel had himself.

"Throwing a party," Abel said his rehearsed answer smoothly.

"Oh yeah, am I invited? Or you won't let no wetbacks into your white boy party?"

"Nah bro," Abel shook his head, "You can come, as long as you bring some coke with you. If you come to a white boy party, you party like one."

The dealer looked him up and nodded, "Alright, ese. You got the money?"

Abel pulled out the white envelope he had stashed the money in from the back of his jeans, careful not to let the gun show, there was no need to let the guy know that he was packing, that was his business, at least for now.

He held out the money as the dealer handed out the brick. Abel played it cool acting like he saw that much coke all the time, but he had seriously underestimated how big a brick of coke was. Why would anyone even sell that much at once?

"Hey ese," The dealer said as he pulled the coke back causing Abel to keep a firm grip on the money as he tried to pull that to him as well, "You best not be planning on dealing this shit. I catch you dealing in Charming, or Lodi, or anywhere near California, and I put a bullet in you."

"Like I said," Abel said maintaining his light tone, "I'm just throwing a party, one you're invited to, feel free to show up and making sure all your coke is being used there."

"Alright," The dealer nodded looking him up and down, before pushing the coke, and taking the money from him, and thumbing through it for a few seconds, "Imma tell you again, you deal that shit, and I'm going to put a bullet in you, that's if the Sons don't get to you first."

"I got it," Abel said and then because he was a complete idiot and hadn't put his bastard-no-longer-pledge into effect yet, he winked at him, and then said, "Ese."

Whatever the dealer had to say about that got lost as the sound of sirens going off filled the air and before Abel could really register what was happening they were surrounded by cop cars, and guns.

"This is a drug bust," A man's voice called, "Put your hands where I can see them."

The dealer turned to look at him with feral eyes, and then he lunged.

He thought Abel had set him up.

Abel quickly sidestepped him as the cops rushed forward. He raised his arm and blocked off the first fist that came towards his face, and in one smooth motion, bent the dealer's arm behind his back.

It was seconds later that the cops finally pulled them apart, and pushed them each against a squad car.

"Hello Abel."

Abel's eyes widened as Agent Holland exited a squad car in a clean suit, he was so surprised by the man's appearance that he barely paid any attention to the man patting him down, he only noticed him when the cop held up the gun.

"I'm guessing you don't have a permit for this kid."

Shit.

"Illegal weapon possession, and an amount of coke in your hands to look like you were dealing," Agent Holland shook his head a light smirk playing on his face, "This isn't looking good for you."

"How do you know my name?" He asked hoarsely unconcerned at the moment with everything else, which he really should have been, because shit was about to hit the fan.

"I'm going to kill you white boy!" The dealer yelled as he was shoved into the back of a squad car, "I'm going to slit your throat!"

"I know everything about you, Abel Petrie," Agent Holland said moving behind him and handcuffing him, "You're under arrest for possession of illegal drugs with intent to sell and possession of illegal firearms. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, if you can't afford one, one will be appointed for you…"

So I wasn't going to post this till tomorrow, but you beautiful, beautiful people left me so many incredible reviews on the last chapter, and I was so excited about this one that I had to post it. I had a couple people say they were confused, feel free to PM me, I'll answer any questions. If you guys are as incredible about reviewing, I think I can promise another new chapter tomorrow. (: