No one says anything as they walk back to the black Mercedes. Jimmy keeps a hand under Hailey's elbow until he opens the door for her. As she slips into the car a purple welt is visible for a second under the edge of her tank top. Shutting the door, he fights the impulse to go find that sleaze and leave a few marks on him. The knowledge that the guy had a few inches and fifty pounds holds him back.

She could have been hurt badly. Hell, she might have been hurt badly. She could have been killed. Suddenly he couldn't bear to think of a world that didn't include Hailey Nichol.

Once in the car he turns on her seat warmer and hands her his sport coat. "Do you need to go to the hospital?" he asks, but Hailey simply shakes her head no and stares out the window.

"I didn't need saving." She finally speaks, after twenty minutes of sitting as close to the door as possible and not saying anything.

"No, I could see that you had the situation completely under control," he answers back. He keeps his eyes on the road ahead, so that he doesn't have to acknowledge the tears dripping down her face. "Hailey, everyone needs help sometimes. It's the waiting to late to ask for it that tends to cause problems. Trust me on that one."

"It would have worked out." Even she can hear the petulance in her voice. "It wouldn't have been forever."

There are no words to say to her. He can't force her to go to Kirsten's, can't force her father to reinstate her trust fund, can't do anything. He can't fix her life anymore than he can fix his own. If she wants, she can get out of his car and go back to that club, and anything could happen to her and he might not even know about it.

"Jimmy, can we stop at Krispy Kreme?" Hailey asks suddenly. "There's one at the next exit."

"What?"

"You know, donuts? I like chocolate frosted. I'm so totally famished, and god knows Sandy cries if I eat all the carbs in the house. You'd think he was on South Beach or something. Besides, they'll only have bagels and I'm going to need sugar. And maybe coffee. Or hot chocolate. What do you think?"

She's smiling at him, sort of. It's more of a resigned smile than a happy smile, but it is a smile. "I think hot chocolate."

While Jimmy orders half a dozen chocolate-frosted donuts Hailey reverts to staring out the window. One more time that she screws up and her family has to bail her out. Kirsten in her entire life only did one thing without parental consent- getting pregnant with Seth and marrying Sandy- and it worked out perfectly. Well, okay, now that she'd taken in Ryan she'd done two. But still. Kirsten takes in a juvenile delinquent and it still works out perfectly. Nothing she'd done since her mother died had worked out the way she wanted it to.

"Maybe I was wrong." Jimmy says as he hands her a donut, and for a moment she wants to giggle as their hands touch. Honestly, she can't think of a more inappropriate response. Well, besides jumping him in the car. That would be inappropriate. When someone rescues you from a bad situation (especially when it involves you nearly naked and money) that you mixed your foster nephew of sorts and that someone's kid into, there is no jumping or giggling.

At least that night.

Deciding that the donut was her best ally, she bit into it before responding. "Wrong about what?"

"Leaving Newport. Maybe leaving before everything is settled just means that you have to come back until it is."

"I'll cling onto that while living up to my name as the family screw-up," she could tell he was about to respond, so she shoved half her donut into his mouth with a smile. "To the Cohens', James," she says in her best Noopsie voice and smiles her first real smile of the night.

"You really don't have to do this. My car will be out of storage by tomorrow," Hailey says as she collapses into his front seat. "I mean, you do kind of have a restaurant to open."

"Yeah, and you kind of need your stuff. And I just keep having this image of you running back to your old job."

"You just like thinking of me taking my clothes off," she tells him with a grin. He totally checks her chest out when she says it. The tank top she dug out of the pile of things she left at Kirsten's last time has a complicated lacing action that just begs to be undone. It was purposefully worn. "I forgot to say something last night."

"I'm almost afraid to ask."

"Thanks. For coming to get me, for not saying anything...just thank you. You, Jimmy Cooper, are a good guy."

He looks over in the passenger seat, and suddenly Hailey looks very real. A very real person who has gotten herself into trouble, who smiles when she sees him, who thinks he's a good guy. The memory of the exact taste of Hailey's mouth comes over him- some mix of orange and mint and chocolate. The weight of her hand on his wrist when they had dinner at the Lighthouse. God, he's acting worse than Marissa.

The place she's been living post-boat is not the greatest. Hell, she thinks probably even Ryan would shudder and she'd bet it would take a lot to shake up that kid. He says nothing, but carries the heavy box down to the car. Anyone else would have said something.

When they put the last load in the car, she knows she has to say something. "I know its not, it's just that..."

"Hailey, I'm a felon."

"Um, yes." She smiles again, a sudden, uncertain smile as if she can't quite figure out where he's going with this.

"I'm just saying, it's going to take more than a legal job and a skuzzy apartment to really throw me. You'll have to up the rebellion a few notches."

There is nothing to do but laugh and get back into Jimmy Cooper's car. Again.