Once again, thank you so much for your reviews! My little sister took her driver's test today and she parallel parked perfectly, and then she hit the barrel pulling out the space. I was home when she got home, and she just walked in muttering to herself, "stupid, stupid, stupid. I'm so stupid" and I had to reassure her by reminding her that I failed my test twice (okay, so maybe it was three times. Who's counting? The parallel parking thing eluded me) and I recounted all my failures for her, and sadly it made me depressed, but it made her feel better. So make me feel better now, and review again! Thanks!

Disclaimer: The characters are not mine.

Not surprisingly, Seth had been the first one to break the silence in the car.

"So uh, how's working in construction? I mean, that's a pretty…interesting job…I guess," he said to Ryan, and then immediately felt so stupid. How's working in construction? It sucks, obviously, he thought to himself. But Ryan just shrugged.

"It's a job," he replied.

"So how long have you been working there?" Sandy asked looking in the rearview mirror at his son and this boy who saved his wife, and who was now nervously playing with the cuffs of his shirt.

"Um, well I was working summers for a couple of years, and then, uh, I just started a few months ago full time," Ryan said. He didn't tell them why he had started working full time. How his brother stole a car and got caught. How his brother went to jail, just like his father had done. How his mother was drinking and coked out of her mind, and she had stopped paying the bills, and they were going to kick them out the house. When Trey had been out, he had somehow made sure that they had enough money to at least pay the bills. However he did it, Ryan didn't want to know, he was sure that Trey had always gotten the money through illegal sources, but he had always gotten the money and that was what mattered. Ryan had an after school job at the grocery store down the street. The owner had taken pity on him and often let him take home some of the groceries that they couldn't sell. Dented cans, or cans where the label had almost fallen off, or items that had passed the expiration date. And then Trey had gotten caught, and Ryan had been forced to drop out of school. Forced to hunt down Mr. Gregory and ask him for a job. Mr. Gregory had known that Ryan was underage, knew that he was only sixteen, but had given him a job anyway. Most of his employees had started underage, and he wasn't about to turn away a good, hard worker simply because he had the misfortune of being only sixteen.

"Full time? As in like five days a week?" Seth asked with a hint of incredulity to his voice. Seth hated when he felt like a spoiled brat who had no right to complain about a shoe full of piss. And he felt like that right then. Here was a kid, a kid his age, who had to work full time. Forty hours a week. At a hard job. Not some piece of cake job. It was hard for Seth to comprehend. "How old are you?"

"Seth!" Kirsten admonished. But she wanted to hear the answer. She hadn't the guts to follow the question through when she had first met him. "Ryan…you don't have to…"

"I'm eighteen," the lie rolled off of Ryan's tongue easily. He had to use it many times before. Sometimes he forgot that he was only sixteen. Sometimes he forgot that he was still considered a child, since it had been so long since he had actually felt like a child.

Had he ever felt like a child? He couldn't remember that far back. Maybe before his father had gone to jail, when they were still functioning as a family, maybe then he had felt like a kid, but certainly not since they had moved to Chino, and not since he had been working construction.

They pulled up to the restaurant a second later, and they all climbed out of the car. Seth and Ryan walked ahead, Seth asking him about something or another, and Sandy and Kirsten held back just a bit.

"There's no way that he's sixteen," Kirsten whispered as Sandy wrapped an arm around her waist.

"No," Sandy said shaking his head. "He's not sixteen. But he probably has been lying about his age to keep his job. It probably seems natural for him to lie."

"God, that's so sad," Kirsten said as they caught up to the boys. Sandy had placed a reservation, and they were immediately led to their table.

Ryan looked around the restaurant. By normal standards, it wasn't exactly an expensive restaurant, but it was the nicest in Chino, and by Chino standards they might as well been eating at the Russian Tea Room in New York. Wait until Teresa heard where they had eaten. She had suggested that they start saving money and treat themselves for their next birthdays, since their birthdays were only four days apart. Ryan had scoffed at the thought. He was barely making enough to buy some food, and pay the rent and bills; there would be no left over money to take Teresa out for a fancy meal.

"I hope that this is okay?" Kirsten asked as she settled down in her seat and spread the napkin across her lap. "I didn't know what you would like…"

"No, this is great, really," Ryan said. "Thank you for dinner."

"No, Ryan, thank you again," Kirsten said smiling at him. "So, tell us a little more about yourself. I feel like we know nothing about you. We don't even know your last name."

"It's Atwood," Ryan offered. Kirsten nodded and smiled at him.

"Well, Ryan Atwood, do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"Uh, a brother."

"Older or younger?" Sandy asked as the waitress brought them their drinks.

"Older," Ryan answered. "Trey. He's almost twenty-one."

"Seth is an only child," Kirsten said, and then immediately felt stupid. Of course Seth was an only child, Ryan could clearly see that. She felt Sandy's hand slip into hers under the table and give hers a squeeze. He could see that the conversation wasn't flowing quite as smoothly as Kirsten had hoped, and she was becoming flustered, as she did when things didn't go her way. She picked up her glass of wine and took a drink.

"Thank you Captain Obvious," Seth muttered.

"So…Ryan, you grew up in Chino?" Sandy asked. It wasn't as if Ryan was helping to make the conversation flow any. Getting him to talk was proving to be like pulling teeth. He only answered questions that were directly addressed to him, and never once did he offer up anything without being provoked.

"Yes…well, no…I mean, I was born in Fresno, and we lived there until I was about eight, and then we moved here," Ryan said playing nervously with his straw.

"Why?" Kirsten asked taking another drink of wine.

"Um…" Ryan looked clearly flustered and Kirsten wanted to retract the question, but she knew that she couldn't do that without hinting to Ryan that she knew that it was a touchy subject. "My parents split." It was a half truth, Ryan thought. They weren't together after Fresno, I just left out the part that they weren't together because Dad got caught in an armed robbery and went to prison.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Kirsten said. They were all happy for the interruption when the waitress came to take their order.

"So, uh, Mr. Cohen, what do you do?" Finally Ryan was asking a question. Sandy could see that Ryan was smart, and he had figured out quickly that if they were talking about the Cohens, they couldn't ask him any more questions that he wouldn't want to answer. Diversion tactics. And they were going to work too.

"I'm a public defender," Sandy answered. "I work in Chino." Recognition dawned on Ryan's features, and he finally figured out where he had heard the name Sandy Cohen before. He had been Trey's PD when he got caught stealing the car. Sandy racked through his own brain to try to figure out where Ryan would have known him. Ryan Atwood, the name didn't match any of his clients' names, but he had said his brother's name was Trey. Trey Atwood. He had represented him only a few months back. Got caught stealing a car. Sandy struggled to remember all that he could about Trey. But more importantly, about Trey's family. It hadn't been good, he could remember that much. Father was in prison, mother was a mess, and little brother was…little brother was sitting across from him sipping at an iced tea.

"And Mrs. Cohen, you work for your father?" Ryan asked switching the subject back to Kirsten.

"Please don't ask her to explain what she does," Seth whined.

"I tried to explain it to Seth once," Kirsten said shooting a teasing glance at her son. "He fell asleep."

"I did not…actually…yeah, no that's true," Seth said shrugging.

"I run the residential division for the Newport Group," Kirsten said.

"Do you like it?" Ryan asked. Very few people asked her if she liked her job. It was a given that she must. She stopped for a moment and then smiled at him.

"Well, it's stressful, and sometimes my father doesn't make working for him a joy, but, uh, yeah, I do like it," she answered.

"I wanted to be an architect for awhile," Ryan said almost wistfully.

"It's not too late," Sandy spoke up. Ryan looked at him, and then very softly shook his head.

"Yes it is."

After they had all eaten, and Sandy had taken care of the check, they headed back out towards the car.

"You can just drop me off at the construction site," Ryan said as Sandy backed out of the parking space.

"Do you have your own car?" Seth asked. "My parents won't let me have one until I'm eighteen. Is it parked at the construction site? Can I see what kind of car it is?" Ryan was taken aback by Seth's constant stream of questions, and by the fact that Seth was so interested in him. It was as if Ryan was a bright and shiny toy that Seth's parents had gotten just for him.

"I don't have a car," Ryan said shaking his head. "But I only live like two streets over from the site, I can just walk home."

"No," Kirsten said. Sandy had opened his mouth to say the same thing, but his wife had beaten him to it. "We can drive you home. It's not a problem."

"I really…"

"No, really, we're driving you home, kid," Sandy interrupted, and Ryan shut his mouth. "Just tell me where to turn." Ryan directed from the backseat as Sandy navigated the expensive car through the streets of Chino to Ryan's neighborhood. Seth cringed inwardly as the houses became shabbier the further they got. Finally Ryan instructed Sandy to pull up to an old white house, with peeling paint and an overgrown lawn.

"Thank you for dinner," Ryan said politely as he opened the car door.

"Ryan, wait!" Kirsten said reaching for her purse and pulling out one of her business cards. She quickly scribbled her cell phone number on the back and handed it to him. "Just in case you ever need anything." She pulled him in for an impromptu hug, which surprised both Ryan and her family, and then placed her hands on his shoulders. "I mean it, anything you need." Ryan nodded, thanked her again, and pocketed the card.

"Dude, give us a call, maybe we can have a Playstation tournament? Or I can show you around Newport? I mean, it's not much but…"

"I'd like that," Ryan said smiling at Seth, who nodded his head and ducked back into the car.

"It was very nice to meet you," Sandy said.

"I'll see you around," Ryan said before heading up the path to his house. Kirsten climbed back in the car, and they waited until he was safely inside before pulling away to go collect her car, and go home again.

"How was the food?" Teresa asked. "What was Mrs. Cohen wearing?" Ryan shook his head at the questions. "Did they have linen napkins? Of course they had linen napkins, stupid question….what did you have? What did they have? Did Mrs. Cohen only eat a salad? I always figured those Newport women only ate salads. Like rabbits." It was the next night, and Teresa had come over to Ryan's house and they were lying on his bed as she asked him about his dinner the night before. When he had told her where they had eaten, she had hit his arm.

"No way!" She had exclaimed. "I knew it. I knew that they were going to take you there. How was it?"

"It was fine," Ryan said shrugging.

"No, no fine, a real answer, with details," Teresa had instructed .This had started the list of questions, and Ryan knew enough to know that he would have to answer every single one.

"Mrs. Cohen is not like a rabbit," he said laughing. "She had chicken. And the food was good. I had steak. Yes, they had linen napkins. I don't remember what she was wearing."

"Boys," Teresa said shaking her head. "That would have been the first thing that I would have noticed." She ran her hand wistfully over her faded jean shorts and played with the frayed ends. "I knew that you should have insisted on taking me, you missed all the important details."

"Her clothes looked nice, is that good enough?"

"What about her purse?" Teresa asked turning onto her stomach so that she could look at Ryan. "Was it a Prada? Kate Spade?" Teresa and her mother had a healthy addiction to beauty magazines, and were constantly looking over the pages with admiration and envy. "Oh never mind." Teresa waved her hand in annoyance. She climbed off the bed and grabbed her jacket. "I have to go. Try to remember what she was wearing." She gave him a kiss on the cheek before climbing out the window, and he watched her as she dashed across the yards, stopping to turn around and wave at him.

Ryan closed his blinds and pulled down the covers to his bed. As he went to shut off the lights, his bedroom door flew open and AJ came barreling in.

"What did you say to them?" He screamed at Ryan.

"Say to who?" Ryan asked.

"The cops," AJ snarled. "They came by today looking for you." Ryan swallowed hard. They had told him the other night that he and Mrs. Cohen might have to come down to formally identify her attacker. They just picked the wrong time to show up. Ryan had hoped that AJ and his mother would be out if the cops decided to stop by. No good ever came with mixing an Atwood and a cop.

"Some lady got attacked the other day," Ryan said slowly. "I helped her out, and they just wanted..." AJ grabbed his arm and threw him up against the wall.

"You liar, you told them about the cocaine, didn't you? You told them that I was here," AJ's face was so close to Ryan's that Ryan could feel the spit on his face.

"I didn't," Ryan said shaking his head. AJ pulled him away from the wall and tossed him to the ground and gave him a kick.

"You're a liar," AJ repeated.

"AJ! Don't hurt him," Dawn appeared in the doorway now, a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other. Her platinum blonde hair was in disarray, and she was clearly messed up. "Ryan, I think that you should leave."

"Mom! I didn't do anything! This is my house! I pay all the bills," Ryan argued.

"You heard your mother," AJ said reaching into Ryan's closet and pulling out a bag that he threw at him. "Get your stuff together and get out." Ryan threw some things into the bag and slammed the front door on his way out. He was hoping that Teresa's mother would let him stay at their house until his mother sobered up and calmed down and he could go back home again.

"I'm so sorry, Ryan," Teresa said. "But we have family staying with us. You know that." As soon as she said it, he remembered. Her cousins or something like that were staying with them for a couple of weeks.

"It's okay," Ryan assured her. "I'll find somewhere to go." He started to call everyone he knew, but he was getting no where. It was getting late when he fished a little white card out of his pockets and taking a deep breath dialed the number that was written on the back. She answered on the third ring, sounding tired and confused.

"Mrs. Cohen? It's Ryan, uh…I need a favor…."

I've started the next chapter, but who knows if it'll actually stay that way. I have a habit of erasing entire chapters and rewriting them completely. And then sometimes they get erased themselves…stupid computer…anyway, review and I'll try to get the next chapter up as soon as I can.