"Hey Petrie!"
Abel turned around and ducked as an empty water bottle sailed neatly over the top of his head, and scowled at his best friend as he stood up smoothly. "What asshat?"
"Call Cassidy."
"Right now? Why?" Abel raised his eyebrows as he grabbed his backpack off the floor and dug through the front pocket to get his phone that he had turned off last period since he had been out on the field playing a scrimmage.
"No clue she just called me when you wouldn't pick up and said you need to call her."
Abel glanced at the clock, and then sighed, and threw his backpack over his shoulder, and pointed as Nick as he walked by, "Tell Mixon I died or something."
Nick laughed, "Sure, I'll just be like 'hey Mr. Mixon, Abel isn't here because he's dead and not because he's pussy whipped for a girl who he isn't even dating."
"Shut up," He rolled his eyes as he walked out of the classroom, and minutes later, he was walking into the parking lot towards his car, dialing Cassidy's number as he went.
He mentally groaned to himself when she didn't pick up, stupid girl, she went and got him all worked up, and then didn't even answer her damn phone.
Abel wasn't sure when it happened, maybe it was somewhere between the shy smiles that passed between the two and the midnight conversations, but Cassidy had made her way under his skin, and ever since then he had been doing his best to get her out of his head.
But then Cassidy would go and do something adorable, or she'd need something, and Abel would find himself lost in her all over again.
He turned into her driveway and got out, grabbing his phone that was still ringing endlessly and ended the phone call at the same time as ringing the doorbell.
He rang it again when she didn't answer the door, and then knocked on it when that didn't work either. Finally after a few moments the door knob turned, and then the door opened just the slightest bit.
"Abel," She said quietly.
"Cassie?" He frowned taking in the worry that was stretched across her features, "What's wrong? Nick said you want me to call you?"
"Yes Abel," She frowned back, "Call me, not come to my house."
Abel raised his eyebrows, "So I can't come in then?"
"No," She shook her head, "You can't, just, I'll call you later."
"Cassie wait," He said as she went to close the door.
"What?" She sighed.
"Why did you call me then?"
Cassidy gave him a sad smile, "Call it a moment of weakness."
Abel cursed as she closed the door. Cassidy Somers was the most infuriating girl he had ever met in his entire life, she had this ability to be the sweetest human being in the entire world at the same time as being the most insufferable.
He was about half way down the walkway of her front door when a loud bang echoed from the house causing him to turn around, and walk right through the front door, to hell with what she wanted.
"Cassie!" He called and realized he didn't need to because she was right to the left of him, on her knees, her hands scrubbing the wooden floor, there was vomit everywhere, he realized, that's what she was cleaning up.
"I told you to leave," She said quietly.
"I heard a noise." He defended his actions.
"That was my mother."
"Is she okay?"
"She's fine."
"Cassie," Abel said slowly as he took in the house, it was a complete mess, there were bottles, and napkins, and plates, and vomit everywhere, it was littering the floor in splotches, and by the looks of it she had been cleaning for a while considering the trash bags that were lined up against the wall of the hallway.
"You can run now," She laughed bitterly, "I knew I shouldn't have called you."
Abel watched her for a moment, he could give her a whole speech about how she could always call him, he could tell her all about how she had gotten under his skin, and even though he had been trying to run ever since he had realized that, it didn't seem to be working, so it didn't look like he was going anywhere.
He was stuck with her, so by that same notion, she was stuck with him.
But he didn't, instead he rolled up the sleeves of the plaid shirt he was wearing, grabbed an empty trash bag, and began picking up empty bottles, throwing them in the bag.
They worked quietly neither of them sure what to say to each other, and to scared to be the one who said anything first. Abel wasn't even sure what to say, he didn't even know where the mess had come from, he didn't have a clue what was going on, he was just taking Cassidy's lead, and following it.
He froze in his tracks at the sight of woman lying on the floor a bottle held loosely in her hand, she was out cold, but her chest moving up and down told him that she was still alive and she was just passed out.
"She's fine," Cassidy sat quietly as she walked in behind him, "Just really, really drunk."
"That's why you called me?" He turned to look back at her.
She hesitated for a second before nodding slowly, "She wouldn't stop throwing up, and well, she's drunk all the time, but she's never been sick like that before. I didn't know what to do."
"And I'm guessing this," He gestured to the dark-haired woman sprawled across the floor, "Is something you do know what to do with."
"You can't tell anybody, Abel," Cassidy said looking up at him wide eyes, "You have to promise me that you won't tell anyone."
"Cassie," He hesitated as she gently took the bottle out of her mom's hand, "You can't live like this."
"She's my mom Abel, and contrary to popular belief, not all drunks are mean drunks. In fact, my mom's a happy drunk. She laughs, and she dances in her underwear, and sure she's really needy, and I have to cook her meals, and clean up after her, and be her mother, but she's happy, and what so wrong about that? Why is it so bad if it makes her happy?"
Abel stared at her. She was stunning, even now, in a pair of tiny jeans shorts, and a shirt that fell off her shoulder, with her hair tied back in a messy ponytail that was already coming apart, and suddenly he was hit with an overwhelming urge to kiss her.
And so because he was a classy guy who kissed girls for the first time over their drunk mother's passed out body, he grabbed Cassidy by her hips, and pressed his lips against hers.
Her body melted into his, one hand cupping his face, the other lightly grabbing his short hair, as her lips began moving with his own.
"Why did you do that?" She breathed when they finally pulled apart.
"Call it a moment of weakness."
"You did this!" Bobby yelled pointing a figure in Abel's face snapping him out of his memory, "You did this! It isn't a coincidence that as soon as you show up demanding we work with the IRA again that the FBI showed up!"
Abel blinked but kept his mouth shut, he was perfectly aware of how it looked, and he wasn't stupid, Bobby wasn't wrong, this wasn't a coincidence, it wasn't a coincidence that someone had gotten shot on that gun run, it wasn't a coincidence that the IRA had demanded a gun run, it wasn't a coincidence that the FBI had shown up, and it wasn't a coincidence that all this had happened after Abel had shown up.
The only thing that Bobby had gotten wrong was that this was Abel's fault, he hadn't done any of this, the only thing he was guilty of was being the messenger.
"Enough," Jax yelled loudly, "That's my kid Bobby, you would do well to remember that."
"A kid you know absolutely nothing about! A kid who barged in here throwing punches, making demands, and acting like we owe him something! We don't owe him anything, we aren't anybody's bitches. Not even Jax Teller's son."
"Would you be acting like this if it was Thomas?"
Chibs had effectively put an end to Bobby's tirade by asking that question, and stopped Jax from pounding Bobby's face in, which Abel was pretty sure he had been just about to do. He tried really hard not to appreciate that.
"That's different, we know Thomas."
"I'm a soccer player," Abel said quietly before they could argue again, "I play forward, I'm from Connecticut, my parent's names are Mark and Katy, I buried my dog in a place right outside my bedroom window so I can always see him, I'm terrible at English, and I'm really good at math. I hate any kind of liquid food, I'm still not sure if I want to go to UCLA or Penn State, and thanks to all the irony in the world, I have plans to major in Criminal Justice."
"Great so you're going to college to be a Fed, now I really want to help you."
"I'm not asking you to help me, the only person I asked to help me was Jax, I never asked the rest of you for anything. I don't know how your club works, I don't know how you make decisions, so you can say I came in here acting like you owed me something, but I didn't. I came in here acting like Jax owed me something." Abel corrected.
He had done a lot of things in the few days he had been here, and he hadn't gone about making things happen in the most productive of ways, but the one thing he knew he had never done was ask the club for anything. He had asked Jax, he had yelled at Jax, and he wasn't going to let anyone tell him any differently.
"I'm going to let you guys work out whatever it is you need to work out," He said exiting the conference room, even now that he knew that it was called the 'Chapel' he couldn't bring himself to actually call it that, it was too weird.
"Tough crowd?" Thomas asked raising his eyebrows from the picnic table at the front of the clubhouse.
"You have no idea," Abel shook his head.
"Actually I do."
"Right," He nodded, "You grew up with them."
"They don't like strangers," Thomas shrugged.
"They don't seem to like a lot of things."
"They don't," He said standing up and nodding his head in the direction of Abel's car, "Come on."
"Where are we going?" He asked cautiously as he made his way towards his car.
"Who cares? You drive a BMW bro, a nice ass one at that, you should drive your car just for the sole purpose of driving it."
Abel stared at Thomas, and suddenly he was hit with this overwhelming sense of protectiveness, maybe it was the mischievous glint that made its way into his green eyes when he smiled, or maybe it was because Thomas was the only person who hadn't acted like Abel being here was this incredible or terrible thing.
It was almost like Thomas was acting like Abel had always been there. And suddenly Abel felt like his brother.
"Here," Abel tossed him the keys, "Why don't you drive?"
"Seriously?"
"Go it for it, bro," He laughed getting into the passenger seat.
They had been on the road for about twenty minutes, driving in circles for absolutely no reason whatsoever, when Thomas finally broke the silence.
"What does she look like?"
"Who?"
"Cassidy."
"Oh," Abel said quietly as he thought about it, "Like you actually."
"Me?"
"Well not like you," He amended the statement, "She has blonde hair and green eyes like you, she has the same features as you, but they just look completely different on her."
"She hot?"
"I mean I have to think so don't I?"
"Point taken."
"What about Alena Rincon?" Abel raised his eyebrows as he studied the scuff marks on his dashboard – the scuff marks from Cassidy's feet, "She hot?"
Thomas whistled as Abel forced his gaze away from the scuff marks, "As hell."
"What does she look like?"
"Do you want to find out?"
"What do you mean?" Abel asked.
"Let's go crash another party, bro," Thomas smirked pressing down on the gas just the slightest bit.
Abel was just about to give him the okay when his cell phone vibrated in the cup holder, "Its Jax."
"Pick it up," Thomas shrugged, "Just don't tell him you're with me. He'll tell Mom, and Mom will freak out because I'm taking her precious baby to a party, and then you'll have ruined my night, bro."
Abel laughed and for a brief second wondered if this was what his life would have been like if he had grown up a Teller. Maybe he would have spent nights covering up for his little brother so he could sneak out and do things like get drunk.
"Hey," He said as he picked up the phone.
"Abel? The Priest just called, he gave us his next demand."