Moving Forward

Chapter 11

Opie and I fell into an easy routine as the weeks went on. We were careful about spending too much time together around the rest of the club. Lucy and I were spending a lot of nights over at his house. I'd take the kids to school and pick them up when I was done with work. When we wanted a night alone, Ope would ask Piney or Mary to come watch them. On the off chance that neither of them could stay with Kenny and Ellie, he'd ask Tara if they could stay with her and Jax. I think Jax was okay with it because he knew the full story.

We were sleeping at his place one night when his phone started ringing. "No," I moaned as he rolled away to answer it.

"It's Jax. Be quiet," he told me.

I didn't get a chance to respond, because mine started ringing too. I picked it up off of the nightstand and walked out into the hall to answer it. I looked down at the caller ID. It was my dad.

"You know that it's one in the morning, right?" I asked by way of a greeting.

"You know lockdown can come at any time," he replied. "I'm sorry, but you need to get here as soon as you can."

"I'll have Ope swing by and pick me up on his way in," I lied.

"I want you here within the hour," he told me.

"Yes sir,"

I hung up the phone and went back into the bedroom. "This is crap," I whined, making sure Opie was off the phone. I pulled my duffel bag out from under the bed and packed some stuff down in it.

"I know. I told Jax I'd pick you up," Ope said. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, "I'm gonna go get the kids up, and get them started on packing."

"Okay." I changed clothes and put what I'd been wearing earlier in the day back on, jeans and green t-shirt. I packed my bag, and a bag of stuff for Lucy. "What can I do to help?" I asked, walking out into the hall with my bag over shoulder.

"Can you help Ellie? I'll take that and start loading the car."

"Yeah," I handed my bag off and went to go help Ellie get a bag packed.

"Why are we doing this again?" she asked as I pulled some clothes out for her.

"Because your dad wants to make sure we're safe," I replied.

"Safe from what?" she protested.

"This time, I honestly don't know. I promise I'm as sick of this pattern as you are," I yawned.

"Is Lucy coming with us?" Ellie asked, as she finished packing her bag.

"Yeah. Gemma can fight me if she thinks I'm leaving her by herself. Come on, let's do this. Maybe we'll be able to go back to bed."

"Cordy?" Ellie paused in front of the door.

"What's up?" I asked.

"I'm scared."

"Why?"

"Because I never know if my dad is going to come home," she admitted.

I pulled her into a hug, "Of course he will."

"How do you know?"

"I just do. Come on, we have to go. The boys are waiting for us." I gestured toward the door. We went out into the hall and Kenny and Opie were waiting for us. Kenny was holding onto Lucy's leash. "We're ready," I told him.

"Kids, go get in the car," Opie told them, taking Lucy's leash from Kenny. I was about to follow when he put a hand on my arm. "Everything okay?" he asked once we were alone.