California, Here We Come

(A/N: Most of the dialogue from The O.C. in these beginning chapters is verbatim, I thought it was necessary to paint a picture of who these characters are. Also, shoutouts to Chino man! As someone that lives right next to Chino its hilarious to see 'The O.C.' try to portray it as some gangland hellhole. Chino is actually a pretty nice place. It would have made a lot more sense if Ryan was from Pomona or San Bernardino.)

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"Set… hut!" Mike does a three step drop as he scans the beach to see who is open. JJ is covering one of the wide receivers, clamping him down, it would be too difficult to get the ball to him. Asher sprints past the DB (defensive back) covering him and gets open over the middle of the field on a slant route, Mike throws the ball with a perfect spiral and perfect targeting as it heads just slightly ahead of him exactly where he is running and he catches it.

"Whoooo! Great pass bro!" Jordan says to Mike as he daps him up. 

"Told you I still got it bruh."

"Yeah you do man, but hey where are you gonna play at?"

"Palisades High."

The rest of the guys head on over to the two of them. "I think that's enough man I wanna chillax," JJ, the muscular linebacker says. 

"I heard that," says another player that Michael didn't learn the name of yet. 

The guys begin to walk over back to where the girls were still laying down. Michael hangs back a bit with Jordan. "Hey bro… I heard about Olivia. I'm sorry to hear about that man, I hope she gets better."

"Thanks, she's getting the help she needs," Jordan says with a downcast expression. He wraps his arm around Mike as they continue forward. "Soooo you're already scoring with Kelly? Whatsup with that," he laughs then continues, "some of the boys are pissed man."

"Aye bruh, she and Cami came after me, like a couple of feral cats in heat, I didn't do nothing man," he says as they share a laugh. 

They finally make it back to the group as the guys start to sit around and lay around on their beach towels. JJ pulls out his guitar and starts to play around. Kelly and Camila wave over Michael to come sit in between them, each sharing a portion of their towels. Cami grabs a wicker picnic basket and begins to offer chicken salad croissant sandwiches that she made to everyone that's hungry. 

"Mmm, that was delicious, thanks Cami," Mike says as he finishes the sandwich. 

"Awww you're too sweet," she starts as she scoots in closer and grabs hold of him, smushing her large breasts into his muscular arm, "you can eat my cooking any time," she says with a wink. 

Kelly, not wanting to be outdone, also scoots in and grabs him, "You never told us about your time in England, did you live in London?"

"Not quite, I went to a school about an hour train ride from London in a town called Eton at a boarding school called Eton College."

"Yo bro have a beer!" JJ interrupted them as he came over to hand Michael a red solo cup. 

"Thanks dude."

They hung out at the beach for the next hour, then things began to wind down and it was time for everyone to go home. Michael had exchanged his Instagram handle with everyone, as it was the more casual thing to exchange instead of numbers. But he also got the numbers of Kelly and Camila, who had been by his side the entire time, batting their eyes at him and rubbing up against him, trying to be the first one to seduce him. He also got the number of JJ, who would not take no for an answer as he was stoked to have another bro to 'bro out' with. 

Now they were in the parking lot, walking back to their respective cars. Michael was the first to reach his car as he had been lucky to find a close parking spot, and as he unlocked his car people certainly began to notice his silver Porsche.

"Whoa, that's a sexy car, maybe I should get a ride from you," Camila said.

"NOPE! She's spending the night at my house, come on Cami," Kelly said as she grabbed hold of Cami and dragged her away.

"Yo broooo, sick ass Porsche bro!" JJ said excitedly. 

"Thanks man, but actually it's not 'Porsh', it's 'Por-shuh'. Two syllables, not one," Mike corrected him as he patted JJ on the arm. 

"Well however the fuck you say it, it's tight," Jordan said as he dapped up Mike and gave him a bro hub. "I'll catch you later man."

"See ya, bro," Mike replied.

"Deuces!" JJ said.

Mike climbed into his 911 and dropped the top down. He started up his engine, cranked up his music, and began to drive away heading back to the Four Seasons. 

.

.

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One Week Earlier

On an empty street right next to a small strip mall, two men approached a 1978 Chevrolet Camaro. The men, who were brothers, had recently left a party where they had been drinking all night. They needed to get home but they had no car, so when they found this beautiful classic car parked by itself (almost like it was bait) in a bad part of town close to one a.m., the older brother simply couldn't help himself, he had to steal it.

The older brother dressed in a dark denim vest and denim jeans was holding a tire iron when he approached the driver side window of the vehicle with his brother following him. He scoped out the inside of the car, glad to find that no one was inside. He turned around to face his younger brother as he twirled the tire iron in his hand.

"I'm your big brother, if I don't teach you this, who will?" He said with a wicked grin on his face as he wound back his arm and smashed the window with full force, breaking it.

The younger brother reeled back in shock from the blow to the window, shielding his face from the glass shards with his right arm. He thought they were simply walking back home not stealing a car, even if it was an eight mile walk it certainly beat going to jail. The older brother pulled up the lock and climbed into the car.

"I dunno Trey," the younger brother said frantically.

"QUIT BEING A LITTLE BITCH! GET IN!" Trey yelled.

Trey's younger brother slammed the driver side door shut as he began to jog over to the passengers side to get in. 

"YEAH! LET'S GO!" Trey shouted in exuberance, the high he felt from stealing something was thrilling.

Right as the younger brother reached the door he looked back and saw a black and white Ford Police Interceptor with the words 'Chino Police' on the side of the SUV roll on by.

'FUCK!' He thought. 

"LET'S GO RYAN!" 

The SUV began to reverse and turn towards them as Trey began to take off causing Ryan to have to run alongside the car and hop in. The squad car's sirens began to blare out as the chase was now on. Trey peeled off on the empty streets when to his surprise another police SUV with its lights and sirens blaring appeared in front of them turning to their left to try and block them off. 

Trey spun the wheel hard right taking a sharp turn to the next street to avoid crashing into them. As they sped down the roads one of the SUVs banged on to their car trying to PIT maneuver them, but Trey had slowed down causing them to simply rub off each other as he manipulated the wheel to not lose control. He peeled off again, but this time they were not so lucky. 

The SUV attempted to PIT them again and this time they were successful. "NO NO NO!" Ryan screamed out. The car, now out of Trey's control, swerved right and then swerved left turning ninety degrees and slamming straight into a large electric junction box. They were now well and truly fucked.

Three police SUVs surrounded them as multiple police officers jumped out of their cars and raised their handguns toward them. "LET ME SEE YOUR HANDS!" one officer exclaimed. "I'LL FUCKING PUT A BULLET IN YOU! DON'T MOVE" another yelled. They reached the car, ripped them out of the vehicle and slapped on their handcuffs on both of the criminals. 

Present Day

Ryan Atwood was being led in handcuffs by one of the Correctional Officers of the juvenile detention center that had been his new home for the past week. He was led into a visitors room where a man in a two piece suit awaited him with all types of papers and notes strewn about the table. The guard began to remove his cuffs, then he left them.

"Ryan! Sandy Cohen. The courts have appointed me as your public defender," the man said with an amicable smile. Ryan, a 16 year old teen that has always been dealt a shitty hand in the game we call life, wasn't impressed and certainly didn't expect some shitty public defender to actually give a damn about him. He knew there was no justice in the legal system, the only thing that truly mattered was how much money you had. More money equaled a better defense. Sandy and Ryan sat down.

"You could do worse…" Sandy said awkwardly. "You okay? They treating you alright?"

"Where's my brother?"

"Uhhhh… Trey is over eighteen. Trey stole a car. Trey had a gun in his pants, an ounce of pot in his jacket, a couple of priors. I'm guessing right now Trey is looking at three to five years. But Trey's not my concern. This is your first time in lockup, I'm assuming you don't plan on coming back. Your grades…" Sandy stopped as he looked over one of his notes. "Are not great… Suspended twice for fighting, truancy three times. "But-" he dropped the note and looked up at Ryan, "your test scores! Ninety-eight percentile on your SAT I's. Ryan… ninety-eight percentile, if you start going to class… Are you thinking about college?"

Ryan couldn't help but scoff. Guys like him didn't go to college. Guys like him worked construction, or in a factory, or at some shitty store until the day they died. The rich get rich and the poor get poorer. 

"Have you given any thought at all to your future? Dude… I'm on your side. Come on, help me out here, give me-"

Ryan interrupted him. "Modern medicine is advancing to the point where the human life span will be a hundred. But I read this article which said Social Security is supposed to run out by the year 2025. Which means people are gonna have to stay in their jobs until they're eighty… So I don't want to commit to anything too soon." 

Sandy chuckled. "Look, I can plead this thing down to a misdemeanor, but know this, stealing a car because your big brother told you to… it's stupid and it's weak and those are two things you can't afford to be anymore. Get over the fact that life dealt you a bad hand. Look I understand, I grew up no money, bad part of the Bronx, my father was gone, my mother worked all the time. I was pissed off, I was stupid."

"And look at you now," Ryan said sarcastically. 

"Smart kid like you Ryan, you gotta have a plan. Some kind of a dream."

"Yeah… right. Let me tell you something. Where I'm from, having a dream doesn't make you smart. Knowing it won't come true? That does." 

Ryan was eventually let out of the juvenile center, released to be picked up by his mother. His no good drunk-ass mother drove erratically, driving up on to the curb. She hopped out of the car and immediately began to berate Ryan. "UNBELIEVABLE! WHAT KINDA FAMILY I GOT, HUH? WHAT THE HELL DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS FAMILY? YOU WANNA TELL ME THAT?"

"Mrs. Atwood? I'm Sandy Cohen, Ryan's attorney."

"You shoulda let him rot in there! Just like his dads doing, just like his brothers gonna! Let's go Ryan. NOW RYAN!"

Worried for his client, Sandy gave Ryan a business card and told him he could contact him if he ever needed anything. When Ryan and his mom arrived back home she continued to yell at him as she tried to calm her nerves with more alcohol. She told him that he was done, that she was kicking him out of the house. And after being roughed up by her loser junkie boyfriend, Ryan grabbed a backpack and stuffed it with an extra pair of clothes and his most valued possessions. He climbed onto his bike and rode off.

Pedaling for miles he eventually arrived at the same exact spot where he and his brother had stolen that car that fateful night. He went to a pay phone and began to call some friends to see if anyone would let him crash on their couch for a couple nights. No one was willing to offer him any help, so in a moment of desperation he reached into his pocket and found the business card that Sandy Cohen gave him. Not wanting to sleep on the streets tonight he gave him a call. 

Forty-five minutes later Sandy Cohen pulled up next to Ryan in his black 2010 BMW 750i Sedan. "See… told you, you could do worse." 

Ryan stuffed his bike into the trunk of the car and they drove off.

At the same time as all of this was happening, Michael was in his hotel room and had received multiple texts from Seth Cohen. Seth was not happy to hear that his old friend was still a football jock. He was worried that the nice kid he once knew had turned into a douchebag (Michael did). But he was happy to learn that even if some things had changed in each other's lives they still held the same love of comic books, punk rock, and Tekken. Before the night ended, Seth invited Michael to come over to visit him at his family home in Newport Beach.