Nathan must choose which parent to live with after Dan and Deb's divorce. Dan forces Nathan to make the decision by threatening to reveal Deb's darkest secrets in court unless Nathan chooses him. Meanwhile, Lucas meets a beautiful stranger who challenges his perceptions of life since Lucas' car accident.

Keith has a solicitation as auto-shop teacher in a Charleston school; Lucas is heartbroken his surrogate father may move that far away. Haley and Nathan finally feel cozy living together, but when Dan finds out he sold the car he gave his poor son, he demands the money it fetched unless he moves in with him again- so the kid chooses to stay poor and takes a lousy job serving food in the mall, where a kid he never even noticed in his history class is now the sports heroes' vindictive boss- one visit by Dan convinces even him to go easy on the long-envied golden boy whose silver spoon came at such a price, so he won't miss his own housewarming party. When he gets there, Mouths music and Nikki literally fighting with Peyton have alerted the police, so Dan -who just got in bed with Deb- gets a call from the sheriff to bail him out.