Author's Note: TIMELINE CHANGE- I know I said these guys got together at Spring Break, but to do what I need to do, I'm going to have to bump it earlier in the school year. I went back and changed the references in earlier chapters, but just adjust your mental timeline. This is one of the problems with posting as I write instead of writing and editing a whole piece before I share. Thanks for your patience and flexibility!
And now, please enjoy. Just like Kie, all of you deserve something nice on your Saturday, to make you feel warm and happy and content. 3
Chapter 21: What a Girl Needs
It wasn't until three days after John B's guilt trip to Kiara that they were all together again. Sarah was cooking dinner. Well, giggling mostly, while John B tried to dance with her in the tiny kitchen of her new apartment. It was just semi-homemade pizza anyway, with crust popped out of the Pillsbury can, unevenly-piled ingredients, and heaps of cheese they made JJ grate, even though he ate about half of it by the handful before it ever made it to the pizza. Pope was busy googling what temperature to actually bake the bastardized, lumpy thing at, and Kie was busy feeling like shit.
John B tried to offer her an olive, but she smacked his hand away and glared daggers. He raised an eyebrow, looked pointedly to JJ and then back to her, and she scowled harder. He knew good and well she hadn't said those three little words yet, and there was no reason to ask except to rub it in.
JJ was still gobbling cheese and didn't seem affected, so Kie blurted out some excuse of wanting to skip the inevitable food poisoning and left before dinner even went into the oven.
She drove home, the windows of her car open and cold air rushing in from the dark as she sped away from the golden windows of the apartment filled with her friends.
Her stomach was tumbling all over itself, just like it had been for the last three days, and she didn't know how to make it stop. It wasn't as simple as John B had made it sound. She had feelings for JJ, a whole mixed-up lot of them. But he wasn't the only one on the edge of getting their heart broken hard enough it wouldn't ever be the same.
She was still awake at 2 am that night when JJ tumbled in her window.
"Jesus Christ, are you trying to get my dad to shoot you?!" she hissed, shoving at his shoulder when he slipped under the covers.
"Been sneaking in Pope's window for years, and if anybody on this island was going to be fast enough to get a bullet in me, it'd be Heyward." JJ smirked. "Especially if he knew the things we've been doing to his son."
She turned on her side, facing the wall instead of him. "It's late, JJ. I was sleeping."
"No, you weren't. Your voice gets all croaky like a cartoon frog when you've been sleeping."
He bustled her right back over to face him, her protesting feet kicking the covers into a froth.
"Why'd you go home?" he persisted. "You never go home when there's pizza, not even when Sarah puts weird pickled vegetables on it. And Pope made sure she didn't burn it or anything."
"I'm tired, jeez, do I have to spend every minute with you guys or face the Spanish Inquisition?" She rolled over again, pulling her knees up to her chest.
"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition," JJ said in a wretched British accent, but when she didn't laugh at the reference, he tugged at the waistband of her pajama shorts. "Are you mad at Pope? If you are, you can tell him. Or tell me, and I'll tell him. I know it's really hard to tell Pope you're mad at him because you feel like you kicked a puppy when his face all falls and everything, but sometimes you get mad at people anyway even if you don't want to, and he does get over it." He paused. "He's actually really good at getting over it, because whatever pissed you off, he remembers it for fucking ever, like an elephant. And then he gets all twitchy and worry-eyed if he even gets near to doing it again."
She shoved her face in her pillow. "I'm not mad at Pope. Go home, JJ."
For a long moment, he didn't say anything. "Kie, are we…good?" he finally asked.
She shoved her face harder into her pillow, squeezing her burning eyes closed as the tears seeped into the cotton until it was wet against her face. "Mmm-hm," she managed. This time she must have sounded enough like a cartoon frog to convince him that she was really tired, because he left.
He didn't close the window after himself, and even in late spring, the air felt dead-cold when it gusted in against her back.
#
She cried until three in the morning. Stared at her ceiling, hating herself, until four. Texted Pope for advice, but of course he put his phone on airplane mode before he went to bed, like a responsible human.
At five, she snuck out.
The window on the bedroom at the Chateau was low enough to the ground that it felt like cheating after he'd climbed to the second floor for her, but she did it anyway, because she had to do some kind of a gesture.
JJ jerked awake with a gasp when she shoved up the window, so she had to do the undignified jump-up-and-wiggle-through with an audience, and didn't get the smooth slide-under-the-sheets moment until afterward. But it was worth it when she saw the slice of his crooked smile in the moonlight.
"You sneaking into bed with me, beautiful?"
"Full disclosure, I spooned John B first. I thought he'd be in his room and you'd be on the pull out."
"It's whoever goes to sleep first gets the bedroom," JJ said, snuggling her up into his side. "That way, if the other person is making out or gaming or whatever, you don't keep 'em up. You could have come in through the actual door, if you were already in the living room."
"I was trying to be—just shut up. Anyway."
"Does this mean you're not mad at me anymore?"
Her chest ached and she tried to sort out how to answer that question.
"I'm not stupid," he said. "I know something's up this week. Pope says you won't tell him either, and John B looks guilty, and Sarah said if you're upset maybe I should learn how to communicate, which was why I tried the window thing, except then you kicked me the hell out."
The moonlight was still too bright. When she'd imagined this moment, it'd been dark and he couldn't see her face. She squeezed her eyes closed, his agile fingers oddly still against her back, like he wanted to stroke her spine but wasn't sure if he was allowed, at the moment.
"I think I wanted you to pick me," she whispered. "And I know that's not fair, and it doesn't even really make sense. I wouldn't want you not to be with Pope, and I wouldn't want us not to have Pope. I don't know what I wanted, I just…" The air hissed out of her, frustrated. "But that's not how love works. You don't give only if you get to take, or trade it around like a favor. It's not money, it's not zero sum or transactional, it's…"
Into the silence, his voice sounded very deep, even with the teasing note lifting it that told her, even with her eyes closed, that he was smiling. "Is this you saying you're in love with me, Carrera? Sneaking in my window in the middle of the night and all."
She hesitated, not sure what she wanted to say or how she wanted to say it. Aching, because even now, even knowing she needed to be the brave one, she was scared breathless.
"You're right, though, love's not like that," JJ said after a moment. "It kind of just bursts out of you when you least expect it, whether you say the words or not. And once it's out, you can't put it back in. Like an alien baby."
She started laughing. "What an image. Jeez, JJ."
His finger touched her chin, trying to tilt it up. "Is all this because you think I don't love you?"
She froze. Before she could find the courage to look at him, to see if he was saying what she thought he was saying, the door creaked open and John B stuck his head in. "What are you two laughing at?"
"Your face," JJ said instantly.
John B launched for the bed, scuffling with both of them until they all ended up in a pile of twisted sheets, too tired to wrestle anymore. He yawned from where his head had ended up in Kie's lap, his feet on the only remaining pillow. "Wait, was this a booty call?"
"If it was," Kie said, "Your dumbass ruined it." She wriggled around until her head found a part of JJ's body to rest on.
"S'rry. I can go," John B mumbled, and then promptly fell asleep on her leg. JJ tugged the pillow out from under John B's feet and stuffed it under his head. She was afraid to look at him, now that he knew she loved him.
He hadn't said it back. But then, she hadn't really said it out loud, either. Were they okay, now? Was this it—their big moment?
She lay there, her eyes closed but poised in every cell for what JJ might say next, until he twitched under her head and she realized he was already asleep.
#
Kie had forgotten to close the window after she climbed in last night, so she was woken at dawn by the mosquitos. She blew one off her nose with soft huff of air and peeked over at the guys. JJ was asleep with one arm flung high over his head, his lips soft and unguarded and his hair a gorgeous wreck. Her heart gave an uneven, oversized thump.
It was one of the great mysteries of JJ, how he only seemed to look better the more you messed up his hair. John B, in contrast, currently looked like if a raccoon and an angora cat had a baby…and then it died on his head. He'd also drooled right on the crotch of her yoga pants. She winced and pushed at his face. He rolled over, his head on one of JJ's arms now, and fell back to sleep.
A lump rose in her throat, watching them. I think I wanted you to pick me. Why had she said that? It was such an asshole thing to say, especially when it was about being chosen before Pope, and there was no chance at all for their throuple if she was going to have these ridiculous, immature jealous moments.
Plus, it was Saturday, so not only would she have to face JJ after everything she'd admitted last night, but Pope would probably come over, too. Maybe if it was busy enough at the Wreck, she could volunteer for a shift even if she wasn't on the schedule. She slipped out of bed as quietly as she could, and when she heard JJ stirring—he was the lightest sleeper of them all—she didn't look back.
#
Normally, the best part about working at the Wreck was that it was too busy for her to think. But today, no matter how many orders piled up or how many hot plates she balanced up her arm, she kept hearing his words.
Is this all because you think I don't love you?
The sentence burned into her like a jellyfish sting. Because why would he say it, outright like that and so cruel, unless he was going to tell her she was wrong and he loved her after all. But he hadn't. And yeah, John B had interrupted, but John B interrupted everything and it never slowed JJ down before. She couldn't even talk this out with her friends because John B hadn't listened to her when she tried to tell him what she really thought. That JJ wanted her but loved Pope, and he was perfectly happy to get both…but he also wasn't going to lie to her face about how he felt.
It's why she hadn't said it to him, because that forced the issue. He would either have to say it back…or not. JJ lied all the fucking time, but he wasn't a liar. Not like that.
"Excuse me, I ordered the clams."
She smiled back at the man who was speaking. "Mm-hmm?"
The customer looked at her like she was a dolt. "Do these look like clams to you?"
She obediently looked down to his plate, which held three tiny cups of tartar sauce and a sprig of parsley. Fuck.
"Your dinner will be on the house, sir," she said, and swept the plate away.
She let one of the other employees go home early and stayed all the way to closing, ignoring every bleep of her phone from the various members of the Pogues, who were presumably having a hell of a Saturday without her. She even sent her dad home and mopped without him, pushing until her muscles burned. It felt like the only appropriate accompaniment to the toxic mixture of hurt and guilt that no amount of exhaustion seemed able to wash out of her system.
But when she finally pushed out the back door at midnight, exhausted and sweaty, he was right there. She blinked, as if her overactive imagination might have gone 3-D, but nope, there JJ was. With the sides torn out of his tee shirt and wearing his threadbare blue Outer Banks hat that had "Come on vacation, leave on probation" embroidered on it.
He gave her one of his tight smiles. "Thought you could dodge me, didn't you?"
"I had to work." She tried for a casual smile, so this wouldn't turn into a whole thing. "Not even dating two months yet and you're already getting clingy?"
"Not even dating two months yet, and you're already sneaking out before I wake up so we don't have to talk?"
"JJ…" Okay, so they were definitely doing this right now.
Her eyes swept the parking lot, trying to gauge how much of an audience they were about to have, but she didn't see the VW bus, or his dirt bike, or even Pope's dad's truck. There was just her SUV, and a lonely bicycle locked to the fence that somebody had apparently forgotten when they caught a ride home from the beach.
"Wait, how did you get here?"
"Doesn't matter." He caught her by the hips and boosted her up onto the metal railing of the wheelchair ramp. She sucked in a breath, caught off guard by the movement and having to reach to steady herself on the narrow railing. Before she could catch her balance again, he had already ducked his head and nailed her with his eyes. Direct and a blue so alive she'd never seen the exact shade anywhere else.
Her exhausted pulse thrilled to life at the sight of him. God, he was beautiful, that model-sharp face under that tattered old hat with its wrap of peeling electrical tape around the snap back. Like a Rembrandt hidden in a garage that you just knew somebody was going to show up and take, because it couldn't really belong to you.
"Kie." He thumbed a strand of hair away from her face. "Look, I know you think I love Pope more."
Her whole body felt suddenly shatterable, hearing him say those words out loud. Her face snapped closed and she gripped the bar to either side of her to jump down, but he hadn't even paused and he was still speaking.
"But the thing you don't understand is, Pope always let me love him. Way before he let me kiss him. You never really did. And things are better now, different. But that still fucks me up sometimes."
Her eyes went wide. "JJ, I never meant to—"
"Because yeah, I love you." His voice was smaller, rougher than usual. His hands gripped the bar to either side of her until it squeaked with the pressure of skin against metal. "I've always fucking loved you. It just never made a difference."
She couldn't think. Not with him this raw, standing right there in front of her and still somehow looking her in the eye through all of it. She wasn't sure she'd ever seen JJ let his guard down this far, not even that horrible night in the hot tub when he just broke.
"But you—if you—" Her voice cracked and then it was just pouring out of her, his hurt mixing with hers until she couldn't hold it in anymore, just couldn't. "Why didn't you do anything about it? All those years. You teased, and you flirted, but you never kissed me. Never acted like you were serious, not once, but it's like you didn't even have to think twice before you kissed Pope."
His brows snapped down and his head reared back. "Are you serious? After the billion times you paused the movie after a grab-and-kiss scene to rant about consent?"
"Forgive me if I don't want my friends to be date rapists just because Hollywood is modeling poor behavior rebranded as romance that's written by a bunch of entitled monsters who—"
"I told you," he interrupted. "I told you I loved you like a thousand fucking times and you laughed at me like I was a joke."
What was he even talking about? "Do you mean back in junior high?" She scoffed. "Probably because you were joking, JJ. Come on, writing it in the sand on the beach, sending me snarky little Valentine's cards on those stupid roses everybody buys each other, dropping to one knee in front of all the Pogues? You were just trying to get a rise out of me."
"Or I was telling the truth."
She shook her head. "Oh no, you don't get to retcon your old clowning around to make me look like the asshole now. You never did it when we were alone, or in a nice way. It was always in the middle of messing around on the boat or surfing with the guys."
"John B told Sarah he loved her in front of the Pogues and she believed him."
"JJ!" she squeaked, outraged, but he was pouting now and she could tell by his fidgeting feet and the inward curl of his shoulders that he did, bizarrely, actually mean it. "JJ…" She caught his arm, her hand soft. "I had no idea you were serious."
"You never do." His jaw flexed but he wasn't meeting her eyes anymore. "Somehow you think I'm capable of being in love with Pope, but not you. You think you can clown around with me and hug me and kiss me and even fuck me and somehow it's not gonna hurt that you tell Pope you love him right in front of me. Because I'm your good buddy JJ and I never take anything seriously."
He looked up, his jaw clenched so tight it was quivering and his eyes went straight through her. He seemed about ten years older all in one breath and maybe it was just the light behind him but every faint scar on his face was suddenly standing out like they were fresh wounds.
"But guess what, Kie? I'm serious about you. You have never had any idea how serious."
He shoved his hand into his pocket and came out with a square, velvet box.
Her eyes popped. "JJ, holy—"
Her heart leapt, then flipped all the way over. Oh God, of course he would take her insecurity and run with it…and go completely overboard in the other direction. He gripped the box, swallowing, and she utterly melted. How could she tell him, now, that she wasn't ready to get married, that it was way too early?
And also, at the same time, that she didn't realize until she saw the ring box how anything less somehow wouldn't have been enough to coax the knots out of her stomach.
Because the doubts were gone. Just like that, replaced with a certainty so solid it seemed to stretch larger with every breath. JJ Maybank loved her. And yes, seeing him standing in front of her now, it was like now she could remember all the younger versions of him with too-short outgrown jeans and eyes too big for his skinny face, all of those versions loving her, too. For all those years.
He flipped the box open and the first thing she saw was silver. It was a spun web of silver strands atop a ring, shaped to resemble a whorl of driftwood with a tiny, rainbow-shining piece of abalone shell in the center. It was chipped, and a little oddly shaped to be the center of a ring, but somehow the asymmetrical setting suited it. Made it art, not accident.
But then deja vu tugged at her and she reached to touch the abalone shell. "Wait, is that…"
"You flicked that shell at me in the fifth grade," he said. "Told me to leave you alone because I was annoying. I did a flip off the monkey bars and cracked a tooth that day trying to get your attention. And yeah." He gave her a sheepish, crooked smile. "I kept it."
"Are you sure it was fifth grade?" He and John B hadn't started hanging out with Pope until sixth.
He met her eyes. "Fifth."
She couldn't swallow. She didn't know what to say, couldn't tell him what this meant to her. More than a wedding ring, somehow, because it wasn't just I love you now. It was I've always loved you. It was proof.
"But…" A tear slipped down her cheek and she swiped at it, trying to focus on details so she wouldn't fall apart in front of him. "It's Saturday. How could you have gotten our old shell put in a ring in one day on a weekend?"
"Oh, easy." He shrugged, a little of his old cocky confidence coming back into his eyes as he grinned. "Got it made at a jewelry shop in the mall on the mainland. I refused to leave until she finished. Told her it was for my mom who has Alzheimer's, and today was one of her good days. That if she didn't get it today, she might never have another good day again when she'd know the present was from me, or even that I was her son."
"Alzheimer's." She shook her head. "But that must have cost…" She gasped. "JJ Maybank, is this your whole bonus from finally fixing McReedus's Suncruiser engine?"
"No, actually." He scowled. "That went straight into property taxes. Did you know about property taxes, Kie? It's like rent you have to pay on a house you already fucking own! Turns out John B had been getting letters from the state for like months, saying they were going to take it, and he just kept sending them whatever chump change he had, like that'd stop them foreclosing. Could have lost the whole damn Chateau if I hadn't checked the mail for him last week."
"So then how…" Her eyes fell on the bicycle. The only thing in the lot that could have brought him here. "You sold your dirt bike. Oh my God, JJ…" She was already reaching to shut the box, because no way would she take his only source of transportation from him when he had so little to call his own.
He pulled it out of her reach before she could. "Don't even. Bike's perfect. I'll get more exercise and don't have to waste money on gas. Plus, it's not like we don't both know Pope's dad is gonna give him the truck for graduation. Heyward's always driving the new shop truck now as it is. And don't act like you don't know that when Pope leaves for college, he's gonna leave me the truck because he won't be able to afford parking at Stanford." JJ grinned. "So basically, it's just for the summer. I'll trade him the bike so he can get around campus, and I'll be riding in style by the time the cold blows in."
Kie couldn't help but laugh. "You've already got this all worked out."
"Damn straight." He pulled the ring out and dropped the pretty velvet box like it was trash. "Had to buy my girl a ring." He picked up her hand and slid the ring on, her heart thumping madly at the intimacy of having a man do that for her. It echoed in her head, like a ripple effect of a memory she didn't yet have.
Left hand, middle finger, and it fit like he'd sized it just for that spot. Close enough to touch her ring finger, but not quite there, as if it was saving his place. He met her eyes and she knew. That he'd done it on purpose, and that she was going to let him.
"It's perfect." She could barely breathe, she was smiling so hard. "How did you know?"
He was fidgeting, tugging at the round wooden beads of his rosary bracelet. He shrugged. "I know that for girls, you can tell them how you feel, but sometimes they like jewelry better. It's a thing you can take with you everywhere, look at to remind you that no matter what, it's real. That somebody gives a shit about you."
She caught him by the wrist, her hand closing over the bracelet she'd made him so long ago. She hadn't been sure, at the time, that he understood why she'd made it. But it was nice to know the message had been received, loud and clear. She parted her knees so she could tug him closer, her hand coming up to cup his face.
"I love you, JJ." The words came out so easily now, like he'd given her a spell of safety instead of a ring, but they still ached in her throat with how big they felt. But of course he had known exactly how to make loving him feel safe. JJ, who had probably never felt all the way safe for an entire day in his whole life.
She tipped her forehead against his, trying to catch her breath. Under her fingertips, his heartbeat raced.
"I didn't want to be in love with you if you weren't in love with me," she confessed all in a rush.
"I know." He laughed, a little dark, a little ragged. "Holy fuck do I understand that."
Her fingers tightened. "But you're never going to have to worry about that ever again." She kissed him, all the pain of the last few days disappearing against the soft urgency of his kiss, how he responded to her without thinking, without ever holding back. "Between me and Pope, we're going to love you so much you're barely going to be able to stand it."
She felt his expression change against her lips, his dimple deepening as he started to smile, and she kissed his cheek again before pulling back just so she could see his grin. "Sounds like the worst," he deadpanned.
"Man up, Maybank." She hopped off the railing and caught his hand, the silver of his rings clicking against hers when she squeezed. "You're just going to have to get used to it, because you're stuck with us now. Both of us. For good."