Chapter 1: Pogues for Life
The sea had always felt like a friend to Kiara. Lifting her surfboard, offering up fish, embracing her as she swam. It had been days, maybe weeks now, since the storm that took John B and Sarah, and the sea didn't look so friendly these days. It lurked like a consequence. A reminder. And on an island, the ocean lay around every corner.
They were all trying to adjust but having them disappear like that, so fast, it just didn't feel real. That two people could blink out with so little ceremony. It must have been how John B felt, after his father was lost at sea. Unfinished. Doubting. Like it could never quite be true.
Maybe that's why Kiara didn't feel right, inside. She wished that was all of it.
For everything that had changed, though, Kiara still always knew where to find Pope.
Not that he was always in the same place. His dad had him hopping all over the island and to the mainland for various errands. Pope was the machinery behind the curtain that made his dad look like a wizard to all the Kooks who needed him to work his procurement magic. But Pope's tracks always circled back to the same places: the Chateau, the marina, the back of his dad's old pickup where he'd sprawl during slow times and pore over textbooks and academic journals he got for free from inter-library loan. Carefully brushing the windblown flakes of rust off each page before he turned it, leaving nothing of himself behind.
Now, she walked up the beach to the dock, waiting for him to return from his errand. She could already see the prow of his boat slicing through the water and she slipped her sunglasses up onto her head to watch him approach. Her stomach was uneasy, and she stretched a smile onto her lips to cover it. It was always uneasy, these days.
Pope cut the engine at just the right moment to let it sink onto its own wake like a cushion, finessing the boat up to the landing like nobody but a Pogue from the Cut would. No Kook would notice the slight scuff in the clear coat you got when you hit the dock bumpers too fast. Pope smiled when he saw her, a quick flash of teeth that faded guiltily before it really took hold. Kiara slipped one foot out of her flip flop and rubbed it against her opposite leg, brushing away the sand. But when she put it back in her shoe it still grated.
Pope tossed her the rope and she tied it off, the clove hitches looping naturally onto the cleat. He stepped onto the dock and clapped her on the shoulder in greeting, then hesitated and leaned in, daring a quick kiss to her mouth. Her stomach flipped over, uneasy woken to unrest by their awkwardness. Pogues were reckless and exuberant, often foolhardy, but never hesitant. She caught his arm and pressed her lips to his, determinately. One second, two, wondering how long a kiss was supposed to last. If she was supposed to move her mouth more or if that was a night time thing, not for the day. Kissing felt like an alien thing her body hadn't quite mastered.
When she pulled away, he smiled at her, but the self-consciousness was still lurking in his eyes like a question and she sighed.
His face fell. "Look…"
"I just—" she said at the same time.
He broke off and gestured for her to go first.
"I kiss you and sometimes I…but I mean everything feels wrong right now. So I don't know."
"You'd know," Pope said quietly. "Even right now, with everything going on. If there was something to know, you'd already know it."
Pain lanced through her belly. She couldn't see him cry again. Please don't let him cry again. She reached past her frustration and tried to figure out how to do better this time, because she'd kissed him. And last time, she hadn't tried to explain, not really.
"I think that you think I don't feel anything for you, and that's not it at all," she said, looking up at him. His face was so familiar she could almost look straight through the handsome as if it wasn't even there. But it was, and it wasn't even that she couldn't see Pope that way. She could. She could still see the strength flexing in his muscles when he jumped in front of her and went after Rafe. She could see the way his mouth curved in a way that was almost sensual, when he solved a particularly hard math problem.
"I love you, Pope." She said it plainly, no qualifiers, hoping he'd listen. "And when you took off because of me, I hated it. But I…I don't know."
He shrugged. He didn't look surprised. But then, Pope rarely did. "No Pogue on Pogue macking," he said. "Maybe that's why. It gets all mixed up. It's not as simple as if we just met."
"It's not like I've never thought of it. I mean, look at you." She gestured. "All of you. The summer when JJ grew those abs, or when you take off that hat and that jawline of yours comes into focus, and I catch myself looking…"
His head came up and he focused again, and she almost laughed at how easy it was to capture a boy's attention by telling him how hot he was. But her stomach was still too knotted to laugh, even at irony.
"Sometimes you'll grab my hand," she said, the confession rushing out that she'd never had anyone to talk to about, "or John B will give me that shy little smile of his and I'll get a tingle like, yeah. If you were just boys, I'd want to see what it was like. Kissing you. Touching you. Maybe even fooling around a little. But I know if I did, if I picked just one of you…"
The wind blew a strand of her hair across her face and she scooped it back over her shoulder, staring out at the incoming tide. After a long breath, she looked back at Pope, who was still there. Just listening. Looking at him, she loved him so much it almost hurt and she couldn't figure out how people sorted it out, loving like a brother versus a friend versus somebody who sometimes drove you batshit crazy and did dumb stuff but was also kind of gorgeous and okay, a little bit ripped.
"I just want you in my life," she said on the whoosh of an exhale. "People date and they break up and they betray each other but Pogues are forever. Even the year I took off on you guys for Sarah and the Kooks. The first thing that happened, when I finally got up the guts to come crawling back, was that JJ offered me a beer. Didn't ask for an apology or anything. Never held a grudge." She let her gesturing hand fall to her side, the calling of the sea birds suddenly loud in the silence between them. "Could you have done that if you loved me?"
"We all love you." He started to fidget a little, shifting his weight and turning to check on the boat. "It's why we didn't care why you came back. We just wanted you here. And maybe it's wrong of me to want more, just for me." He leaned down to tighten the already-tight rope on its cleat, then shrugged one shoulder like he did when he was about to say something really important. "I think, when I lost my merit scholarship, it was the one thing that set me apart and part of me wanted to feel special again." His gaze came back to hers, his dark eyes warm. "If I was the only one you looked at like that…there's nothing better this side of the cut than you, Kie."
"There is," she said firmly. "There's us."
She bumped him with her shoulder. "What do you say? Still friends?"
"Pogues for life," he affirmed. "No matter what. Though for the record, kissing you was not terrible."
She fought a smile, forced it back to seriousness. "And Pope? That scholarship wasn't what made you special. With a brain like yours, there's never going to be just one chance, just one scholarship. Being the kind of person who could win something like that, that's what makes you special. And nobody can take that away from you." She shoved him with one bare foot. "Long as you don't burn up all those big brain cells smoking out with JJ."
He snorted and hung his head. "Yeah, yeah."
"We need you," she said softly. "Who else would bag out on their life's dream to sprint across the island in dress shoes, all for us?"
He held out a fist and bumped her knuckles lightly and relief washed through her, easing her stomach. "Pogues for life. Unless it means running in dress shoes again. Those things are sweaty as hell."
She smiled and for a second, just for a second, everything in her world felt right again. And then she thought of JJ.
Author's Note: Next chapter is all JJ, so use those follow buttons!