Chapter Text
March blooms with tourons and spring breakers, the last tendrils of winter rolling into sunshine and soft rain. Every time the temperature goes up a degree, JJ sweats a little. December is so far away.
He hauls the last of the truck’s shipment into Heyward’s through the drizzle, hair sticking out from his damp hoodie, clinging to his lashes. Slamming a box down on the counter, dark eyes flicker up at him from a book.
“It’s raining.”
“Yeah, no shit.” JJ rakes a hand through his hair. “I guess if you would’ve helped me with the delivery, then you’d know that, wouldn’t ya?”
No response, those scrutinizing eyes giving JJ a once over as he peels off his zippered hoodie.
“Damn,” JJ cocks an eyebrow, “I know grad school is lonely, but–”
“You’re wearing her shirt,” Pope deadpans.
JJ blinks, jokes dying on his tongue. Surveys the worn out gray, the cracked UNC-W lettering, remembering now how he’d chosen to hold her close under his sweatshirt this morning. “Okay? And?”
“And…” Pope waves a hand. “You didn’t really tell me all that.”
“Tell ya all what?” JJ scoffs, ripping the tape off a box. “That Kiara accidentally mixed up her t-shirt in my stuff?”
Pope studies him, arms folding over his chest. “Stats on long distance relationships aren’t great.” An eyebrow slides up. “Especially for you.”
“Especially for me?” JJ rebuffs. “The fuck’s that mean?”
“It means, the other side of the island is too long distance for you.”
JJ shoots him a glare, but he can’t even deny it. He can’t seem to explain why this is different, either. So maybe Pope isn’t entirely wrong, maybe he didn’t tell him all that because he doesn’t know what to say.
It’s only been three months. It was only a 15 minute drive. A scarf, a frat party, snow cones in winter and kissing in a cove. There’s no logical explanation for any of this.
Pope seems to be on to him anyway. “This is weird, JJ,” he says flatly. “I hadn’t calculated this.”
“Calculated?” JJ snorts, a shake of his head. “Stats? Damn, you really know how to suck the fun out of everything.”
“You could be in the 48%,” Pope passes over him.
JJ stares back, a line between his brows. “I can’t tell if this is supposed to be a pep talk or not.”
“It’s official,” Pope says matter of factly, a hand flicked towards his t-shirt. “You’re in a relationship.”
JJ rips plastic sleeves of cups out of the box, suddenly feels the temperature click up another degree. “You got all that from a t-shirt?”
Pope side-eyes him. “She probably has one of yours, doesn’t she?”
No. She has lots of his. Namely his favorite hoodie that he protects with his life. “Jesus, I don’t know.”
Pope squints, rubs his chin between his finger and thumb like he’s making one of his said calculations. “It’s all making sense now. I mean, I didn’t really think much of it when Pops said, yer boy’s got a girl here in Wilmington and–”
“I swear,” JJ groans, “everyone at that location has the biggest fuckin’ mouth.”
Pope chuckles. “Well, I don’t think you were doing a great job hiding it, man.”
He shrugs, heat creeping up his neck. “I wasn’t trying to.”
Pope cuts him a look like he’s the dumbest person alive. “Exactly.”
JJ sighs, busies himself shelving boxes of napkins. “Okay, well, like you said. She’s there, and I’m here, so–”
“Yeah, and I know you packed her up, drove her down there,” Pope cuts in. He crosses his arms. “I know that you think technology is the devil, but you’re always glued to your phone. I know that you haven’t hooked up with anyone since coming home, not one–”
“Pope, that’s fuckin’ weird you know that, man.”
“-and I know for damn sure you’ve never swapped clothes with a girl, ever,” Pope finishes with flourish. He stares for a moment. “You’re her boyfriend.”
JJ’s quick words screech to a halt, the accusing rain pelting on the windows.
JJ Maybank’s been called a lot of things – some of them nice, some of them not so much, all of them earned.
But he’s not quite sure he’s earned the title boyfriend. He’s never been one before, never really wanted to. Boyfriend feels like something sturdy that comes with expectations, and JJ’s no good with expectations. It feels like some kind of status, not for Pogues from the Cut who work with grease and fish guts all day, hands cut and calloused from sanding a junker boat by night.
It’s not something they’ve even spoken of, either. Maybe there’s a reason for it.
He doesn’t want anyone else, he only wants Kiara. It’s not about that, he’s in this. He’s been in this since she smiled at him in the rearview mirror, if he’s honest with himself.
They left Wilmington with a plan and no plan at all. He tells himself they aren’t the kind to need labels. Then again, there’s no label. And she’s thousands of miles away, and she’s beautiful and smart and fun and, christ, he’s not an idiot, he sees how other people stare and–
JJ can think of about a million forms of torture he’d rather endure than define a relationship. So why does it feel a bit like torture now, not knowing where they stand?
She isn’t with anyone else, either, he knows this deep down. Maybe deep down he fears she should be.
Old voices…they’re still there sometimes, probably always would be. Difference is, JJ has one voice now that carries over the rest of them, even all the way from Florida. He’s just not 100% sure he has her. All of her.
JJ ducks behind the counter, shelving the cups. “Well, man, I guess I’ll just have to trust your odds and calculations ‘n shit.”
It’s quiet a moment before Pope hangs over the counter edge, forcing JJ to look at him. He’s solemn, looking like a child climbing on the furniture and about a million years wise all at once. “Or, maybe you just trust yourself.”
In truth, JJ’s not sure he really knows how to do that. He’s been wrong about so many things, been told his feelings, his thoughts don’t mean shit – mostly by his dad, but especially himself.
He knows what Kiara is to him – he feels it in the way her laugh swells in his chest, how he doesn’t remember a single thing he learned in school, but he remembers every word she’s ever said. When he finds himself looking up surfing conditions in Florida, when vaguely familiar islanders toss him a smile and a folded paper with a number, and he feels absolutely nothing. Flicks it in the trash.
But he’s not sure he knows how to be a boyfriend, everything she deserves. Maybe this far is exactly how she needs him to be. Maybe she knows he’s not capable of anything else. Maybe he’s not.
But then again, Pope’s right…about all of it. The UNC shirt stares at him from below like a question he doesn’t know how to answer.
It stays with him that night, Pope’s words always have a way of doing that. When Kiara’s all lit up on FaceTime talking about the new turtle hatchlings, when she’s complaining about her supervisor overloading her with intakes, tossing her hair in a messy bun, and he’s there through it all. When she mentions staying late and he DoorDashes her dinner while they’re on the phone. A last groggy phone call before they pass out for the night, something lingering on his lips he doesn’t quite know how to say.
This is what he is, whatever he is. And he’s just gotta learn to trust it.
It’s a random Tuesday then, a couple weeks later, when that rainy day at Heyward’s floods back in. Kiara is on her lunch break, telling JJ about the new intern, nothing particular about it.
Except that there is.
“He’s never even been on a boat, Jage. Like, ever.” A bag of chips crinkles, the hiss of a sparkling water cracking open. Spindrift, Mango, he’s sure.
“Well what the hell’s he doin’ tryna save turtles then?” JJ scoffs.
“I don’t know, but he literally knows next to nothing.” She chuckles. “I swear, he must be a nepo baby or something.”
“I know the type,” he scowls, “Sperrys that looks like they just came out of the box.”
“No–”
“No?”
“I mean, they’re a little scuffed up–”
JJ cackles. “Well. As long as there’s a couple scuffs.”
“He’s nice,” she insists.
“Oh, I’ll bet he is,” he grumbles.
She lets out a laugh. “C’mon. He just needs a little help.”
“And lemme guess, he wants you to help him.”
“JJ,” she spits out through another laugh, “I’m the lead intern; I help all the new people.”
“It’s a good marketing plan,” he snarks, “I’ll give ‘em that.”
She busts out another laugh. “Get this though, he wants to take the boat out to fish, and he just got the first bucket of worms or whatever from the shelf.”
“Oh, jesus,” JJ huffs, “There’s a difference between–”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she dismisses, “There’s different bait for freshwater and saltwater.”
He hums. “So you do listen.”
“Of course I listen, JJ,” she scoffs. “I even told him–” She crunches down a chip, takes a swig of her drink. “My boyfriend says you gotta use tougher bait for saltwater, like cut fish.” More chip crunching over his stunned silence. “That’s what you said, right?”
“Mmhm, that’s–um–” He sits up straight, tripping through his wide smile. “That’s right.”
JJ’s a lot of things, some things that had been branded, unwanted. Some he proclaimed as if they’d erase everything else, as if those things were what made him. But he made himself, he realizes, he still is.
Kiara Carrera wears his hoodie. He wears her t-shirt. And JJ Maybank is a boyfriend.
*
Summer is always the same, sunburned noses and peeling shoulders. Saltwater hair and dawn patrol. JJ’s done it all a million times over.
But this summer is for firsts.
The first time he’s touched an honest to god cashier’s check, money from an actual bank account instead of some wad of cash. Hands it over to the junkyard manager, the Maybank name chicken scratched on a boat title. Purposeful, permanent, like it means something.
The first time JJ has actual property, working for himself, fixing, building. Shiny, reborn. His.
The first time driving south of the Carolinas, highway 95 winding into heavier humidity and warm white sand. A new stretch of the Atlantic, calmer, warmer waves to surf.
He crashes into the swells, into the sunshine, into Kiara, over and over. The first for him, living like this, feeling this way.
He remembers the bitter cold when he met her, how he’d willed the frost to stay and freeze them in time. But it’s all melted now, seasons come and gone, and they’re still here.
In another first now, swallowed up in Kiara’s golden glow at sunset, her curls dancing in the breeze when she says it – the very thing that’d been stirring within him for a while now.
Three words rolling off so easily, soft and hazy at the end of a joint.
JJ’d taken so many hits in the name of love, trusted it in vain. Tried desperately to understand it and never could.
Maybe he’s misunderstanding now. Maybe she’s just high. Maybe she’d leave, take it back. Maybe he just can’t let himself believe it.
Because JJ Maybank doesn’t get a perfect beach under a perfect sunset and a perfect girl telling him she loves him.
Firsts…the first time someone sticks around, looks at him like he’s worth sticking around for. He has no idea what to do with that.
Then again, he had no idea what a boyfriend looked like and he became one. Then again, he wears her t-shirts and drives south of Beaufort, further away from home than he ever has before.
But this is more than t-shirts and highways. This is a promise that he can be something, that he can give her everything she deserves, that he’s worthy of her words.
And he’s honestly not sure that’s a promise he can keep. Even if he can promise he’s in love with her.
The setting sun whispers to the ocean, dusk starting to creep in. Words crash in his head, words he wants to come out, but doesn’t quite know how. He’s fucking it up, surely, with every passing moment of dumbfounded silence.
But when he meets her gaze, her soft smile hasn’t changed or wavered. Fingertips cradling his cheek, her eyes cradling him all the same, she leans in and brushes her lips to his. Gentle but resolute.
And then she takes off towards the waves, his name carrying through the wind, calling him to follow.
*
Winter drifts in like a warm blanket over months that JJ used to dread, summer sunshine running through his veins. Because winter, now, to JJ, is peach and curls, a sharp tongue and cherry red lips. One year since a stoplight stopped his whole world.
One year of scattered visits that were everything and never quite enough. Of phone calls and texts and turtles, sanding and welding and painting. Fighting to keep steady through the thrashing ocean of internships and remodeled boats.
One year leading up to now, his best friends back in the place where he always had hope, where he’d counted stars and counted down time, waiting for them to return.
It’s a picture he couldn’t draw in his mind if he tried: the Pogues – John B, Pope, even Sarah, standing at the Chateau’s dock, whooping, hollering, watching a bottle shatter. Not at the wall, not at him, not beer or whiskey but champagne. No bloodshed, only the ocean cradling his blood, sweat, and tears. Bubbles gliding down the side of a freshly painted boat, Kiara Carrera all bright smiles and pride in his arms.
“And what’ll be her name, Capt’n Maybank?”
JJ can’t even make fun of how cheesy John B is, not right now. He’s too happy. He drumrolls on the side of the boat, pausing for dramatic effect. “The Snapper.”
And everyone cheers and whistles, but he steals a look through the noise – a wink at Kiara. It could mean the fish; it could mean a turtle. It could be both, but that’s for them to know and no one else.
John B claps his hands together, announces there’s celebratory hot tub time and a cooler full of PBR waiting for them, and JJ thinks it’s perfect and everyone’s here, and this time, their time, has been a long time coming.
But this boat has been a long time coming, too. And he just needs to see if it’s steady before he can relax. He needs to see if it’s real.
Kiara’s arms circle around his waist, answering the question he didn’t need to ask. Her eyes flit to the boat and back. “We can join them later.”
There is the matter of leaving her friend here that has only just met John B and Pope. But Sarah’s already laughing at something John B’s dramatically gesturing, playfully slapping his arm as they walk up the bank to the house.
Kiara sends a look JJ’s way. He shrugs. John B’s the furthest thing from a UNC frat boy, but Sarah’s the furthest thing from the Cut, too. Maybe it all evens out or something.
All he knows is, he got Kiara, so crazier shit has happened.
He takes Kiara’s hand, leading her onto the boat first. She grins up at him, squinting through the sun. “Did you think a year ago that Totino’s girl would be macking on your best friend?”
He snorts, jumping in after her. “Wait ‘til she figures out John B barely knows the English alphabet let alone the Greek one.”
She laughs as he unwinds the rope, pushing them away from the dock. Everything fades, gliding until the hum of the motor starts bleeding through his veins, the splashing water crashing over his wide-cheeked smile.
It’s not until the Chateau’s a dot at the shoreline that she hooks her arm into his, resting her chin to his shoulder to stare up at him. “I knew she’d be perfect.”
He hums, eyes locked on the disappearing dock, as if it might still all fall apart the further he takes it, the longer he trusts.
When he offers no other response, she cocks an eyebrow. “You didn’t?”
“I dunno,” he chuckles, “things have a way of…goin’ sideways.”
“Even if they did–” She drops a kiss to his jaw. “You’d find a way.”
He stifles the urge to refute it. Sits with it a minute. Thinks they’re still afloat and Kiara’s still here, so maybe she’s on to something.
“Now we just hope people come.”
She grins, hand gliding to his cheek. “They will, Jage. They’ll come.”
He laughs lightly, caught off guard when it slips out, “Even for a Maybank?”
“Especially for a Maybank.”
He can’t take this away from you…she’d said it so many times over the last year. Said that he was brave, that the Maybank name means something – something good – when the doubts would creep in, the nights he’d question whothehelldoithinkiam.
What she didn’t know was that he isn’t just here in spite of Luke but because of Luke. In so many ways, everything he knows about the water, this way of life. To prove him wrong, to prove him right.
JJ’d tell him now, if he could, if he knew where in the hell he even was – JJ did this, he did something, all on his own. And it didn’t have to hurt, it didn’t cost him anything other than the money he happily handed over, the money he earned, that he didn’t have to lie, cheat, or steal to get. He didn’t have to lie, cheat, or steal to get any of this.
But he’d lie, cheat, steal, do anything, everything, to keep it.
He brushes flyaway hairs from Kiara’s face. “I dunno, Kie,” he counters, “there may not be a lot of people comin’ round in the winter. Maybe I should’ve waited.”
“Don’t even try it, JJ,” she comes back sternly, “This is the perfect time.” She draws him in closer, eyes aglow, whispers, “Now, is the time.”
She’s so assured, so certain, looking at him the same way she looked at him this summer in Florida. And he hadn’t quite known what to do with it then, and maybe he still doesn’t, but she said it herself…He finds a way, doesn’t he?
For her, he’ll figure it out. What to do with it, how to take care of it. But mostly how to trust it.
Now is the time, indeed.
“I love you, Kie.”
She blinks, catches up. Smiles like she knew anyway.
His lips find hers, and it’s all soft and delicate for a fleeting moment before they remember the time apart, that they haven’t had a moment alone since everyone arrived in Kildare. Before her tongue slips between his lips, her fingers grip through his hair, before his arm winds tight around her waist, hands on every inch he can grab.
It’s a tiny cabin below deck, too small for the way he feels, exactly right for how close he needs her right now. It’s rough and messy because time apart will do that, but it smooths out every kink of worry and stress he’s had over the last few months. He watches, feels, where they’re connected, tries to forget all the space between them.
Something whispered, moaned, shattering, just for him. A deep release, ripped from his chest. Something living, perfect, theirs.
Her breath is evening out beneath him as she brushes a lock of damp blond away from his eyes. He hopes she’ll always look at him this way. “Happy one year, J.”
“Happy one year, Kie.”
*
Kiara is there the first time he turns a profit. The first time that little box in the spreadsheet turns green, not red. She’d said in that blistery, winter wind when they’d tested the boat, so sure, so confident that they’d come…and they did. Vendors wanting contracts, tourons on Spring Break, fishing trips this summer, photographers chasing sunsets.
He tells her she’s his lucky charm. She tells him he makes his own luck. She puts her lips all over his body and whispers in his ear, says his name in that way that grips his soul, and he thinks luckyluckylucky…no one is luckier than him. She falls asleep on her stomach, hair wild against his pillow, spilling over Maybank Charters on the back of her t-shirt.
And he has a thought then. One that’s tangible and real after today. One that’s completely selfish, given her life is in Florida.
He could give her a life here. If only he knew how to ask.
*
It all happened in that same flurried, fleeting way Sarah and John B got together.
JJ and Kiara had left them alone for an hour or two at the Chateau last winter, and by the next winter, there was a diamond reflecting rainbows on the windows as Sarah excitedly flicked her hand through the whole story –
He asked me to get a book down from the shelf and I thought why the hell is John B asking for a book but of course there was no book and so I turned around and there he was, down on one knee and all!!!
JJ knew John B had a fall hard and fast problem, but damn.
It’s not like John B hadn’t mentioned before he wanted to marry Sarah, he had, probably within a few days of meeting her. But it’s John B, so JJ didn’t take him all that seriously.
Well, it’s serious now.
JJ had seen them together over the last year, when John B had a port stay in Florida and the four of them met up there. Over the summer, when they’d all come to Kildare for a few scattered days here and there. And JJ knew John B was bending over backwards trying to make it back to dry land whenever he could to see her.
They made it look so easy, being apart. JJ wonders what he and Kiara look like.
He still had that question burning in the back of his brain, the one he’d had since this summer when she laid in his bed with his name printed across her back. When he realized he could actually do this whole chartering thing.
But then she’d excitedly tell him her project got extended, or how she was scouting out new apartments because her lease would be up soon. Talk about upcoming surf trips to various Florida beaches weeks or even months away.
And he figured he had his answer.
Sarah and Kiara are chattering away, examining Sarah’s ring, Pope chiming in about blood diamonds, when John B slings an arm around JJ’s shoulders, pulling him aside.
“Somethin’ I wanna talk to you about,” he says, that familiar fleck in his eye. “If you’re free.”
Wedding shit, maybe, but then, Pope would be here too. Something dramatic for no reason, probably, but there’s something hiding in John B’s easy smile.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure Sarah’s over there talking about dragging Kie to some wedding dress place, anyway.”
John B’s eyes flit fondly to Sarah and back. “Let’s take the twinkie.”
An icy twig scrapes over the cracked windshield as John B skitters down the narrow dirt roads. JJ breathes it all in, John B’s chaotic driving, the spider web crack in the windshield, the saltwater air wafting through the squeaky rolled down window.
Home and what it was, what it is now. They used to run these roads, but they’re empty now, save for a trip down memory lane a few times a year.
There’s a lot about memory lane, the fork in the road that leads back to the old shack he grew up in. The rotted floorboards, the holes in the wall. Where he roamed through a minefield, scared and hollow.
So maybe you can’t go home again, and in some ways, JJ’s glad for it.
John B pulls up to a secluded beach area, rife with pieces of palm and sticks, sand kicking up in the winter wind. There’s a lot of places JJ would call theirs, the Pogues’ stomping grounds, and this isn’t really one of them.
“You remember the last time we were here?”
JJ hums. “Somethin’ about Big John. He was gonna meet us here.”
“Yup,” John B pops the ‘p.’ “Claimed he found something big for the hunt.”
But he hadn’t, JJ remembers now. Or maybe he had, but they’d never know it since he didn’t show.
Big John had done that all the time, one too many this time. JJ couldn't properly articulate it then, but he saw it – John B grew up a little that day. John B was always so hopeful, so excited about his dad’s treasure hunting adventures, so sure it was all going to mean something one day. And JJ loved Big John in only the way a little boy running away from home could, but he hates him a little, too, for taking away that hope from John B.
“Anyway, I just…” John B stares off into the distance, absently draws shapes in the sand with a stick. “I wanted to tell you the bank called. Dad’s officially been evicted, and I’m next of kin, so…” John B shrugs, small smile.
JJ blinks. “So…it’s yours?”
The corner of John B’s mouth quirks, hazel eyes glinting in the struggling sun. “More like yours. If you want it.”
Breath stalls in JJ’s throat, trying to process the words. He didn’t know what John B was going to say, but it wasn’t that. He’s already been living there, sure, but in some ways he still feels like a guest, like he’s just house sitting for the Routledges. Like they’d felt sorry for him after the house he grew up in figuratively and literally fell apart. Last he knew, it was leveled to the ground.
And yeah, he probably gave up on Big John long before John B did, so it’s not like JJ thought he was going to come back there. But he did hold out some hope on John B.
But now there’s a girl and a diamond ring back at the Chateau.
“Wilmington?” JJ fills in.
John B gives him a nod. “Wilmington.” A shrug. “It’s more yours anyway….You’re the one that’s been there with me gone and…” Sighing, he motions to the sea. “Dad was always out chasing.”
Maybe John B was, too – it’s there between the lines. But not anymore.
Maybe JJ’s the only one left still searching. He has finally gotten what he wants, actual money earned the decent way, some kind of monopoly on chartering in Kildare, or at least that’s what Pope called it, spending his days on the water, his favorite place on earth.
But it’s still not everything.
Because something about sitting here on this beach, remembering everything lost, that’s gotten away, with the Chateau sitting in the palm of his hands, all it does is make him realize that he and Kiara haven’t even talked about anything. That they haven’t had any actual, real discussions about their future. They’d both been moving on, moving up, but they haven’t quite moved in the same direction yet.
Even with everything finally, finally working out, he’s still lost somewhere. Probably in Florida.
Year one was year one. But year two? Year two is two years too long.
Stifling that stirring he’d had since this summer was starting to get suffocating. Every time she came to visit a piece of him left with her, and it was getting harder and harder to pick himself up afterwards.
If he buys this now, officially, what does that mean for them?
John B elbows him lightly. “What’s up, man? You not want the place anymore?”
“No, I do.” He pauses. “It’s just…”
John B smiles gently. “You want Kiara more?”
JJ cracks a twig in his hand, eyes locked on the rolling grains. “It’s stupid, right?” He sighs, turns to face John B. “To, like–” He waves a hand, unsure of what he’s even asking.
“To what?” John B comes back, as if it’s obvious. “Consider her?”
“Well, yeah, I guess. She has Florida. She has a job she loves, and–”
“She loves you, too, though, JJ.”
JJ ducks, biting down a smile. It’s still hard to admit to himself, even now, even when he’s heard it straight from her lips so many times. “Like is it too much or something?”
John B snorts. “You’re asking me?”
JJ laughs, sends him a look. “That’s you, though.”
“Okay, and this is you,” John B stresses. “You and Kiara. Makes sense you’d want to talk to her about it first.”
It’s scary as shit how JJ can picture it, how he has pictured it, for a while now. Kiara making her spiced oat milk coffee thing in the kitchen, her soft headbands on the hook in his bedroom, a scattering of gold rings on the nightstand.
Scarier yet that they’ve never talked about any of this. That the reality is, she’s a world away, making her life without him. A life he’d never, ever, in a million years ask her to give up, least of all for him.
John B brings him back with a hand clapped to his shoulder. “We can always sell.” He squeezes, a pursed smile. “But talk to her, man. Let me know.”
By the time they get back, there’s a whole engagement soiree planned for the evening at some restaurant JJ normally wouldn’t be caught dead in on the other side of the island. And when Kiara comes out of the bathroom, her curls pinned up, rosy cheeks and lips, asking him to zip up a silky red dress, he has to remind himself that this isn’t some fraternity party, that he’s not who he was two years ago and neither is she.
He’s the one that gets to graze his fingers over the soft skin of her back, trail his lips down the line of her neck. He’s the one that gets to break the fall when she spins around and crashes their mouths together. He’s the one that gets to make them late, very late, to this thing he’s being dragged to anyway, to hold her, be with her. And it’s becoming increasingly obvious that he wants being with her to mean actually being with her. Here, there, anywhere.
Sarah doesn’t even get mad about them strolling in long after the appetizers, she’s too glittery and lit up on to John B’s arm, too happy, sending JJ a wink like she’s just as happy for them.
Because they are happy. He can be happy and feel this, too.
He feels it all through dinner, all through John B’s sappy speech about Sarah and soulmates when ya know ya know…
He does know. He’s known.
After dinner, JJ insists that fancy time is over, and to his delight, Sarah agrees. It’s karaoke night at their favorite dive and John B, Sarah, and Pope are in the middle of Rapper’s Delight when JJ catches Kiara’s eyes. Nods towards the beach, patting the joint in his front pocket. She grins, crosses over to him and slides her hand in his.
It’s familiar by now, the end of their visits, a farewell procession of sorts. Last moments, alive and raw. When he drops down in the sand, he falls back to his elbows, and Kiara falls right over him, lips capturing his. His hand travels under red silk, gripping the back of her thigh, his fingers tangling in her hair with the other.
He should find a way to say things, but he’s always been better at showing. Kissing her with everything he’s got, holding her like he can keep this moment forever.
When they take a breath, she nips the joint from his front pocket with a grin. Sitting up, she slots the joint between her lips. Her face glows in the fiery flame as he flicks his Zippo open, eyes trained on him through the smoke.
Between each drag hangs a heavy silence, sobering reality creeping in. But this time, he doesn’t want it to be an end. He wants it to be a beginning but doesn’t quite know how to start it. He’s jumped in head first so many times, and he’s still recovering from those injuries.
Shifting his hand in the sand, he reaches for her. Intertwines their fingers. Amber eyes flit to his with a soft smile, his heart stuttering.
“So…” She cuts the silence, snags the joint. “Where’d you and JB go earlier?”
He’d been in his head so much today, he forgot that she kinda resides there, too.
She’d sensed the shift. Makes him wonder how long ago.
He turns away from the white caps to meet her gaze. “This little sandbar a ways out.”
“Yeah?” She frowns, smoke slipping from her lips as she hands the joint back over.
“Mmhm,” he mumbles around a drag. “He, uh…Well, Big John’s been booted from the Chateau.”
“Oh…shit,” she breathes out. “What’s John B gonna do?”
JJ laughs lightly. “Well, he’s gonna move to Wilmington, that's what he’s gonna do.”
“Oh.” She pulls up a half-smile, eyes settling back on the ocean. “Guess that makes sense.”
Silence. Loaded. Dots connecting, two people back at the Chateau, planning their life, making moves to be together.
She frowns suddenly. “Wait, does that mean you’re gonna have to leave?”
“No, not if I don’t want to.” He pauses, takes a pull. “He says it’s mine if I want it.”
“JJ, that’s amazing,” she whispers. She leans in, fingers brushing hair from his forehead. “You love that house.”
He shrugs, tries to tell himself he doesn’t love it as much as he thinks. Because he doesn’t love it as much as he loves Kiara.
Now’s the time, he thinks, to say the things. To reel in all the unsaid words swimming around and spit them out. In the right order. The right way.
He opens his mouth, but nothing comes. Tries again. But then she’s the one that shifts, draws her knees up to her chest as she squints reflectively to the ocean.
“I can’t believe John B is gonna give up the cruise line gig.”
The waves turn ahead. Something turns within. “Well…” JJ draws out. “He seems happy about it.”
Kiara shrugs. “I just dunno how you could go from sailing the world back to North Carolina.”
It’s flippant, cool. The way she feels about this place, his home. About changing course for something else, someone else. The little prickle in his spine intensifies, his body stiffening. He feels it, his worst impulses fighting for escape.
He chuckles, more bitter than intended. “Didn’t realize this was the worst fuckin’ place on earth.”
She frowns, taken aback. Swings her head to look at him. “Is that what I said?”
“Sounded like it to me,” he dismisses. “Anyway, you must think so since every place you applied to was a million miles away.”
She stares at him, eyes simmering before she finally comes back in, slow and even. “You helped me with the applications, JJ. You knew what this was – you were the one who encouraged me to–”
“I know,” he presses, “but it’s been two years, Kiara.” He blows out a frustrated breath. “Two years.”
That quiets her. But only for a beat or two before she’s barrelling back in. “Well, I’m sorry, the grant keeps extending and–”
“Yeah, I get it.” He of all people should get it, why she had to create distance over several state lines, and he does, but he’s also selfish and stupid. “I just didn’t realize–”
“And I told you,” she carries over him, “I told you that day on the pier, I needed to get away and do things on my own.”
“And you have, Kiara – you have.” He throws up a hand. “So what now?”
She pins her gaze to the ocean ahead, curls spiraling in the wind. “You know I wanted to see the world.”
Maybe he’d thought stupidly she’d want to see the world with him. At least someday. And it’s starting to feel like someday is never going to come.
All the while he’s been wondering how to get them in the same place, she’s been contemplating how she can get even further away.
“Do you?” he challenges. “Or are you just running away from home?”
It’s too far, too close to the untouched box she never opens. Camps and parents and summer homes in Nag’s Head. A flash in her eyes. “What the hell kind of question is that, JJ?”
One she’s not going to answer, he knows. And it’s fine, it really is, because the solution to their problem has been staring him in the face for a while now – one he’d been too afraid to say out loud, to pressure her, disrupt her life. The words have been ebbing and flowing on his tongue, and the rolling wave’s finally crashing in.
He swallows. “I could move my business to Florida.”
“JJ–” She sucks in a breath. “No.”
He winces. “Don’t think too hard about it.”
“All your connections are here.”
“I’ll make new ones.”
“You don’t belong in Florida.”
“I could,” he insists, “I could be in Florida.”
She shakes her head, eyes fixed to the sand. “I didn’t mean it like that – I know you could.”
He gnaws on the inside of his cheek, jerks a hand through his hair. He sounds desperate, he knows, but he kind of is. And it’s not because he’s panicking, it’s not because of this engagement going on, it’s not because of any of that. He’s just simply exhausted. Worn to the bone trying to be without her. Highway 95 has never been longer, lonelier.
She sighs. “What about the Chateau?”
He shrugs. “We can sell.”
“JJ, no…no.” Her eyes flash with alarm. “I can’t let you do that.”
“But you’ll let me keep living like this?” It just comes out, accusatory and unfair. He hates himself.
And her reaction makes him hate himself more, the fiery undercurrent suddenly fading to a flicker. Glossy-eyed, lips parted like she’s searching for words. He wishes she would just lay into him, let him have it. All he hears is the ocean.
“I’m sorry, okay,” he wavers, “shit – I’m sor–”
“Maybe we just need to…” Her words are whispered now, murmuring to the night. Her eyes squeeze shut before she looks to the sky. “Take a step back.”
His heart lands in his throat. “I – a step back from…what, exactly?”
“Us, JJ, I don’t know,” she trips, “I just–”
“No,” he insists, “Jesus – no. That’s not what I meant.”
He has a knack for this, he’d said it, right on that fucking boat, and it’s here now, all going sideways. Everything was fine, it was, and now it’s falling off the rails because he pushed too hard, he wanted too much and–
Love…he promised himself he’d trust it. That he’d live up to it best he could, fight for it, even. And he feels the familiar darkness creeping through, the parade of betrayal, a fuck you an I told you so.
“I know you didn't, Jage,” she sighs, “But maybe it’s just not enough.”
“It is – it’s enough, Kie, just–” There’s a sharp pain throbbing in his chest. He rubs a hand over this godforsaken dress shirt.
“You’re right, two years is too long and–” She pauses through her ramble. “If you’re not happy or–”
“I am, Kiara,” he panics, “Fuck, I–” He lets out a jagged breath, and her hand flies to his, clasping tight. Worry deepens in her brow, eyes skittering over his face.
His chest heaves in their deadlocked stare, words falling to a whisper. “Just forget I said anything.” He grips her hand. “Please.”
She nods slowly, the breeze picking up loose curls across her face. She drags her thumb over his lips as if she can erase his words. But she can’t, and he can’t erase hers either.
Still, her soft kiss is saying something, his lips pressing back an answer. He can kiss the moonlight splashed over her cheeks, her lips, try to chase the night away. They make it to his truck, and he remembers that night in Wilmington, when it was all coming to an end. He can’t tell if this is also an end – a worse kind.
Back then, he’d had so much hope. Kissing her shoulder just like this, Kiara in his lap, the glinting bronze of her body, whispering we’re okay…it’s okay…
Thing is, then, he believed it would be. Two years in, it’s getting harder to.