Chapter Text
jj, november, 2011
the school that used to be ours
There were some things that JJ Maybank was certain he’d never understand. They went something like this:
- Why his parents had named him JJ. Not short for anything—just two letters. JJ.
- Why there were double-standards on school uniforms
- Why said double-standards required knee-length skirts, except for cheerleaders on game day
- Why Kiara Carrera was a cheerleader
- Why Kiara Carrera, the cheerleader, in the skirt, had to swing her hips just so that every boy in the senior class could catch a glimpse of her silver bloomers
- Why it bothered JJ Maybank that Kiara Carrera swung her hips just so that every boy in the senior class caught a glimpse of her silver bloomers
- Why he could not control the situation in his pants when Kiara Carrera traipsed into English in aforementioned silver bloomers.
- Seriously, he was going to have to cover his lap with his jacket like a 12 year old boy.
It wasn’t that JJ was a stranger to seeing girls in short skirts, or even in no skirts at all. It was that Kiara Carrera was, well… something of an exceptional case.
Honestly, it wasn’t just because of her mile-long mocha legs. It wasn’t even because she was beautiful, and smart, and sassy, and passionate, and a million other things that, quite frankly, turned JJ on. It was something else. Something that he hadn’t been able to put his finger on since the seventh grade, when she’d traipsed into the middle school like she owned the place and settled down in the seat right in front of him.
It was something of a curse that they were always in all of the same courses together, just as it was something of a curse that their first names were alphabetically back-to-back in their grade, and that all of their teachers were “innovative,” making seating charts by first name.
She’d sat in front of him for five and a half years now, and he still hadn’t quite worked up the courage to talk to her outside of group projects. It didn’t help that, at least once a week, she was wearing that high-slitted, tight skirt.
“Morning, Maybank,” she murmured as she slid in, a minute after the tardy bell, with two cream-filled donuts and a reusable cup of coffee balanced in her hands. She must have interpreted his glazed look as a reaction to the pastries, because she held her left hand out. “Peace offering for standing you up last night? Sorry. Work was slammed.”
It was true. Kiara didn’t use him, per say. JJ Maybank wasn’t really a person who was used by anyone. But he was used to disappointment, so if that meant that he didn’t give people too hard of a time for blowing him off, so what?
Kiara, though? Something told him that she knew about his soft spot for her and took advantage of it as often as she thought she could.
“Work?”
“Yeah. I thought that someone was going to pick up my shift at The Wreck so that I could meet you at the library, but then they never showed. Holiday tourists are in, and we’re short staffed. Dad wouldn’t let me bail.”
It seemed like she’d already had at least one of those cups of coffee, and JJ was trying really hard not to notice her slightly breathless tone and the way her cheerleading top emphasized the flush across her chest.
Cue strategic placement of hoodie over lap.
He took the donut before she dropped it in the balance and studied her face as she greeted their peers, trying to ascertain whether or not she was being entirely truthful. She did work for her dad, but he was pretty sure it was just whenever she wanted the extra cash. But they probably were busy. Best restaurant on the OBX.
Pope had begged him to go for fried shrimp last night, but JJ didn’t bite. The Wreck was damned expensive, what with its tourist prices and all, and having food for a week was more important than good tartar sauce, or even the possibility of seeing Kiara.
JJ eyed the donut in his hand. It was the kind without the hole, stuffed with some shit, and he hated fake lemon—lingering trauma from a Lemonheads incident in the eighth grade, when he’d puked a combination of them and two cans of his dad’s Natty Light all over home base and gotten kicked off of the junior high baseball team. God, he’d never quite lived that one down, to his dad or to his classmates. He could still feel his sore eye and hear the hallway jeers, nearly five years later.
Worth it to risk it? Better to ask?
Just fucking talk to her, already.
“Kie.” He murmured. No response. She continued on with her conversation with John B, who sat behind him, talking over JJ’s shoulder like he wasn’t even there.
That was okay. He was quiet sometimes. Didn’t speak up loud enough. His dad reminded him of that daily. He cleared his throat.
“Kie.”
She was laughing, twisting the sea turtle charm back and forth on the hemp cord around the base of her throat, running the other hand through her hair and mussing the sun-lightened curls.
“I know, right?!” John B. was saying, laughing just as hard.
“ Kie .”
Now she was talking to Pope in the row over, smiling and—was that?—flirting. Definitely flirting. There was a bitten lip thrown in there, and JJ was dying.
He wanted to reach out and shake her arm. Remind her that he was here and that he—
Well.
He... Well.
Was it appropriate to touch her? Even to just get her attention? JJ didn’t like the thought of putting his hands on someone. He’d throw punches with the rest of them, but he knew what it was to be handled without being asked.
He raised his hand to nudge her shoulder, but paused, midair.
And touch a girl? Woman ?
God. No. Fuck.
His hand fell back to his desk.
Fuck .
The donut sat on the corner of his desk for thirty minutes until John B. swiped it, mouth staining red with raspberry jelly after the first bite.
Of course she wouldn’t have gotten him a lemon donut. Of course not. This was Kie . Kiara knew him, and—
John B. sat the donut back on the corner of JJ’s desk, jam and icing flakes smearing the chipped Formica, then shoved JJ’s shoulder.
JJ shot a small smile of thanks behind him, then took a bite.
“Why don’t you just talk to her, man?”
John B. was cruising at a smooth plane on the channel side of the marsh, HMS Pogue bumping over loose vegetation from the storm a couple of nights before. The weather was finally starting to turn on them in the worst way; something about cold and the beach seemed wrong to JJ, even after a lifetime of enduring it.
JJ pretended not to hear him over the roar of the old outboard. He made a mental note to check it over, see what needed tuning up. Fuck knew that John B. wasn’t doing it; the only work he did was on Sarah Cameron’s daddy’s yacht.
Even in the dim twilight, JJ could see the line of rain ahead of them, heavy downfall muddling the marsh into a hazy mirage. John B. drove them straight through it—no avoiding it, really—and fat raindrops fell frigid and fast across them as he raced toward the dock.
This was one of JJ’s least favorite parts about the OBX but also the thing that he had the most respect for; living on the ocean meant that he could see storms coming for miles away from all directions but the west. He could watch the rain hit the sea and sweep up the coast line. Sure, he dreaded the destruction, and he hated getting soaked when it wasn’t of his own volition—especially in the winter—but he loved that predictability.
Predictable destruction.
Why don’t you just talk to her, man?
Why, indeed.