you gotta go there to come back

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/53063953.

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Fandom: Outer Banks (TV)
Relationship: Kiara "Kie" Carrera/JJ Maybank
Characters: Kiara "Kie" Carrera, JJ Maybank, John B. Routledge, Sarah Cameron,
Pope Heyward, Cleo (Outer Banks)
Additional Tags: Post Season 2, but obviously influnenced by the fact that I've seen
Season 3, Idiots in Love, written because they say write what you want
to read, and all I want is the backstory for "I know that door's locked
cause I've tried it", Mutual Pining, jj maybank deserves good things,
Kiara Carrera is the best thing he's never had
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2024-01-15 Words: 11,238 Chapters: 1/1
 you gotta go there to come back
by padattack

Summary

Kiara’s eyes flew open. JJ was watching her, lip caught between his teeth, eyebrows furrowed
into a crease. She felt her face heat. JJ whipped his head away to stare back out at the water
and scrubbed a hand roughly through his damp hair.

“What,” Kiara laughed uneasily, “the dare?”

Kiara should have known the first night back at the Boneyard was bound to be a disaster. She
couldn’t blame her classmates for their curiosity about Poguelandia and the gold, but she
hadn’t seen any of the Pogues in over an hour, and every time she turned around to look for
them there was someone new in her face asking some asinine question, like what they used
for toilet paper, or who they would’ve eaten first if they ran out of food.

“This isn’t nearly as fun as I remember it being,” came Sarah’s voice from behind Kiara,
right as she managed to peel away from some enthusiastically drunk Touron who’d heard the
stories and wanted to know if it was true she could weave dresses out of palm fronds.

Kiara let her shoulders sag, turning to pout at the other girl. “I told you guys we should’ve
stayed at the Chateau.”

“Well, duh,” Sarah acknowledged. “But you know what the Chateau doesn’t have that this
delightful little stretch of beach does?”

Kiara took a pointed look around them. “Idiots?”

“No,” Sarah grinned, motioning with her cup to where Kiara could now see JJ and John B.
holding court over a collection of kids from the Cut, clearly in the midst of some epic
retelling of their adventures while Pope stood to the side with his arms crossed, no doubt fact
checking their story as they spun it. “We’ve got plenty of those at the Chateau too,” Sarah
said, watching them fondly before turning back to Kiara. “I was thinking more along the lines
of endless alcohol? It may be shitty, but it is free…” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Shots?”

Over Sarah’s shoulder Kiara could see Topper making his way towards them through the
crowd, and she reached out quickly to snag Sarah’s hand. “Yup,” she said hastily, ducking
down and dragging Sarah in the direction of the handles of alcohol and red plastic cups
stacked around the keg.

“Shots!” Sarah shouted when they got there, dispensing overlarge pours of tequila into cups
for herself and Kiara.

“Shots,” Kiara echoed, tapping her cup against Sarah’s and then draining the contents as
quickly as she could. An involuntary shudder followed the liquor through her, and Sarah
coughed loudly, face screwed up in disgust. “That wasn’t as fun as I remember it being
either,” Kiara muttered, wiping the back of her hand across her lips.

“Yeah, I think being stranded on a deserted island really reset our tolerance levels,” Sarah
mused, peering suspiciously into her own cup. “You know the only thing that’ll help with
that?” She had that mischievous look in her eye Kiara knew only too well.

Kiara heaved a long-suffering sigh, and guessed, “shots?”

“Shots!” Sarah beamed, tipping the bottle right back into Kiara’s cup.

The next hour passed in an increasingly drunken haze, and before she knew it Kiara had lost
Sarah again. She found herself sitting alone on a log near the bonfire, something loud and full
of bass thrumming through the speakers set up in the sand.

Music. Kiara had missed music. Dancing had always come naturally to her. She could
remember being nine years old, standing in the kitchen watching her parents dance with each
other - half embarrassed by them and half in love with their love - waiting for them to turn
and hold their hands out to her, entreating her to join them. That memory felt like a punch in
the gut now, after everything they’d been through.

Kiara shook her head sharply to clear it of the melancholy fog she could feel descending on
her. She lurched to her feet, swaying slightly as she made her way to the group of people
dancing in the firelight. She could feel the alcohol in her stomach sloshing dangerously, but
the fire was warm and the music was right and it didn’t matter that she didn’t have anyone to
dance with, Kiara was perfectly happy to dance by herself. She let herself get lost in it, eyes
closed, mouthing the lyrics, when she felt a pair of hands settle on her hips, tugging her
backward.

“Immediately, no,” Kiara snapped, swinging out of the grasping fingers and pressing her
palm up against some stranger’s chest.

“Aw, come on, baby,” the douchebag crooned, a sleazy smile slouching across his sweaty
face. “You look damn fine tonight, but you know we’d look better together!”

Kiara’s mouth dropped open, already gearing up to tear the guy a new one, when she felt a
familiar arm drape across her shoulders, and JJ purred, “we got a problem here, baby? ”

Kiara, never one to let the boys fight her battles for her, briefly considered shoving JJ off too,
but in the end she was just drunk enough for it to be easier to sink into JJ’s side and stick her
tongue out at the guy, letting JJ lead her away.

“You’re welcome,” he murmured into her ear, pinching her side with his free hand.

Kiara did shove his arm off her at that, and then maybe because she was starting to get a little
cold, or maybe because she was swaying and JJ had steadied her, she tucked herself right
back under it.

“Dude, I so don’t need you to protect me,” she griped, partially to distract from the brief flash
of pleased something on JJ’s face, and mostly so she didn’t have to think about how good he
smelled, all warm and salty and familiar. “A girl saying no should be enough. It’s such
bullshit when guys only back off because they think some other dude has a claim, like she's
some kind of property.”

JJ put on a breathy voice, cheerfully drunk. “I think you mean thank you, JJ. You’re a real
knight-errant, JJ.”

“You don’t even know what that means, you just heard Pope say it,” Kiara scoffed with a roll
of her eyes.

“It’s like a knight who runs errands,” JJ replied confidently. “Y’know, like I just ran the
errand of saving your ass.”
Kiara snorted. “Yeah, you’re a real Don Quixote.”

JJ shot her a quick look out of the corner of his eye that said he had no idea what she was
talking about. Kiara smothered a laugh. She was trying not to focus too hard on the
realization that whatever directionless discontent she’d been feeling all night was settling in
JJ’s presence. JJ was an agent of pure mass chaos. It made no sense that less than five
minutes with him was enough to calm her, but she could feel her restless energy draining, and
now all she wanted to do was go back to the Chateau, smoke a bowl, and drink shitty beer
with her friends.

As if she’d said it out loud, JJ pulled a blunt from his front pocket and tipped it in her
direction.

“Yes, please,” Kiara breathed to the unasked question, catching the tiny grin on JJ’s face
before he turned his head away.

Kiara let JJ steer them down the beach, far enough from the bonfire that the crash of the
waves on the sand overtook the sounds of music and drunken hollering. When he finally
found a spot he liked and stopped walking Kiara let her legs crumple beneath her, giggling at
the surprised huff JJ made as he tried to slow her descent.

“I gotcha,” he muttered as Kiara settled into the sand, pushing her toes as deep as she could
while he dropped down next to her. “First greens?” he offered, laughing out an “alright,”
when she nodded enthusiastically back at him. Kiara waited impatiently as JJ dug around in
his shorts for a lighter, then accepted the joint as he held it to her lips and cupped her hands
around it as he lit the end.

It was true, what Sarah said about their tolerance levels. One hit and Kiara could feel it
immediately - the slight buzz in her face, the way everything she’d been annoyed about just
moments ago seemed silly enough now to melt away.

“You good?” JJ asked, squinting at her in the dark.

“Perfect,” Kiara sighed dreamily, laying back in the sand. She could tell JJ was laughing at
her, so she kicked a knee out and knocked it against his.

“Lightweight,” JJ stage whispered out of the corner of his mouth. He propped the joint
between his lips and took a long, slow drag.

Kiara closed her eyes and smiled, listening to the waves, feeling JJ’s leg resting against hers.
They didn’t have weed in Poguelandia, but this was the closest Kiara felt to being there since
they’d gotten back to the Outer Banks. In a way it already felt like an entirely different
lifetime, one she couldn’t even believe she lived, but it wasn’t really all that long ago that she
and JJ sat on that island and watched the waves just like this each night. Kiara gave herself a
few minutes more and then hauled herself back into a sitting position, wrapping her arms
around her legs as she did so.

“You miss it?” she asked.

“All the damn time,” JJ responded without missing a beat.

Kiara thought about the empty shack JJ came home to - no power, no water, no food. Like
Hurricane Agatha ripped through again, except this time with only one target.

“Hurricane Agatha, you bitch,” Kiara muttered to herself. JJ was laughing at her again. Kiara
pulled a face at him and then let her head drop against his shoulder so she wouldn’t have to
see his eyes sparkling at her in the dark.

“And they call me the crazy one,” JJ scoffed, but as he said it he shifted his arm slightly, in a
way that was as obvious an invitation as JJ ever gave, so Kiara shuffled an inch closer and
then his arm was around her again.

“We'll go back,” she promised quietly. “First stop on the surf trip.”

JJ was silent for a long time, and when he spoke Kiara tipped her face up to look at him.

“Kie…” he started.

From behind them, Kiara heard a scandalized voice. “Oh my god.”

Kiara and JJ both startled - the warm bubble of comfort Kiara felt bursting as the sounds of
the world rushed back in on her. She jerked her head around, searching for the source of the
voice, and her eyes landed on a figure standing a few yards from them in the dark. She
couldn’t tell who it was, but JJ was already pulling his arm back from her.

“Kiara?” the girl said, and as she stepped closer Kiara saw with a sinking feeling that it was
Claire Walton - someone she’d had the brief displeasure of getting to know during her year at
the Kook Academy. “And is that…JJ Maybank? ”

Kiara felt herself bristle at the way Claire said JJ’s name. She was the only person Kiara
knew who could pack that much politely veiled derision into four syllables.

“Hi Claire,” Kiara replied blandly. “Heading back to the party?”

She looked pointedly down the beach at the bonfire, but Claire didn’t take the bait. There was
a dawning look of realization on her face that Kiara did not like at all.

“Wait, are you two, like…together?” Claire asked, something gleeful and malicious barely
suppressed in her voice.

Before Kiara could tell her to mind her own damn business, JJ blurted, sounding alarmed,
“Oh, god, no.”

Kiara snapped her mouth shut.

“Nah,” JJ continued with a laugh, not looking at Kiara. “Just two buddy-old-pals, nothin’ to
see here.”

“Right,” Claire smirked, eyes darting between the two of them. “Sure.”
“Really,” JJ stressed, leaning away to put more distance between himself and Kiara. “Not a
thing, never been a thing, never gonna be a thing.”

Kiara felt her breath catch in her chest. She pressed her palms down hard into the sand, trying
desperately to ignore the feeling of something fragile and hopeful buried deep down inside of
her shattering. She could feel her face burning with a mix of embarrassment and
disappointment, and she suddenly wanted the whole night over with. She wanted to be home
in her own bed, alone where she could curl up and cry even if she would never admit to
anyone why.

“I’m just saying,” Claire continued, smiling in an infuriatingly knowing way, “you look
pretty cozy all the way out here. I for one think you’d make a super cute couple!”

JJ snorted. “That’s mighty kind,” he said, nudging Kiara with his elbow like he’d finally
noticed her going mute and was trying to rope her into the joke. “And I promise I gave it my
best shot, but Kie here shut me down on that front a long time ago.”

Kiara stared blankly at Claire, her temporary lift in mood plummeting ever downward, her
high spiraling down into a kind of numb confusion.

Claire hummed, unconvinced. “Well if you insist. Anyway, I guess I’ll leave you two to it…”

JJ glanced expectantly at Kiara, like he was waiting for her to say something, and when she
stayed silent he waved one hand awkwardly at Claire. “Alrighty then, you have a nice night!”

Claire caught Kiara’s eye and mouthed a silent “wow,” turning away but glancing back one
last time as if to make sure Kiara was still watching. “I guess what they say is true,” she said
with a sly wink over her shoulder. “Way to catch ‘em all, Carrera!”

Kiara reeled back around toward the water, both arms wrapping tightly across her stomach,
fighting the lump she could feel rising in her throat.

JJ had gone tense next to her. Kiara knew he was watching her face.

“Kie…” he said softly, and the blatant concern in his voice was too much. Kiara shoved
herself to her feet, found her entire body was trembling, and stepped quickly away from JJ
before he could notice.

“I think I’m just gonna go back to the Chateau,” she said, putting as much nonchalance into
her voice as she could muster.

JJ scrambled up too, eyes flicking between her and the retreating figure down the shoreline.
“Give me five minutes, I’ll round up the rest of our mangy gang. Bet you a brewski they’re
tapped out here too.”

Kiara didn’t reply, but she walked with him back to the bonfire, trying not to notice just how
painfully different everything felt from their earlier walk down the beach.

“Stay here,” JJ said when they arrived at the edge of the party. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
He waited for her to nod at him before he broke off into the crowd, and Kiara closed her eyes,
pressing her fingertips to her lips and willing herself not to cry. She didn’t know what was
worse - how foolish she felt after JJ’s steadfast dismissal of the thought of the two of them
together, or the sudden shock of Claire’s casual reference to her history with the other boys -
as if Claire knew anything about it. The combination of the two felt brutal - a reminder of
how badly she messed up with Pope, and a warning against ever being dumb enough to try
the same with JJ. Even if she’d thought something was there before, now she knew exactly
how wrong she was.

“Aye, girlie, what you doin’ over here all alone?”

Kiara opened her eyes in time to see Cleo’s easy grin drop off into worry, and she let herself
be tugged forward into the other girl’s arms.

“Hey, hey,” Cleo murmured, rubbing her back. “Whatsa matter, huh?” She pulled back
quickly, hands on Kiara’s shoulders, face suddenly dead serious. “Did someone try somethin’
with you?”

“No,” Kiara promised, wiping at her face quickly and shaking her head. “No, I’m fine.”

“Cause you know how good I am with a knife,” Cleo offered in a whisper, and Kiara threw
herself back into Cleo’s arms, laughing despite herself.

“I’m so glad we found you,” she whispered in Cleo’s ear.

Cleo squeezed her tightly. “Glad y’all found me too.”

They broke apart when they heard Sarah’s outraged shout, and turned to find her leading the
rest of the Pogues over to them.

“You’re girl-talking without me?” Sarah whined, only letting up when Kiara rolled her eyes
and pulled her in with them.

“Group hug!” John B. cheered, and before she knew it Kiara was surrounded on all sides, her
drunk, happy friends encasing her in warmth. They stayed like that for a long moment, until
someone leaned in too hard and they all started to tilt, and then it was a mass of shouting and
laughter and they broke apart.

They surveyed each other for a beat, then JJ said, “let’s go home.”

The troupe of them stumbled back to the Chateau, alternately hiding from passing cars and
singing at the top of their lungs, and when they arrived Cleo declared a girls only slumber
party. With the boys banished to the bedrooms, Kiara sat on the floor at the edge of the couch
as Cleo and Sarah braided her hair. Cleo didn’t ask what happened, and Kiara didn’t explain,
but when they finished with her hair Cleo pressed a quick kiss to the top of her head. Sarah
watched Kiara with narrowed eyes as they got ready for bed, but she didn’t say anything
either. When they finally settled under the sheets of the futon Sarah reached for Kiara’s hand,
twisting their pinkies together and holding on until they fell asleep.
Everything felt infinitely less dramatic in the morning. Claire Walton was a grade-A Kook,
and Kiara knew better than to let someone like that get under her skin. And JJ…JJ told Claire
they were nothing - would never be anything, but hadn’t he said something about it being
Kiara who decided that? As far as she could remember neither she nor JJ had ever
acknowledged whatever weird tension existed between them. For all Kiara knew, that tension
could be purely in her own head. Sure, JJ used to hit on her all the time, and he still made the
odd lewd remark every now and then, but JJ flirted with literally everyone - John B. and Pope
included. It was hard to tell when he actually meant it. He’d certainly never made a move on
Kiara, so she’d never even had an opportunity to shut him down. Maybe it was all just a
cover story to keep Claire off their backs. JJ was the best liar Kiara knew, after all. She just
always prided herself on being able to see through his bullshit, and he sounded like he was
telling Claire the truth.

JJ must’ve told the boys something about what happened at the Boneyard, because when they
came stumbling out of the bedrooms bleary-eyed and raspy-voiced, Pope sent her a fleeting,
hesitant smile, and John B. made a beeline for her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders
from behind and resting his chin on the top of her head. Kiara reached up to squeeze his
wrists and then held on, letting him rock them slightly back and forth. When she finally
looked up she locked eyes with JJ, slightest of satisfied smiles tipping up the corner of his
lips, before he seemingly nodded to himself and turned away.

Kiara found herself sneaking little glances at him all morning, not quite sure what she was
looking for, but never seeming to find it, whatever it was. JJ sat on the counter and ate Froot
Loops dry out of the box as Kiara directed Sarah and Pope through putting a real breakfast
together. None of them had ever said it out loud, but there seemed to be a shared
understanding amongst the three of them that as the only ones who’d grown up with happy
memories of big weekend breakfasts with their families, it was their responsibility to make
sure John B., JJ, and Cleo experienced the joy of them as well whenever they could scrape
together the food for it.

“You’re an angel,” John B. told Sarah in a mooney voice when she dropped a plate stacked
dangerously high with pancakes, bacon, and sliced fruit in front of him.

“Mrumph,” JJ added, words muffled through the heaping forkful of whip cream-doused food
he’d already shoveled into his mouth.

The meal passed in relative silence as they each devoured their breakfast, and then Pope
stood, stacking his plate on top of Cleo’s and carrying them into the kitchen. “We have to
bounce,” he said over his shoulder. “My pops will kill me if we’re late for the grocery run.”

“Best not to keep the man waitin,” Cleo grinned, winking surreptitiously at Pope. “Guess that
means we’re out of dishes duty!” They waved merrily as they exited the Chateau to loud boos
from the remaining Pogues.

“You’re up, boys,” Sarah sighed, leaning back against the couch and rubbing her belly.

Kiara laughed at the outrage on their faces. “If you don’t cook, you clean,” she recited firmly.
“C’mon, man,” JJ whined. “You’re really gonna trust the two of us with something of that
magnitude? I promise you we’re gonna find a way to fuck it up.”

Sarah grimaced, looking over at Kiara. “He’s not wrong, you know…”

After an admittedly overlong lecture on perpetuating heteronormative gender roles, a bit of

haggling, and an eventual game of Rock Paper Scissors, Sarah and John B. ended up back in
the kitchen washing the dishes. Kiara meandered outside to the hammock while JJ showered.

Her mind kept returning to the night before - to the things JJ said. It was strange to lay in the
hammock and stare up at a tree she felt like she’d been staring up at her whole life, trying to
figure out if she’d been fundamentally misunderstanding her relationship with one of her best
friends the entire time.

JJ, ever the connoisseur of thirty second showers, ambled out of the Chateau not five minutes
later.

“Sup,” he said as he got closer to her, reaching out with one hand to give the hammock a little
push.

“Yo,” Kiara responded, realizing to her horror that something in her stomach was fluttering
nervously. JJ looked good with his wet hair pushed back, his island tanned skin scrubbed
clean and soft.

“Looks like a good day for grouper,” JJ continued, oblivious, squinting out at the water.

Kiara twisted in the hammock to look in the same direction, then dropped back down again,
coming to a quick decision in her mind. She wasn’t going to agonize over this. It was JJ, for
god’s sake. Sometimes it was better to just rip off the bandaid.

“Hey, what did you mean,” she asked, “back at the Boneyard?” If she hadn’t been watching
his face so closely she would have missed the way JJ froze before he looked at her, his
eyebrows twitching up in question.

“Huh?”

“To Claire,” Kiara clarified, “about me shutting you down?”

JJ took a quick step away, coughing out an odd laugh.

“What?” Kiara asked, watching as a flushed pink spread across JJ's cheeks.

“Ah, that was nothin,” JJ said, waving the question away with one hand. His fingers pinched
the bandana from his back pocket and moved it uselessly to the other side. He seemed
suddenly very interested in the rope holding the hammock secure to the tree, examining the
knots carefully, ostentatiously searching for any kind of weakness or fraying.

Kiara watched for a moment, bemused, then slipped out of the hammock and halted JJ’s
hands on the rope with one of her own.
“Jay?” Kiara prodded, her curiosity growing.

JJ’s eyes were on their wrists, where their matching friendship bracelets overlapped. He
cleared his throat and slid his hands out from under hers. “C’mon, Kie, don’t make me say
it,” he said with another not-quite laugh.

Kiara didn’t know what that meant. She stared at him expectantly. JJ darted a glance at her
face and then looked quickly away again, sighing as he stared up at the leaves of the tree.

“The spring fling,” he finally said, faux casual. He paced over to the other end of the
hammock and studied the rope there instead.

“I don’t remember,” Kiara frowned, following closely after him.

JJ bent closer to the tree, tossing his words over his shoulder at her. “Maybe like, four years
ago? Three? I dunno, it was right before your -” he clamped his mouth shut, eyes cutting
guiltily to Kiara’s face and then away again. She knew with the familiar old tug of guilt that
he’d been about to reference her Kook Year. “It was forever ago, okay,” JJ rushed on, tripping
over his own words even as he turned back to pushing aimlessly at the rope. “I actually kinda
thought - like we had a sorta unspoken agreement to never talk about it? Like, a code of
silence, or something, y’know, an unbreakable vow or -”

“Dude,” Kiara said flatly, ducking into his view so he had no choice but to look at her. He
clicked his teeth together and stopped moving. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking
about. Explain. Slowly.”

JJ hesitated for a long moment, eyes dropping to the ground. Kiara could see his tongue
pushing against an ugly red cut set into the corner of his lower lip, and she got lost for a
moment trying to remember how it got there.

“We were outside,” JJ finally said. “I’d just started smokin’ cigs again, and you were -” he
paused, face contorting slightly like he couldn’t physically get his mouth to say whatever
words were running through that freight train of a brain of his. “You were wearing that dress,
the…the gold one. With the shimmery shit.”

Kiara narrowed her eyes, trying to focus in on the vague scene flickering at the edge of her
memory. It was a school dance, years ago. She could remember the dress her parents forced
her to wear, how she stuck out like a sore thumb in the sea of public school kids in their
thrifted threads, and how angry she’d been with her parents for making her wear it. She’d
been tired of the way the other kids were looking at her - even John B. and Pope were being
weird, offering to take her coat and get her punch - like she hadn’t tackled them both off their
surfboards and into the ocean with seaweed in her hair not five hours earlier. She could
remember stomping out of the gym, kicking her heels fitfully off her feet as soon as she was
clear of the closed door and throwing herself down to sit against the building wall. JJ had
followed her out.

Kiara looked quickly up at him. JJ’s head was still down, body tense as a caught line, and she
could sense him waiting for something. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. Okay. She
left the dance in a bit of a rage, and JJ followed her out. He’d started smoking, and she’d
gone off at him about it, on edge and amped up from everything she hated about the night,
really laid into him about how bad it was for his lungs, and how second hand smoke killed,
and how no girl would ever want to kiss him if all he tasted like was nicotine and weed, and
then…and then…

Kiara’s eyes flew open. JJ was watching her, lip caught between his teeth, eyebrows furrowed
into a crease. She felt her face heat. JJ whipped his head away to stare back out at the water
and scrubbed a hand roughly through his damp hair.

“What,” Kiara laughed uneasily, “the dare?”

JJ was silent.

“Jayje, you can’t be serious,” Kiara stuttered, racking her brain for how the rest of that night
had gone. “You dared me to kiss you even though you were smoking and I told you to shove
it! That’s what you were talking about with Claire?”

“You never turned down a single dare in your life except that one,” JJ replied, still squinting
intently out at the horizon. “Like, even to this day. That’s the only one.”

Kiara's mouth hung open uselessly. "That can’t be true," she said faintly. JJ shrugged. Kiara
ran through a quick rolodex of moments in her mind. She had done an unholy amount of
stupid things simply because her pride refused to let her back down from a challenge. She
hadn’t kissed him that night though, that much was true. If she was remembering right she’d
been too angry at the time to do anything but flip him the bird and spit out an acidic “in your
dreams, Maybank.”

JJ still wasn’t looking at her, and Kiara could feel something wild and a little desperate
building in her chest. “Okay,” she said, “so maybe it is true. Man, I can’t believe you even
remember that! That dance actually feels like it was a million years ago.”

JJ breathed out a laugh, sucking his lower lip between his teeth and nodding, eyes tracking a
bird as it moved across the skyline.

Kiara looked at him carefully. “But all this time,” she said slowly, eyes narrowing as she put
it together, “you thought I was shutting you down. You know that isn’t what happened, right?
I didn’t know -”

“It’s cool, Kie,” JJ interrupted quickly, waving her words off. “It was just a joke. I obviously
didn’t expect you to actually do it or anything.”

He looked like he was itching to bolt. Kiara couldn’t believe he was still standing there at all.
JJ was the type to insert himself in the middle of every other Pogue’s emotional drama, but he
ghosted any time someone tried to start a conversation even remotely related to his own.

“Oh,” Kiara said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She hesitated, mind still
reeling, not wanting to push him too far, but needing to know the answer. “So it was just a
dare? Nothing else?”
JJ lowered his gaze and met her eyes dead on, and Kiara felt a jolt run through her.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, can you imagine? You and me?” His eyes slid down to her lips, and
with a slight shake of his head he added under his breath, “stupid.”

Kiara felt like the wind had been knocked out of her, her whole world realigning in the space
of seven seconds. JJ seemed to realize he was staring at her mouth and he jerked himself
away, eyes wide.

“Is that - do you hear JB calling me?” he asked suddenly, voice sounding panicked, head
swinging toward the silent Chateau. “Bro, hold your horses, I’m coming!” And then he was
off, bounding into the house before Kiara could string together a single thought past the
pounding of her heart.

She dropped into the hammock in shock, thoughts racing as she replayed the conversation in
her mind, but she kept skipping forward and getting stuck on the image of JJ’s eyes on her
lips, something in them she’d never seen before.

Kiara tried to imagine what would have happened that night at the dance if she’d reacted to
the dare less aggressively - how different their lives might all be if she’d actually gone along
with it and kissed him. It felt surreal, trying to trace that alternate timeline. She couldn’t make
it work in her head. She’d been so fiercely determined at that age to fit in with the boys -
already set apart by wealth and gender, she’d abhorred any implication she was different. All
throughout middle school she pretended not to care when the other girls her age made snide
comments about her because she only played with boys. She’d forced her mom to take her
thrift shopping so she could wear ratty old t-shirts when she visited the Chateau just like the
boys did. She’d practiced surfing until she was just as good as them, if not better on a really
good day for her that coincided with one of those days JJ mulishly insisted on surfing with a
long sleeved shirt on. She’d seen friendships splinter over something as small as a schoolyard
crush and she’d come up with the No Pogue on Pogue Macking rule just to head that off at
the pass before it could ever become a possibility.

She couldn’t even imagine what JJ would’ve done if she’d gone for it. Probably run for the
hills, like he did anytime someone got too close. Kiara couldn’t help thinking they were
better off, probably, with everything happening the way it had. They’d gotten their whole
childhood, their friendship, pure and untainted. Kiara wouldn’t trade that in for anything. But
there was still a niggling little part of her that knew, if the stupid Multiverse Pope was always
talking about was real, and there were other JJs and Kiaras out there, at least one set of them
had kissed that night. Some version of them out there must’ve made it work. And she kind of
hated herself for how much she wished it had been them.

It was all the proof Kiara needed to admit to herself what she’d been dancing around for so
long now. She wanted to be with him. She wanted to dance with him at the Boneyard, and
feel his arm around her in the hallways at school, and at all the mind numbing parties her
parents guilted her into. She wanted to be dragged into his stupid hijinks, and to fight with
him over the little things, and to stand with him as they fought together against everyone and
everything else. She wanted to know what he would say if she kissed him, or maybe she
wanted to know if kissing him would prove to finally give her a surefire way of shutting him
up.
She turned it around in her mind slowly, examining it from every angle. She thought about
the childhood they’d shared - the way she’d so briefly lost the friendship of the Pogues and
the renewed determination she’d felt when she got them back to never lose them again. She
weighed it against the future, tried to decide what the chances were that things wouldn’t work
out the way she wanted them to.

In the end it was still the thought of JJ’s eyes, locked on her lips, that settled it for her. JJ
wanted her too. Now that she knew what to look for, she could go back through her life and
see the hints of it everywhere.

Kiara had no concept of how much time passed before John B. popped out of the Chateau,
head turning on a swivel until he landed on her.

“Yo, Kie, your ride is here!”

She groaned, dragging herself out of her thoughts and hauling herself up to her feet. She
wondered if JJ was still inside or if he’d bolted for real.

John B. patted her head as she passed him on her way into the house. “Do it for the
leftovers,” he said encouragingly.

Kiara wrinkled her nose at him, petulant.

A lot had happened in the aftermath of Poguelandia, with a large change being Kiara’s
situation with her parents. When she’d shown up on their doorstep after going missing for a
month, Anna and Mike had been so grateful to get her back they promised they were going to
do things differently this time. Kiara loved them, and she wanted to trust them, but she
couldn’t quite forget the image of her own mother dumping her clothes out onto the front
lawn, or the persistent threats of being sent off to boarding school or a wilderness camp if she
didn’t stay in line. She’d laid it out for them as clearly as she could - either they could loosen
up on the reins and accept that she was old enough to make her own choices, or she would
live under their lockdown for exactly as many days as it took her to turn eighteen, and then it
was up to her if they ever saw her again. It seemed they’d done the math and realized their
window of maintaining a relationship with her was closing fast, because they’d agreed to stop
trying to police her time with the Pogues if she agreed to keep helping out at the Wreck.

“Bring us back something good!” Sarah shouted as Kiara made her way through the living
room toward the front door.

“Mhmm,” Kiara responded absently, her head already turning to look for JJ, heartbeat
picking up as she saw him sprawled on the futon, staring down at his phone.

“Bye, JJ.”

He waved two fingers at her, eyes flicking to somewhere around her knees and then back
down at his phone. “See ya.”

Kiara felt herself falter. She picked her bag up off the floor and hurried out of the house to
her dad’s pickup, feeling a little thrown.
Mike drove her through the Cut, making offhand remarks about the state of the place that
Kiara steadfastly ignored. When they arrived at the Wreck the Saturday lunch rush was
bustling, and Kiara let the familiar routine of the restaurant carry her through her shift.

Her mind kept running through her conversation with JJ every break she got, her nerves
increasing each time she thought about what she would say when she saw him again. Maybe
JJ said the dare meant nothing to him, but he wouldn’t still be thinking about it all these years
later if that were true. Not to mention, she was pretty sure he quit smoking cigarettes after
that dance, which felt like it had to mean something.

Ten minutes before the end of her shift, sweaty and tired, Kiara bribed a fellow classmate
with a free milkshake for a ride back to the Cut. They helped her pile stacks of leftovers on
her lap to take back to the Chateau.

When she got back she found Sarah in the living room watching some hideous rom-com, the
rest of the house empty.

“John B. took the Twinkie and met Pope and Cleo at Rixon’s,” Sarah explained without
tearing her eyes away from the screen.

“JJ?” Kiara asked, trying not to sound like she cared too much. JJ willingly missing out on a
surf sesh wasn’t a good sign.

“Working on the HSM,” Sarah answered, tilting her head toward the door. She looked up at
Kiara as she headed for the back, grimacing in warning. “Watch out, he’s in a bit of a JJ mood
today.”

Kiara made her way outside, shedding her apron as she went. She could see JJ crouched in
the boat at the end of the pier, and after a brief moment of hesitation she went back into the
house and grabbed a box of onion rings.

“Good thinking,” Sarah nodded sagely, eyes glued back on the movie. “Bribery never fails.”

Kiara carried the box out to the end of the pier. JJ didn’t greet her, even though there was no
way he hadn’t seen her coming.

“I come bearing gifts,” Kiara offered, popping the lid and letting the smell waft out at him.

JJ nodded in her general direction. “Thanks.”

He didn’t reach out to take the box, so Kiara set it down on the pier and settled herself next to
it, resting her feet on the lip of the boat.

“There’s a burger for you in the house,” Kiara added. JJ nodded again but didn’t say
anything, his focus squarely on the corroding electrical connections in front of him. They sat
in silence for a while, JJ working on the boat and Kiara watching the sun start to dip beyond
the horizon, painting the sky a wash of orange and pink.
“I can,” Kiara finally said, apropos of nothing, having held off as long as she could. “I can
imagine it. You and me.”

JJ looked up at her. “What?”

“You asked if I could imagine you and me,” Kiara replied. “I do. I…I actually can’t stop
thinking about it.” She tried for a smile, but JJ didn’t look like he was buying it. If anything,
he almost looked angry.

“Yeah?” he asked. “Since when?”

It felt stupid to say since the Boneyard, and anyway, Kiara was pretty sure that wasn’t true.
There was an undercurrent that felt like it had always existed between the two of them,
whether they acknowledged it or not.

“Since the island,” she said. “Maybe before.”

JJ scoffed, turning away to fiddle with the motor.

“That’s great, Kie,” he said, voice flat. “Congratulations.”

Kiara tried not to flinch at the blatant dismissal. “That’s it?” she asked, breathing back her
disappointment.

JJ shrugged, eyes still trained on the equipment. “I’m just not really sure what you expect me
to do with that information.”

Kiara tried to decide if everything would be worse off if she gave up on the conversation now
or tried to finish it. She’d clearly picked a bad time for it, but Kiara wasn’t any good at
stomping down on her feelings when she felt them. It had always been something she
struggled with. She still wasn’t sure if it was a weakness or a strength - the undeniable need
she felt to air out the truth of things, the part of her that refused to pretend even when it got
her in trouble, even when it pushed people away.

“I don’t know,” she said at last, knowing she couldn’t just let it go. “Tell me how you feel?
Just talk to me, I guess. At least try…”

JJ barked out a short humorless laugh and reached down to yank at the anchor line. “Yeah,
okay.”

“What?” Kiara asked, unable to help the defensiveness she could hear in her own voice. She
didn’t know what she’d expected out of this conversation, but it wasn’t this - JJ so closed off
he wouldn’t even look at her.

“Try like you and John B. tried?” JJ asked, “or try like you and Pope tried?”

Kiara recoiled like she’d been slapped. She could see JJ’s fingers, white and bloodless from
how tightly he was gripping the line. Before she could recover enough to respond he threw it
down and scrubbed the back of his wrist across his face.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, eyes at his feet. “I’m - that was outta line.”

“No,” Kiara breathed in slowly, looking down at her knees. “I…I know how it looks.” She
glanced up. JJ was staring down into the toolbox. “JJ…John B. kissed me once, okay? And it
was too weird to even put into words. And with Pope…I don’t know, sometimes it just felt
like he wanted it so much maybe he knew something I didn’t.”

JJ twisted his neck in a weird flinch. “It’s not - you don’t gotta explain yourself to me, Kie,”
he said.

“But I want to,” Kiara stressed, leaning forward, hands clasped uselessly in her lap. “I don’t
want you to think that just because I kissed them or whatever -”

JJ interrupted her with a sharp shake of his head. “I don’t care about what happened with
John B. or Pope,” he said firmly. “Okay, they make sense. Like, Pope is an actual certified
genius, and John B. is the best guy I know, and you’re -” he broke off, mouth snapping shut.

“I’m what?” Kiara asked. JJ didn’t respond. Kiara switched tracks. “Y’know, you’ve been
acting like none of this matters, but I know you, JJ. Please don’t just pretend you don’t care,
because I know you do.”

“It doesn’t matter,” JJ said resolutely, bending to the toolbox and rifling around in it, his ears
turning red.

Kiara softened her voice as much as she dared. “Jay. Why won’t you talk to me?”

JJ still wouldn’t look at her. “Because this isn’t a thing,” he said, like it was obvious. “It’s not
actually going anywhere.”

Kiara braced herself, eyes on JJ’s hands. “What if I want it to?”

JJ went still, and Kiara could see his chest rising and falling under the same ratty t-shirt he’d
been wearing all week. Finally, he shook his head. “Kie, I really don’t think that’s a good
idea.”

Kiara tilted her head at him, challenging. “I thought bad ideas have good outcomes all the
time?”

JJ’s eyes cut up to her quick, and then flicked away again.

“Yeah, and sometimes bad ideas literally blow up in your face,” he said darkly, and he
motioned between the two of them, scoffing. “I mean, look at us. This isn’t some rich girl,
poor guy from the wrong side of the tracks fairytale, it’s the real world. And I hate to break it
to you, but in the real world this is a recipe for fucking disaster. I am a recipe for fucking
disaster. It would blow up. One hundred percent. And then where would we be?”

“That’s not true,” Kiara insisted, stomach twisting the way it did every time JJ talked about
himself like he was worth less than the rest of them. “It doesn’t matter where you come from
-”
JJ laughed derisively, an ugly sound, and Kiara’s eyebrows pulled into a sharp frown. “It
doesn’t,” she repeated fiercely. “Not to me. And anyway, what's the other option? You’d
rather, what? Ignore this? Pretend it’s nothing?”

JJ grabbed at a wrench Kiara knew he didn’t need. “You get used to it,” he muttered under his
breath.

Kiara watched him for a moment, trying to find a way forward. “JJ, I know it’s scary. I feel
like I’m going crazy here. But I think it’s worth it to try. I want to try.”

JJ shook his head, jaw clenched like he was trying not to snap at her again. “Kiara,” he said,
tone carefully measured, “I know it’s hard for you to understand, but the Pogues are all I
have, okay? You, John B., Pope, Sarah, Cleo. I’m not really in a position to be risking
everything just because you woke up this morning and wanted to try somethin’ new. And if it
all blew up…” he trailed off, staring into the distance, fingers rigid around the wrench.

“It’s not new,” Kiara said, feeling a rising desperation at the stormy look on JJ’s face, fear
settling thick and heavy in her gut. She shoved her hands under her thighs to fight the urge to
reach out and touch his shoulder, to ease his fingers from the wrench and press them between
her own. “And even if things went south, I’d still be here. Pogues for life, right?”

JJ threw the wrench back into the toolbox, turning away from her. “It’s not happening, okay?
It’s just not.”

“Look,” Kiara tried, searching for something that would convince him. “When Pope and I
ended things -”

“Jesus, Kie,” JJ jerked back around, shoving out of the boat and spinning to face her on the
pier with a wild look in his eyes. “It wouldn’t be for me like it was with Pope, okay?”

Kiara rose to her feet, willing back the tears she could feel pushing against the backs of her
eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Kie,” JJ sighed, sinking his hands through his hair in frustration, eyes pinning her in place.
“Don’t you think if I could get over you I woulda done it already?”

There was a heavy silence as they stared at each other.

“I don’t want you to get over me,” Kiara finally said.

JJ laughed in disbelief.

Kiara mustered up as much bravery as she could, then threw it all to the wind.

“I dare you to kiss me.”

JJ stared at her, eyes wide. Then they narrowed, eyebrows pulling in. “That’s not funny, Kie.”

Kiara lifted her chin. “I’m not laughing.”

JJ scoffed, turning away from her and stalking quickly back up the pier. “Whatever.”

“Don’t do that,” Kiara pleaded, following after him.

“What am I doing?” JJ asked, yanking his hat out of his back pocket and jamming it on his
head, still moving away from her at a fast clip. “I’m not doing anything!”

“Don’t push me away like I’m just some girl, and not one of your best friends,” Kiara said
desperately.

“You are,” JJ shouted, reeling back around and into her face. “You are one of my best
fucking friends! So fucking act like it!”

Kiara felt the tears she’d been fighting so hard break over the waterline of her eyes and spill
down her cheeks. JJ looked anguished, chest heaving, face blotchy and red. He made a
choked off sound and turned, quick strides taking him to his bike propped in the grass of the
yard, and before Kiara could think of anything to say that might make him stay, he was gone.

Kiara called a Lyft and went home, used the key under the frog and slipped upstairs into her
room before her parents even made it back from the Wreck. She stripped off her dirty clothes
and slid under her covers, tugging the stuffed otter on her bed into her arms. The boys had
teamed up and won it for her at the State Fair one summer when she was in Europe with her
family. None of them had ever been allowed in her bedroom, so they didn’t know she still
slept with it every night she was home. Kiara pressed her face into it and let herself cry, until
her head started to ache and she had to drag herself up to get a box of tissues.

In the morning she went downstairs and her parent’s pure joy at seeing her there on a
weekend when they didn’t expect her actually managed to knock a dent in her despair. For
the first time in a long time, Kiara let her guard down. She curled against her mom’s side at
the kitchen counter and sipped tea while her dad made her favorite breakfast. They watched
cartoons in the living room and Kiara knew her parents were late going into the Wreck, but
nobody mentioned it and they didn’t leave until Kiara declared the need for a shower, and
then they both kissed her cheeks and told her they were going into work but to call them if
she needed anything at all.

Kiara stayed on the couch long after they left, then dragged herself into the shower and
through her hair routine. By the time she got out she felt marginally better - scrubbed clean
and fresh. She’d thought of a million ways she wished she’d handled the night before, but at
the end of the day the only thing she really wanted JJ to know was that the only thing she
needed from him was his friendship. As long as they had that, she didn’t care about anything
else.

Kiara spent far longer than she would willingly admit to anyone trying to pick out an outfit,
settling at last on her favorite pair of cut-offs and a crop top JJ had once told her looked good
with her tan. She pulled her longboard from under her bed and set off for the Chateau, trying
to sort through the emotional whiplash she’d been embroiled in for the last twenty-four
hours. She wished there was a way she could let JJ know it was all okay, that he didn’t have
to be on his guard around her - she didn’t want to fight, she just wanted everything to go back
to normal. About halfway through the trip she pulled out her phone and without giving
herself too much time to agonize over it she added Bad Friend by Rina Sawayama to their
shared playlist. If JJ saw it he’d call her a dumbass, but he’d know what she was saying.

The road got rough once she crossed the bridge out of Figure Eight, and Kiara trudged
forward by foot, carrying her board under her arm. She was sweating by the time she reached
the Chateau, and she twisted her hair up into a bun to keep it from sticking to her back. She
could hear the sounds of music coming from behind the house, so she worked her way
around and couldn’t help but smile as her friends came into view. Sarah was propped on John
B.’s lap, both of them laughing as Pope and JJ scuffled in the grass in front of them.

“Kiara!” Cleo hooted, walking out of the house, barefoot with a bottle of beer in one hand.

Pope and JJ rose quickly to their feet, looking flushed.

“Kie!” John B. shouted, swiveling in his seat and bringing Sarah with him. “Provider for the
Pogues! Thanks for the provisions last night! We missed ya when we got back from Rixon’s -
didn't know you were going home.”

“Yeah, thanks for saying goodbye,” Sarah added with a sarcastic thumbs up.

Kiara saw JJ’s gaze drop to the ground.

“What can I say,” she said, shrugging one shoulder and willing herself to act normal.
“Sometimes a girl just needs a shower that actually has hot water.”

“Amen to that,” Sarah intoned somberly as John B. squawked in outrage over the slight to the
Chateau.

“Anyway,” John B. said, pointedly glaring at Kiara. “You didn’t miss much, except Cleo
kicked Pope’s butt all over the break…”

Cleo winked. “Beginner’s luck.”

“Beginner’s luck is actually a disproved phenomena,” Pope interjected, dropping into a

folding chair and picking up his beer. “People are just more likely to notice an anomaly like
someone succeeding at something they’ve never tried before than they are to notice
something they expect and see all the time. And she’s not better than me, statistically we’re
all gonna have a bad day every now and then.”

Cleo smiled airily, dropping into a folding chair of her own. “Whatever you need to sleep at
night, Pope. I mean, besides your bathroom nighty-light and a kiss from your mama…”

Pope gaped at Cleo in soundless betrayal, and Kiara shot a quick glance at JJ, used to the
little looks that passed between them whenever Pope and Cleo or John B. and Sarah were
being especially cute or annoying. She felt her stomach drop when she saw JJ was smiling
faintly, gaze still somewhere in the grass at his feet.
“Welp,” Kiara said hastily, turning away before her rising anxiety could overwhelm her.
“Looks like I’ve got some catching up to do on the drinking front here.”

She made her way into the house, practicing deep breathing as she went. When she got into
the kitchen she stood with the fridge door open, one hip propped against the counter, staring
aimlessly out the window. She should’ve known better. She’d done it all wrong, and now she
didn’t know how to work her way backwards to how things used to be.

“You tryna let all the cold out?”

Kiara turned to find JJ leaning against the kitchen door frame, ballcap backwards and tipped
far back on his head, empty beer dangling from his fingers.

Kiara reached into the fridge and pulled out a new one, tossing it underhand to JJ, who
scrambled to catch it, yelping out a surprised, “oh shit,” as he almost dropped the bottle
already in his hand.

Kiara let a little smile lift her lips when JJ looked up at her in shock, his own mouth slipping
up to a hesitant smile as soon as he saw hers.

“Danger, danger,” he said warningly, making a big show of putting his empty in the recycling
can Kiara had set up next to the trash.

“I thought danger was your middle name?” Kiara responded, half mocking, half fond, settling
back against the counter with her arms crossed.

JJ held a hand to his heart. “So you do remember.”

Kiara felt her stomach flip, and she turned quickly back to the fridge, staring into it for a
moment before she grabbed another beer. When she turned back JJ was still standing there,
rolling his bottle between his palms.

“Hey Kie, can we talk?”

He sounded nervous. Kiara used the edge of the counter to pop the cap off her beer, heartbeat
thundering in her chest.

“I’d say this qualifies.”

JJ smiled quickly. “Hah, yeah, but um…I just wanted to say I was sorry. Like…about last
night. I guess I kinda lost it. That was…that wasn’t cool of me.”

“I’m sorry too,” Kiara said immediately, a flood of relief rushing through her. JJ looked up at
her in surprise. “I didn’t mean to push you,” she said softly, embarrassed all over again about
the night before. “If you don’t want anything to change, I don’t want anything to change
either.”

JJ looked at her for a long hard moment.

“Remember that time we hid you when your parents came to pick you up?” he asked
suddenly.

Kiara knew immediately what he was talking about. They were in fourth grade, knobby
kneed little kids who didn’t want the fun to end, collectively fuming at Kiara’s parents for
their steadfast refusal to let Kiara sleep over at the Chateau. The group of them were down at
the dock one night when they heard Kiara’s parent’s truck pull up, and John B. had the
brilliant idea of stashing Kiara under a tarp in the dinghy so she wouldn’t have to leave. Kiara
had stayed there for over an hour, until she heard the unmistakable sounds of her mom
shouting up at the house and JJ yelling back. By the time she stumbled up to them in the
dark, Pope was crying, and Anna had gripped Kiara’s arm so hard it left three perfectly
finger-shaped bruises. It wasn’t until years later that Kiara finally understood why, but when
JJ had seen those bruises the next day at school his eyes went dark and furious, and he’d
given the Carreras the silent treatment for months on end, glaring daggers every time he saw
them in the pickup line at school. The first time Kiara heard him say they all should run away
was in the aftermath of that night.

“I used to think about running away,” JJ said, mirroring her thoughts out loud, his throat
bobbing as he swallowed thickly. “Had it all planned out. I was gonna build us a shack on the
beach and we’d surf all day and live off the land, all of us together.” He laughed, a faraway
look in his eyes. “It felt like such a fantasy, y’know? Somethin’ you want so much, for so
long, but like...you know you’re never actually gonna get it?”

JJ stopped to look at Kiara, and she nodded back at him.

“But then…” JJ paused, the hand holding his beer hovering mid air. “There it was.
Poguelandia,” he said, a wistful twist to his lips, and Kiara ached with how much she missed
it. “It was real, it wasn’t just some fantasy. And it was better than what I used to imagine.
Like, blow it out of the water better.” JJ glanced at her again. “And then all that shit happened
and we came back to the OBX, and it was all just…”

“Not Poguelandia,” Kiara finished for him. JJ nodded, meeting her eyes.

“It made it worse,” he said bluntly. “Felt like some kinda punishment just for me, actually.
Like…after all those years of dreaming, getting to actually know what it felt like, and then
losing it and knowing I’m never gonna get that feeling back again?” JJ shook his head. “It
makes it so much harder not to have it now.” He was staring at her intently, like there was
something else he was trying to say.

“I get it,” Kiara said softly.

JJ tipped his head back on a fast exhale, then motioned at her with one hand, cheeks red.
“Kie, if I knew what it felt like to be with you? No chance I could go back to just being your
friend again.”

Kiara dropped her hands back on the counter, heart in her throat.

“You’re not gonna lose me like that, JJ,” she promised quietly.
JJ nodded, dipping his head to keep his eyes on hers. “I can’t,” he said simply.

Kiara breathed in deep. She took a moment to consider her words, then said slowly, “when
you fell off that tanker, I thought you were a goner. I thought we both were.”

JJ’s fingers clenched around his beer.

“We could have died in the water,” Kiara continued, her voice wavering. “I think…I think we
were actually pretty close.”

JJ’s hand twitched toward her and then halted abruptly.

Kiara shook her head at herself and soldiered on, determined to make him understand. “There
were so many times in the past few years we’ve come close to losing each other. I mean, god,
Sarah and John B. almost -” she stopped, heaved in a breath against the tightness in her chest,
and started over, JJ’s eyes fixed intently on her. “You don’t want to do this because you don’t
want to lose it, and I don’t blame you for that, JJ, I really don’t. And if friendship is all you
want, that’s good enough for me. I wouldn’t ever give that up. But my parents almost sent me
away to boarding school, and then a wilderness camp, you know? You almost drowned. If
there’s anything I’ve learned from all the shit we’ve been through, it’s that anything could
happen. We could be dead tomorrow, and I just…I don’t want to waste whatever time I get
not being honest about how I feel. So even if we just bury it and move on, I want you to
know. Either the end is gonna come, or life is just gonna keep coming at us. Either way,
we’re gonna face it together. There’s nothing that could ever change that.”

Kiara sucked in a long breath, and JJ stared back at her, stunned.

“Jesus,” he breathed. “This would all be so much easier if you weren’t so fucking perfect.”

It surprised a laugh out of Kiara.

“I am absolutely and totally not perfect,” she snorted.

“Except you actually kinda are,” JJ responded, sounding pained about actually saying it out
loud. “I mean, Kie, you’re freaking fearless.”

Kiara ducked her head, suddenly feeling bewilderingly shy.

“You are,” JJ said, voice insistent, shaky but determined. Kiara chanced a glance up to see
he’d taken a step closer to her. “You’re braver than I am. You’re the one who climbed in that
creepy ass haunted crypt, and you’re the one who went down into that storm drain, and
you’re the one who jumped off that tanker and saved my life. And it’s not just me, or the
Pogues, I mean, you care about everything. You care about the birds that shit all over the
HSM Pogue, and the dolphins that get their fins cut off halfway around the world, and the
turtles, man, you care about saving the turtles more than I care about almost anything! And
you’re funny, and smart, and a really fucking good friend.”

Kiara felt frozen, watching as JJ slowly took another step closer, his voice dropping lower as
he watched her face carefully. “And you’re so absurdly hot,” he continued, “that sometimes I
actually just like, gotta take a second before I can even look at you.”

Kiara could feel her heart pounding wildly in her chest. Her body felt tingly all over, light
enough to fly.

“You’re one to talk,” she managed, feeling breathless.

“Me?” JJ laughed. “You don’t even realize how out of my league you are. Thank god, I
guess.”

“Jay,” Kiara said, frowning. “You deserve good things just as much as everyone else.”

JJ shrugged dismissively. “I’m just the cockroach that survives no matter how shitty things
get.”

“No,” Kiara snapped immediately. “You’re not a cockroach, JJ, you’re…you’re the flower
that grows in concrete. Life threw all the shitty things at you and you still turned out kind,
and loyal, and really, really, sometimes recklessly, brave. You’re the bravest person I know.”

JJ was staring at her, an expression she’d never seen before on his face.

“Did you just quote Tupac?” he asked.

They broke into laughter at the same time. The rush of relief Kiara felt surge through her
made her knees feel weak.

“You're right,” JJ finally said when their laughter quieted down. “There are a lot of ways we
could lose each other in this crazy goddamn world. And I don’t…I don’t want the reason to
be cause I was too fucking scared to do something about about how I feel.”

Kiara stared back at him, willing him closer. “So what are you gonna do about it?”

JJ took the final step toward her, his breath coming light and quick.

“You two are the literal slowest people I know,” John B.’s voice cut through the tension, the
screen door to the Chateau slamming open.

JJ and Kiara sprung apart, Kiara’s pulse hammering in her ears.

“Sorry, man,” JJ said, voice at least three octaves higher than normal. He cleared his throat
and reached for the fridge handle and Kiara twitched away from him, scrambling to grab her
beer off the counter.

John B. eyed them both curiously and then took the beer JJ was holding out toward him.

“Sarah wants to play a drinking game,” John B. said, still glancing between the two of them.

“Great!” Kiara responded enthusiastically, just as JJ offered his own loud exclamation of
approval.
“Oh-kay,” John B. said slowly, turning back to the door and then giving them another strange
look as JJ motioned for Kiara to go ahead of him and Kiara bobbed an awkward curtsy in
thanks, because her life wasn’t humiliating enough already.

She stumbled into the backyard, mind nowhere near the game Sarah was proposing.

All evening JJ’s eyes kept meeting Kiara’s in the growing dark, and Kiara could feel
something indecipherable passing between them each time. She found herself wishing time
would move faster and the night would end so the rest of the group would head inside to bed.
When Pope yawned and mentioned heading in for the night Kiara agreed immediately, JJ
piping in the affirmative right after and the rest folding quicking to peer pressure. They all
tramped into the house and Kiara called the futon. She heard JJ tell Pope he and Cleo could
take Big John’s old room.

They met in the living room, the lights off and the sounds of everyone else quieting down in
the hushed house.

“I have this dream about you,” JJ confessed quietly.

Kiara held her breath. “What happens in the dream?” she asked.

JJ was silent for a long, suspended moment, then he licked his lips and said, “I don’t touch
you.” His hand hovered centimeters from hers, fingertips brushing against the friendship
bracelets Kiara wore around her wrist. “I don’t kiss you,” he continued, eyes rising to Kiara’s
face. “I just…” he trailed off, voice so soft Kiara swayed closer to hear him. “I just want to.”

Kiara felt something in her break, and without thought she stepped forward, hands sliding up
his chest to his neck as his shaking hands wrapped around her, fingers gripping her tight.

“Hey, JJ,” Kiara whispered, eyes sweeping up to meet his.

“Yeah,” JJ breathed.

Kiara's lips lifted in a hint of a smile. “I dare you to kiss me.”

This time, he did.

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