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“Do you want to play?”
JJ knew he shouldn’t have stared so hard, because now both boys are looking at him, and he can feel his cheeks warming up. It’s just that he’d never heard someone laugh that hard before. He kinda wanted to know what was so funny about the game.
“It’s really easy,” one of the boys, Pope, says, scooting over on the bench so that JJ could sit down. “You just have to draw what’s on the card, and we have to guess what it is.”
“Here,” the other kid, John B, gives him a card, face down, from the pile in the middle of the table. “Do this one.”
JJ picks up one of the pencils and pads from the open box and looks at his card.
Basketball.
He gets to work drawing the ball, placing the squiggly lines in the familiar pattern. But then he worries they might not get it, so he draws a hoop and a net, and then, for good measure, a Charlotte Hornets jersey, with Hugo the Hornet front and centre.
The timer goes off, and JJ turns the pad towards them.
“Wow!” Pope says excitedly. “That’s so cool!”
“You drew that? Just now?” asks John B, as if he hadn’t just seen him drawing. “You’re really good!”
JJ looks away, embarrassed by the attention. But he kinda likes it, too. He’s never been good at anything, and if he has, no one’s ever told him so.
“You didn’t even guess yet!” he says.
“Well, it’s obviously basketball!” Pope says, and John B nods.
“Can you draw a ninja turtle?” John B asks, scooting his chair closer to JJ. “Pope, give him your crayons!”
They spend the rest of their lunch break playing Pictionary and the rest of the school year getting close. And before he knows it, JJ has friends.
Best friends.
“Can I sit with you guys?”
The new girl is standing at the head of their table, looking at them expectantly, and all JJ can focus on is the colourful strings on her wrist.
“Sure!” Pope says, and JJ shoots him an annoyed look, because they didn’t let just anyone sit with them. It’s always been just the three of them.
Pope is asking her all kinds of questions, so quickly that she barely has time to get one answer out before he’s expecting another. John B is friendly, too, but he gives her a little more time to breathe. The others start talking about surfing, and JJ warms up to her a little bit, but he’s still quiet, and the guys are looking at him, waiting for him to say something nice.
He turns to talk to her, to ask her what she thinks of their teacher, Ms. Sanford, but all he can see are her eyes, big and brown, and so kind.
He decides then and there that he likes her.
“These are cool,” he says, pointing to her bracelets.
“I made them,” she says, shaking her wrist. “I can make one for you, if you want.”
That’s when their friend group grows by one.
“Does your dad do that a lot?”
JJ’s ears are still ringing, and the side of his face is still throbbing and yet he still looks at John B like he’s nuts.
“What are you talking about? Do what?”
He didn’t think John B had seen them in the parking lot when the back of Luke’s hand connected with his face. It wasn’t even that hard. But he should have known from the frown on his friend’s face, the missing sparkle in his eyes and the quiet on their walk back to the Chateau, that he knew.
“JJ.”
It’s just the two of them in the creaking house. Pope is studying, Kiara is on the mainland with her parents, and Big John left two days ago, leaving a note and a ten-dollar bill on the kitchen table. The house is quiet. And no one would know.
But still, JJ doesn’t talk.
“C’mon man,” John B says. “It’s me.”
Yeah. It’s him. John B. His best friend. His brother. The closest thing to a real family he has — because fuck Luke. He has his own shit going on. His dad’s decent, sure. But he’s seen the bills on the counter, been here when the lights have gone out, watched John B pick up extra shifts at the marina to fill the fridge. He doesn’t need to pile on.
“It’s not a big deal, man.”
“JJ.” His name, again. Just his name.
The biggest tragedy of JJ’s life is not that his father hits him. It’s that his father hitting him has somehow managed to hurt the one person in the world that matters the most to him.
“You’ll sleep here tonight.”
John B looks back at the television, and it’s clear his mind is made up about their sleeping arrangement and about his father.
“I’m good, B. I promise.”
Deny, deny, deny.
“What are you looking at?”
He grinds his teeth together to keep from calling Kelce a douche and clenches his fist at his side to keep from punching him in his smug face. He can’t afford to lose this job. His dad’s on a bender, and the only thing in his fridge when he opened it this morning was an old bottle of hot sauce and an unidentifiable pile of mush in a clear container he’s pretty sure belongs to the Heywards.
Maybe he’s staring, but it’s only because he hasn’t seen her in a while. She looks good, happy. But her clothes are too stiff and her hair is all wrong, and she’s not supposed to like being on this side of the island, with these people they used to make fun of.
Kiara looks up, opens her mouth to say something, then shuts it when she changes her mind. He wonders when she knew they’d run out of things to talk about. He wishes she had told him. He would have used his time more wisely instead of rambling about humanoid monsters that lurked in sewers.
Because, yeah, he’s pathetic. And he remembers their last conversation. He remembers all their conversations.
But that was then. That was when she was a Pogue.
“Nothing,” he says, putting his head down, clearing the empty plates and glasses from the neighbouring table, trying to forget the sound of her laugh.
This Kiara? This Kiara is a Kook.
“Do you think he’s really gone?”
JJ has been called a liar more times than he can count. It’s never bothered him, because it’s always warranted. He’s not a bad person; it’s just that a lie is usually the easier option. But he doesn’t lie to his friends, and he certainly doesn’t lie to John B.
They respect each other’s boundaries, though. They know when not to push, when not to bring things up, when not to give the other the opportunity to lie. But this isn’t that. This is John B asking him, point-blank, to his face. He wants an answer. They’ve always been straight with each other, even when the truth was hard to hear.
But this isn’t a truth anyone should hear.
“You know what I think?” JJ asks. “I think he found something big. He finally hit the jackpot, man. And he’s taking his time, dotting his Is, crossing his Ts, making sure he’s in the clear before coming back. He’s gonna roll back in here on a spiffy new yacht and tell those fucks at DCS to kick rocks.”
It’s far-fetched.
It’s a crock of shit.
It’s the biggest lie he’s ever told.
But John B smiles.
So, call him a liar and see if he gives a shit.
“Are you ever going to forgive me?”
Pope knew what he was doing when he got up and left them alone around the dwindling fire. He wasn’t subtle. He’d been pushing JJ to hear her out for days.
“I said I was sorry!”
He snorts into his beer, bitter. “But did you mean it?”
She narrows her eyes. If there’s one thing Kiara hates, it’s being mocked.
“Of course I meant it! What can I do to make you believe me? How many more times do I have to say it? A hundred? A thousand? Because I’ll do it.”
She’s a little drunk, and if he kinda wishes he weren’t holding a grudge so he could tease her about it.
“There’s no magic number,” he says. “They aren’t Hail Marys and I’m no priest.”
It’s her turn to snort. “No shit!”
This is exactly why he’s been avoiding her. Because he knew, from the minute she walked up to them at Rixon’s last week, that if they spent any time together, if he started remembering how good it felt to talk to her, he would give in. He already feels his resolve slipping.
“JJ,” she says, softer now.
“What?” he snaps back.
She does look sorry. And he does miss her.
The problem, JJ thinks, is that there is so much anger inside of him and nowhere for him to put it. He can’t yell at his dad, or he’ll end up with a black eye or stitches. He can’t start shit with the Kooks because the last time that happened, he ended up in cuffs. He can’t rage at the universe because clearly no one is listening and nothing will change.
But he can be angry at her. Not only because she deserves it, but she can take it.
“Just…” He trails off, crushes his empty can and drops it in the sand just to piss her off. She eyes the aluminum and he knows it’s killing her not to say anything.
He wants to make her promise that she’ll never leave him again. But if he forces her to make that promise and she breaks it, it’ll likely break his heart, too.
So, instead, he says, “I just need more time.”
She perks up slightly. “Okay,” she says. “I can give you time.”
They fall into a comfortable silence while they wait for John B and Pope to wander back over. JJ pops open another beer, and Kiara buries her hands in the pockets of her hoodie. She keeps looking over at him, and it’s making him nervous.
“What?” he asks again, less annoyed than before, though.
“Nothing,” she says. “Just… was that enough time?”
He can’t help it. He laughs. Then she follows.
He forgives her.
“Why’d it have to be her?”
JJ knows some questions are rhetorical. What’s more, he knows when Kiara wants to vent rather than pick a fight. He keeps his mouth shut.
“Like, did he not hear all the shit she did? Was he not listening when I told you all about how she tortured me?”
“He heard you, Kie,” he grumbles. JJ curses himself as instant regret rushes through him, and he sees the look in her eyes. “It’s just… the heart wants what it wants.”
“Oh God, gag me. You sound just like him.”
It’s a platitude, for sure, and it’s one that John B has been uttering since his thing with Sarah Cameron actually became a thing. JJ’s first instinct was to roll his eyes, just like Kiara had done. But he didn’t. He can’t. Because he gets it.
There’s no controlling it — the person you fall for, the person you want, the person you see when you close your eyes. If there was, he’d have banished her from his mind long ago. He’d look away from her neck when she gathered her hair in a ponytail, or from the sliver of skin between the bottom of her shirt and the top of her shorts when she lifted her arms in the air and stretched. He’d calm the fuck down when she smiled in his direction, or when she splashed water in his face when they’re sitting on their boards in the ocean. He’d stop torturing himself by picturing a future he’s never going to get.
So, JJ knows exactly why it had to be Sarah Cameron.
Just like he knows why it’s always going to be her.
“What are you actually gonna do with the gold?”
Pope is snoring softly on the pullout, so Kiara is whispering.
“You don’t like my koi pond idea?” he asks, still reeling from the night they had, weed making him loose and giddy.
She pokes his thigh with her foot, disbelieving look on her face. There’s gotta be magic in the air tonight. The moon is big and the breeze is soothing and her voice is husky and hopeful. It makes him want to spill his guts.
“I think I’ll disappear for a bit,” he says, the plan forming in his head. “If I stick around, Luke…”
He trails off because there’s no need for details. She knows the truth now.
“Where will you go? Yucatan?”
She’s teasing — she’s heard him mention the Mexican state half a dozen times — but it sounds pretty good. Anywhere sounds pretty good right about now.
He shrugs. “There are worse places to be.”
“You’re just gonna up and leave? Wouldn’t you miss us?” She’s teasing again. Maybe the weed is getting to her, too.
“Of course I’d miss you.” He doesn’t think she knows how much, but now is not the time to tell her.
“Maybe I’ll come with,” she says.
Yucatan has never sounded better.
“Do you want me to come? ‘Cause I’ll come.”
Does he want her to come? Fuck no. He doesn’t want her anywhere near his father.
But he doesn’t want to leave her either. If he could, he’d stay in this car forever. He’d tell her to drive and never stop. If it were up to him, they’d get on the ferry, get off on the mainland and hit the open road.
But his friend needs him, and he made a mess he has to clean up. Besides, there’s no way she’d go for it.
“No,” he says. He doesn’t look at her. It’s harder to do now that she knows what lies behind that door. “This’ll only take a second.”
It takes more than a second. It takes all the fight he has left.
It’s only when he’s back in the car and she’s starting the engine that he can breathe again.
“Did Kiara say something?”
Pope is in way over his head, and JJ is torn between wanting to help his friend get the girl and wanting to punch his friend in the face because he wants the girl for himself.
He wants to be mad at Pope, to shake him and yell that they have more important things to worry about — like their best friend being framed for murder and facing the death penalty — but he gets it. He can’t blame him. He’s been there, maybe he's still there. He knows what it’s like to be consumed by the thought of Kiara.
And part of him is still upset by the secret look he saw them share that night, the way her hand pulled him along, the way they disappeared into the night and how they reappeared the next morning, Pope with a look on his face that let JJ know it was too late.
“About what?” he asks, stalling.
Kiara hadn’t said anything, but she didn’t need to. The silence was loud enough.
“About anything,” Pope says, fisting his hair. “She’s not talking to me!”
JJ is not proud to admit that his first thought is, Good.
“What were you thinking?”
“We both know I wasn’t.” His heart is still racing, and his hand shakes as he reaches for his beer. “You came in clutch, though. Thanks!” He raises his can in salute. He doesn’t know what would have happened if her car hadn’t come screeching down the road.
“Jayge, this isn’t funny.”
It’s not funny right now. But it will be someday, years from now, when this mess is behind them. At the very least, the memory of nights like these will keep him company in the jail cell that’s already got his name on it. Because Plumb is right — his story’s already been written.
“You don’t really think that, do you? That you’re going to end up in jail?”
“Everyone thinks that, Kie.”
But JJ doesn’t really care what everyone thinks.
He cares what she thinks.
“Got room for one more?”
He has to fight the urge to pinch himself because he swears he just heard Kiara Carrera ask him if he wanted company while he traveled the world, surfed the waves, lived off the land.
He’s sweating from the heat in the shipping container, but he knows a few drops are because of the way she’s looking at him. He wants to know if she’s serious. Because he’s dead serious.
“You got your passport?” he asks in a challenge.
She laughs. “You don’t have a passport.”
“Hell no, I don’t got a passport. Kookiest thing ever.”
For her, he’d get a passport.
“Can’t sleep?”
Not sleeping when you have a concussion is actually a myth. He’s had enough head injuries in his short life to know that. Pope says the brain needs rest after such a trauma. But sleep doesn’t come easy when you’ve just coughed up an entire ocean’s worth of water, or when you can still hear the gunshots ringing through the air, or when your best friend keeps checking to see if you’re still breathing.
“I’m good,” he says. And it’s true. He’s good. He may be stranded on a deserted island hundreds of miles from home with nothing but the clothes on his back, but he is well and truly good. Because out here there are no island politics, no Kooks vs. Pogues, no restitution and dirty cops, no empty house or daddy issues. There’s the ocean. There’s the sun. There’s friendship.
“You sure?” Kiara asks, reaching out and smoothing her thumb over the still-tender skin above his brow. The cut had long since stopped bleeding, but he would definitely bruise.
There’s also the girl of his dreams touching him.
Good? No, he’s great.
“You’re really acting like you don’t care?”
He had the right idea, crouching behind the fence, because he doesn’t belong here. Seeing her all dressed up, hair done, makeup perfect, parents beaming, it just really drives the point home.
Of course he cares. He cares so much. He’s always cared. But where has that ever gotten him?
“You’re acting like I don’t care. Like, I love you, dude!”
“What?”
He cares about her. He really does. And these are the words that he’d always dreamed he’d one day hear. But now that she’s said them, he wants to tell her to take them back.
It’s not just that the world is falling apart around them — that Big John is missing, that her parents are on the warpath, that he can’t seem to get the image of Pope’s betrayed face out of his head. It’s all of that and so much more. It’s him.
She thinks she loves him. But he can’t give her any of this. He can’t give her streamers and balloons or declarations of love in front of the whole island. He will forever be the no-good saltlifer stuck on the marsh, creeping in the shadows to avoid her father, the shame of no family and an eviction notice following him wherever he goes.
“It’s not gonna work, okay?”
He can’t let her love him.
“Maybe I’ll see you at the break when I get back.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“If I get back,” he mutters.
Please, God, let him get back.
“Why didn’t you just leave without me?”
She has to shout for him to hear her. Because — shocker — the back of a drug smuggler’s rinkydink plane is not the quietest place.
JJ scoffs. He’s done a lot of stupid things in his life — fired a gun on a crowded beach, stole a wad of cash from a drug dealer, taken the fall for a crime he didn’t commit, just to name a few. But springing Kiara from wilderness camp? That’s one of the smartest. A no-brainer.
“I would have understood.”
She would have understood, but JJ wouldn’t have been able to live with himself. And maybe that’s why they fit. Because she’s understanding where he is indignant. She’s level-headed where he is irrational. She’s benevolent where he can be ruthless. Is that what loving someone is? Finding someone who complements you? Who matches your chaos with calm?
But that can’t be right, because they’re also similar. Their passion, their loyalty, their inability to give up. They are more alike than people think.
Maybe there is no secret to love, no magic formula.
Maybe it’s irrational, a fluke.
Maybe it’s just her.
“This thing with you and Kie… Is it serious?”
It’s too early to be having this conversation. But Pope had caught him coming out of the room Kiara had claimed as her own in Sarah’s condo, and he’s too tired to pretend.
Is it serious? He doesn’t know.
Is it serious when you fall asleep next to each other every night, so close that you don’t know where you end and she begins? Is it serious when you know each other’s deepest, darkest secrets, every fault, every mistake, and still want to stick around? Is it serious when the briefest look from across the room can stop the whole world?
If that isn’t serious, someone needs to tell him what to do or say to make it so.
“It’s serious, Pope,” he says.
He’s ready to ask for forgiveness because he is way beyond asking for permission. He is much more willing to fix things with Pope than to ruin things with Kie.
But Pope surprises him.
“It was always you, man,” he says. “And you deserve to be happy.”
It’s not Pope’s forgiveness or permission, but his blessing.
And suddenly it’s not just serious — it’s real.
“Are you sure you’re gonna be able to live here?”
Sometimes he hates how perceptive John B is. The whole group, really. But John B can read him like no one else can. He stays close as they walk the perimeter of his childhood home. He’s quiet, lets JJ talk a big game, and pretends not to hear the stutter in his voice when he talks about the warped floors, or the way he flinches when he talks about the old shed. The others stay back.
“No one would blame you if you said you couldn’t. We’ll find another house. We’ll figure out another plan. Pope’s probably already got something else brewing. Just say the word.”
The word is this: he wants this house. He wants to strip it down to the studs, transform its very core. He wants to change the way the walls think, to make it so that if they could talk, they would speak of laughter and affection, not of yelling and loathing. He wants to be enveloped in solace, not smothered in cruelty. He wants to fatten it up, like you would a starving child, feed it love and adoration after years of a diet consisting of nothing but hatred and contempt. He wants this home to be for the others what the Chateau always was for him.
It would be so much easier if he didn’t want all these things. But nothing in JJ’s life ever came easy. He can’t imagine that turning a house into a home will be any different.
“I’m good, man. Really.”
He claps John B on the back, shoots him a smile that is fuelled by his eagerness to get started.
“Okay,” John B says. “Let’s go to the auction.”
Not only will he live here. He’ll thrive here.
“Are you avoiding me?”
“No.”
Yes.
He doesn’t think his friends would believe him if he were to tell them that he and Kiara hadn’t had sex. But there was trauma to deal with — dead fathers, estranged parents, soot and ash where a home once stood — and a life to build — walls to paint, licenses to pull, furniture to thrift — and the exhaustion that came with all of that didn’t really leave much time for extracurricular activities.
At least that’s what JJ tells himself every time he dodges a kiss, or scoots out from underneath her, or stops her hands from pulling up his shirt.
Falling asleep next to each other is easy; they’ve been doing that for years. An arm thrown over her shoulders or a hand on her wrist is normal; they’ve always been a touchy group. But sex is uncharted territory. Sex complicates things.
It scares him, how easily he can get lost in her. And if they start, he won’t be able to stop. Which will hurt so much more when she comes to her senses.
“Is that why I have to corner you in the bathroom?” Kiara asks as she stalks forward. JJ’s protests would hold much more weight if he weren’t stepping backwards, if his back didn’t hit the counter, and his fingers didn’t grip the edge.
“Is that why you’re squirming?”
She smiles, a wicked grin reminiscent of the Cheshire cat. Whether it’s because she wants to put him at ease or because it’s a game to her, he’s pretty sure she wouldn’t be laughing if she could hear his thoughts.
She places a kiss at the corner of his mouth. It’s soft and delicate, and like everything she does, it leaves him wanting more. Then she steps back and crosses her arms in front of her, lifting her shirt and revealing a flimsy and lacy green bra.
“What are you doing?” he asks. He wishes his voice sounded more confident.
She doesn’t answer. Her fingers flick the button on her jean shorts. They drop in a puddle at her feet as her eyes stay trained on his.
“Would you like to shower with me, JJ?” she asks.
She doesn’t wait for his response, just pulls her bra off dramatically, curls bouncing from the motion, pulls her underwear down and steps out of them until she’s standing before him, completely naked.
“You’re playing dirty,” he says. He’s surprised he can say anything at all.
“You’ve left me no choice.”
She doesn’t touch him — maybe she’s giving him an out — but she does run her hands along her body, fingers skimming the underside of her breasts, down her stomach and past her navel, and she has to know how much the sight of that will drive him crazy.
“Kiara…”
“I’m gonna take a shower,” she says, stepping backwards towards the tub. “And I really think you should join me.”
The shower curtain swishes as she pulls it forward and hides her body. He hears the creaking pipes as she turns the faucet, and the unmistakable sounds of running water. He closes his eyes in frustration. He can’t believe this is happening. He’s pretty sure fifteen-year-old JJ had had this exact same fantasy and woken up in a sweat before the best part.
JJ Maybank has many mottos. Deny, deny, deny. Stupid things have good outcomes all the time. And his favourite.
“Fuck it,” he says, pulling off his shirt and tripping over his pants in his rush to get to the curtain.
He’s not fifteen anymore.
And he’s not waking up from this dream.
“You’re still drinking?”
He almost didn’t hear her over the wind and the waves. It’s been three days since they refuelled. At least he thinks it’s been three days.
She’s wearing a look he knows so well. It’s the same one she had when he pulled the gun, when she stopped that ambulance, when she found her father’s wallet, when she watched him walk away from the wreckage, when she told him she loved him, when he lost the Enduro. It’s the look that confirms what he’s known all along. He’s a disappointment. All he’s ever done is hurt her. Why should this be any different?
“You’re not gonna say anything?” she asks, more desperate this time.
There are a lot of things he could say. And because Kiara’s so good, because she sees the good in him, because she loves him despite all the hurt, all he has to do is say he’s sorry, and this could all be over.
But JJ’s hurting, too. And no one seems to see that.
So, he does what he’s always done best.
He sulks. He avoids his problems. He ruins things. He lets down the people he loves.
He tips the bottle back, takes another swig, and gives in to the darkness.
“JJ? Can you hear me?”
He knows the voice pulling him out of his hazy state, but he can’t quite place it. He’s floating, his head swimming, a patchwork of multicoloured swirls dancing behind his eyes. He tries to open them to see who is speaking, but there’s a dull ache in his head and a throbbing in his side. He feels a gentle hand on his arm, and another weight on his foot. There is a faint but steady beeping to his right. His chest hurts, and his throat is dry when he tries to swallow, and he wishes he can slip deeper into the dreamlike state they’re trying to force him out of.
“JJ?”
Images of sandstorms and blood flicker in his mind, and he starts to piece the puzzle together. The boat. The ocean. The crown. Groff. A knife. Kiara.
Kiara.
“JJ?” It’s louder this time, her tone turning frantic.
Oh, he thinks.
He knows exactly what this is.
He’s dying. Of course he is. Even with his luck, you don’t survive a wound like his. And he’s destined for hell, the pronounced pain coursing through his body making that crystal clear, even if a lifetime of shitty decisions hadn’t already clued him in. But some benevolent God, some almighty spirit who has taken pity on him, is giving him one more chance to see her before he goes.
He begs his body to cooperate, concentrates harder than he ever has, forces his eyelids open.
And there she is.
Kiara.
Heaven.
“Did you really think that we’d leave you behind? That we’d give up?”
Every time JJ opens his eyes it seems like John B has moved his chair closer to his hospital bed. He’s practically on top of him today.
“You should have,” JJ rasps. His throat is still raw from the breathing tube they’d pulled out yesterday.
“Jesus, man. What—”
“You should have gone after Groff. What about Poguelandia? It’s our home! Without the crown, we—” JJ flinches as he feels a tug in his abdomen. The doctors and nurses had told him, in their accented English, not to get worked up, but he can’t help it. Another thing to worry about — an astronomical hospital bill.
John B claws at his face roughly, exhausted by both conversation and circumstance.
“When are you gonna get it through your thick skull?” he explodes. Both men wince and turn to make sure Kiara is still asleep in the armchair by the window. She’d refused to leave the room, but managed to finally fall into a fitful doze.
“JJ, fuck Poguelandia. Fuck our home. It was never going to be our home if we walked through those doors without you.”
Tears spring to JJ’s eyes, and it must be the drugs they’ve given him that are making him so fucking emotional.
John B places his hand on JJ’s head, brings his forehead down to rest on JJ’s.
“I don’t care if we lose the house, the boat, the shop. All of it.”
His tattered bandana brushes against JJ’s starchy hospital gown, his smell of days-old sweat mixing with the antiseptic that lingers in the air.
“But I can’t lose you.”
“What are you gonna do with the house?”
They mean well, but every time they ask him about his new life, he’s at a loss for words.
Being a Maybank is a curse. Being a Groff is a death sentence. But being a Genrette, it turns out, has its perks. In addition to a crisp new birth certificate — issued after a postmortem DNA test revealed his true identity — and a fat bank account — reluctantly handed over by a portly accountant — he has inherited Blackstone Manor.
He looks out on the overgrown shrubbery and unruly lawn from the porch. It’s not scary in the same way it was the last time they were here. It’s the unknown that drives his fear this time.
“I don’t know,” he says, honestly. He squirms on the rickety old furniture, his wound still giving him a hard time. Kiara takes his hand in hers.
He thought maybe he’d come here, now that he knows the truth and that there are no doubts as to who he is, and maybe some part of him would feel something. Some connection to this land, some bond to his family, some kind of wonder at the discovery of his heritage. But he can’t seem to tap into that part, wherever it is.
He feels like the colour grey looks. He's stuck somewhere between black and white, between a Maybank and a Genrette, between a Kook and a Pogue, between a fuck-up and a golden boy.
He didn’t ask for any of this. All he wanted was to come back to his home, take to the water on his boat, wrap himself up in the love of his life. Kiara tells him to give it time, to let his restless body and his wandering mind settle. He trusts her.
“Guys, can we just…” he shrugs his shoulders, breathes in deep, and utters words that he never thought would come out of his reckless mouth. “Can we just take it easy? Like, one day at a time? That’s a thing, right?”
His eyes sweep across the porch. He takes in John B’s easy grin as he leans back against the porch rail, Sarah’s queasy expression as she cradles the tiniest bump, Pope’s wrinkled brow as he looks over paperwork, Cleo’s aloof stare as she twirls her pocket knife. And Kiara, dressed in one of his shirts and her yellow sneakers, with her kind eyes and encouraging smile, her entire side stuck to his.
Maybe the reason he can’t feel anything here is because it’s not his place. Because his place has always been on the Cut, or on a deserted island, or in the back of the Twinkie, or in the motion of the ocean.
He’s never needed a private island or an entire estate, and he’s never wanted another family.
His family has always been right in front of him.
“Will you hold my hand?”
JJ didn’t think panic could set in so quickly — but Sarah’s face is scrunched up in pain, and John B isn’t answering his phone, and he’s trying to focus on the road as the quickest labour in the history of womankind surges through his friend.
“You’re doing great,” he says, because it seems like the right thing to say. His face whips back and forth between the passenger seat and the windshield, and he steps on the gas pedal a little harder. “Just breathe. I got you.”
He takes her left hand in his right, and she squeezes it as another contraction takes over. When it’s released her from its vice grip, she whimpers and slumps back into her seat.
“JJ,” she says, pulling slightly on his hand. There are tears in her eyes when he looks back at he,r and all he can think is, Why the fuck is the hospital so far away? “I’m so glad you’re here.”
He laughs as he turns his eyes back on the road, because he’s pretty sure he’s the last person anyone would ever want or need when about to give birth.
But she’s not having it. “Hey,” she says, loud and sure, shaking his hand to get his attention. “I’m serious. I love you.” Then she winces as another wave of pain hits.
He abandons the Twinkie in a place he’s pretty sure will get him towed. They are whisked away to the maternity ward by an orderly, Sarah sitting in a wheelchair, JJ hurrying alongside her with the baby bag slung over his shoulder, their hands still connected.
He’s wiping sweat off her brow and rubbing soothing circles on her back when John B bursts through the room, wild-eyed and out of breath. She cries in relief as he rushes toward her, and JJ lets go of her hand and gladly steps aside so John B can take his place.
He’s just rounding the corner to the waiting room, the faint sound of Pope’s voice guiding him, when he hears the squeak of sneakers on linoleum behind him. He turns in time for John B to pull him into a bone-crushing hug, one that steals the breath from his lungs.
“Thank you,” John B breathes into his ear. “For Morocco, for today. For everything.”
JJ hugs him back. “Brothers for life, right?” he asks, and John B holds on tighter.
He could stay here all day. But then he remembers the labouring woman down the hall and the excitement surrounding the imminent arrival of the newest member of their family, and he pulls away, pushes John B back.
“Go have a baby, you idiot.”
“Do you want to hold your goddaughter?”
John B is holding the smallest bundle in his arms, cradling it close to his chest, and if he hadn’t just spent an hour trying to get Sarah to match her breathing to his he wouldn’t believe he was holding a newborn.
But what’s even more shocking is that John B and Sarah would still trust him with the title of godfather. The words stop him in his tracks, just before he can reach the bed. Kiara places an encouraging hand on his arm.
“C’mon, Uncle JJ,” Sarah says, sensing his hesitation. “She wants to meet you.”
Sarah looks like hell. Her eyes are red, her hair is messy, and she can’t seem to keep her head up, sagging back into her mountain of pillows every once in a while before shooting up again. But she’s also glowing. And beautiful. And she looks so, so happy.
They say birth is a trauma, kind of like dying.
He never told the others, but when he was lying in the dirt and he knew it was the end, and he’d said all he had to say to Kiara, his mind drifted to her. To John B’s baby. To his goddaughter. He told Kiara that he got his wish, and it was true. He had. He got everything he ever wanted. But his only regret was that he would never get to meet her. He remembers thinking, as he drifted off into a fogged and pixellated space, a purgatory of sorts, that if his life had to end so that hers could begin, then so be it.
JJ sits down, and John B gently maneuvers the baby into his arms. He is careful not to make any sudden movements as the newborn settles. He’s not expecting her to be so alert, and he gasps when he meets her impossibly light eyes.
John B crouches down in front of them, his hand on his daughter’s head, his eyes telling JJ he is thinking the exact same thing — that this moment almost slipped through their fingers.
“This is Jennie Jay Routledge,” he says, and JJ breaks.
It’s the circle of life. One life begins as another one ends.
But his life didn’t end.
And here she is.
Here they both are.
“Will you marry me?”
If people think JJ is impatient, it’s only because they’ve never had to make Kiara Carrera wait.
The question comes out of nowhere, and judging by the look on her face, she’s expecting an answer — a very specific answer.
The longer the silence stretches, the more her face falls, until JJ sees the exact moment she regrets asking, and he silently curses himself for being so tongue-tied.
“Never mind,” she says, turning to pick up the mess they’d made on the blanket strewn on the sand.
There are wrappers from the burgers Cleo and Pope brough,t and empty soda cans, crumbs from Jennie’s Cheerios and a stain forming on the spot where John B dropped his potato salad. In the corner, Sarah’s sunglasses lay abandoned and forgotten. As the others had gotten up to leave, Kiara had pulled JJ back down and told him they should stay. Now he knows why.
She makes to stand, but JJ catches her wrist, pulling her into him. She resists.
“Hey, wait, that’s not—”
She raises her eyebrows expectantly and urges him to finish his sentence.
“It’s just…” He takes a deep breath. “That’s my line.”
Her face remains unchanged, and JJ wonders if she heard him or if she understands what he’s saying.
Then she breaks out into the biggest smile.
“Well, then, use it, dumbass!”
He laughs. He wants to use it. He wants to use it so badly. He’s come so close, so many times. She has no idea. It’s never felt right, though. There was always too much going on, too many people, too much noise, too many thoughts in his head and doubts in his heart.
But now they’re alone under the stars, and his mind is clear, his heart open.
He takes her hand in his, kisses the knuckle of the finger where the prettiest ring will sit. He looks at the face that he will wake up to for the rest of his life.
“Kiara, will you marry me?”
“When you and Auntie Kie have a baby, are you gonna forget about me?”
Jennie is sitting on his lap, patiently waiting for him to finish braiding her hair. She likes his braids best, says they’re more “uniform” than John B’s. JJ asks himself every day how John B ended up with a four-year-old who says things like “uniform.”
JJ lets go of his niece’s hair and spins her around to face him. She is quite serious, eyebrows drawn in like her mother, eyes earnest like her father, and he has to stop himself from laughing.
“Now, why would you say that?” he asks.
Her lip quivers, and all the glee leaves his body. There are some tears that are too hard for him to handle — hers are at the top of the list.
“At school, Everett Hobson said that when his mommy and daddy had another baby they didn’t play with him anymore.”
She sniffs dramatically and JJ prays that if he and Kie ever do have a kid, it’s a boy. Because this little girl has him so wrapped around her finger that he’s willing to march down to the school and fight a four-year-old on the playground.
Her eyes are trained on her hands in her lap, so he hunches his shoulders and tries to meet her eyes. When he does, he melts just a little more. Because staring back at him are the brown eyes he grew up with.
“You know you’re my favourite person in the whole world, right?”
She still looks skeptical, and JJ hesitates, because how do you explain to a four-year-old that they saved you?
He tries anyway.
“I don’t love anyone the way I love you,” he says. “You changed my life, coconut.”
She giggles at her nickname, and JJ’s heart fills to the point of bursting.
Kiara walks through the door then, and Jennie lights up, mischief in her eyes.
“I thought Auntie Kie was your favourite person in the world?”
Kiara grins, “I’m not?” she asks, playing along.
JJ groans and drops his chin to his chest.
“You’re killing me, kid.”
“Are you happy?”
Kiara wraps her arms around JJ’s waist and looks up at him in question. JJ looks over her shoulder and stares at the scene before him. John B is chasing a six-year-old Jennie, her dramatic shrieks echoing in the open air. Sarah watches from her seat next to the fire, face illuminated by the twinkle lights in the trees, laughing at their antics. Down the dock, Pope and Cleo are sharing a quiet conversation as they walk towards the group, clasped hands swinging between them. Up above, the Poguelandia flag flaps in the light breeze. Over the water, the sun sets on yet another perfect day.
And in front of him is Kiara. His past and his future. His whole word. Their little secret — too new and too tiny to share with the rest of the group just yet — nestled between them.
“I’m so fucking happy, Kie.”