Chapter Text
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The realization hits her three days later, on the way back from seeing her parents.
Because she does end up going, just not with JJ. She takes the bus, instead, and then a ferry, and then another bus, and almost doubles the time she spends on her commute. Only manages to see her parents for a day and a half, instead of two.
To prove something to herself, she thinks. Is just not sure what that thing is.
The point is, on hour 4 of the ferry ride back home, it hits her, that JJ was willing to do something both of his best friends deemed otherworldly, all for her. Without an ounce of hesitation, and at a moment’s notice.
She’d do the same, is what shakes her. And it means something.
Because she’s had roommates and best friends and significant others before, and friends so formative to her years, so tightly wound into the very fiber of her DNA, and who she is, and who she has become.
But, in her almost quarter of a century on this earth, she’s only ever felt inclined to go to the ends of the earth for three people: her father, always. Her mother, once they found their fragile understanding. And Sarah Cameron, for an intense period of three months during freshman year, when she thought this girl was her be-all-end-all.
Four, now. JJ Maybank. Without any expectations, or qualms, or conditions. Whatever he wants from her, he can have.
It’s unsettling because she’s never felt quite so fiercely attached to another person. Not in an I-can’t-live-without-you sort of way. Not in a way that makes her feel inadequate, like Fiona did, or in a way that makes her feel sick with all the love she has in her, like Sarah once did. Not even in a butterflies-in-her-stomach way, like her crush on Tommy Redfield in elementary school.
But rather, in a way that simply makes her want to have him in her life for the rest of it, in any capacity that he wishes to be, taking as much or as little of the not-insignificant space that he’s carved in her chest, a thumb north of her left ribcage.
He’s home, when she gets there.
She knows that because his bedroom door is closed, and he leaves the door open when he’s out. Which shows an amount of trust that scares her, when she thinks about it too much, and about how it’s been this way since that day he helped her find some clarity when she thought there was none left to find.
He opened up to her in the corners of a dimly lit pub because he wanted her to open up to him, scooping himself into something easy to fit in the palms of her hands, edges ragged and twisted and haphazardly polished from years of abuse; some pieces broken and tapered back together, digging into her skin with in a way that didn’t hurt, exactly, but with enough bite to remind her that he was alive, and she was, too. That she didn’t cease to exist, just because she moved across the country for a girl, or because she chose to not make herself small when said girl decided that what they had amounted to practically nothing.
Home.
She never considered this city home. Not until she moved in with him.
She stares at his bedroom door for the longest time, willing him to come out and find her. Takes her jacket off by the door and toes her boots off a little too loudly, dropping her keys on the table with a little too much noise, hoping to coax him out of sleep and into the living room. To watch him fiddle around the kitchen while she makes them something to eat, trying to be useful but failing to stick to a task long enough to make something of it.
His door doesn’t open, and the kitchen remains empty, save for her small frame standing there, feet bare and in a hoodie that’s his, trying to swallow past the lump in her throat as she watches his door.
It’s a stark reminder, of why she can’t ever put herself out there like that with him again. She doesn’t think she can take the pain of rejection again. Not from him.
“Hear me out. If I was a slug, I can just hang out on a wall doing nothing, all day long.”
Kiara rolls her eyes, using the dish cloth over her shoulder to wipe some beer off the couch. “JJ, you can’t even sit still for three full minutes.”
JJ scoffs. “Can too. I’ve been sitting with you for what, 20 minutes now?”
“You literally just knocked your beer down telling a story.”
“Did not!” JJ protests, frowning. “Matilda just handed it to me awkwardly, it was not my fault!”
Matilda squeaks next to Kiara, dropping the glass she’s drying into the sink and almost breaking it in half. “It’s not my fault I have slippery fingers!”
Kiara takes a deep breath. She is almost certain that she can scientifically prove that every time she spends more than seven minutes with both JJ and Matilda in the same place, she grows on average 10 to 15 new grey hairs.
“Okay, but you can’t be a slug,” Kiara continues, replacing JJ’s beer bottle with a new one. JJ opens his mouth to protest again, but she cuts him off before he does. “You’d have to sit still, JJ. Without fidgeting. Or peeling the labels off your bottle,” she adds, and JJ pulls the fingernail that was dangerously close to the label away, tucking his finger back into his fist. Kiara smiles to herself. “And without throwing peanuts at me, or twirling shot glasses between your fingers, or trying to convince me that allowing you to use the shaker will not end in disaster.” JJ grips his beer bottle grimly, scowling. “And without prodding at the scabs on your knuckles.” She throws a glance at the coagulated blood adorning the back of JJ’s hand, in various shades of purple and red and brown. There’s a nasty one right by his index, that looks a sickening shade of green. “Which are going to get infected if you don’t fucking stop, by the way.”
JJ scoffs again. “I have been boxing for years, Kie, I know how to deal with scabs.”
Kiara looks at him, half-amused, half-annoyed. “Is that why you couldn’t train for three weeks when your knuckles almost fell off, like, two months ago?”
JJ sticks his tongue at her. He’s not in the finest of forms, it seems, fresh out of comebacks tonight. Almost like something’s weighing on him.
Kiara thinks about asking him if something’s wrong. Decides she’s reading too much into things, as usual.
“Okay fine,” he concedes, sighing. “Not a slug. But I refuse to be a squirrel,” he adds, waving a menacing finger between her and Matilda.
Matilda looks a cross between offended and aggrieved. “What’s your beef with squirrels?”
JJ shakes his head, lips pink around the rim of his beer. Kiara looks away.
“I don’t like them, they’re annoying, they’re evil,” he lists off his fingers, looking almost comically serious, “and what’s up with that tail? Like, why is it defying gravity at all times? Chipmunks too. My cousin Ricky got bit by one when we were kids and he lost his small toe.”
Matilda looks rightfully horrified. “A chipmunk bit his toe off?”
“No, the chipmunk bit his shoulder and then Ricky stepped on a rusted nail when he ran away from it.”
“Okay, that’s absolutely not the chipmunk’s fault.”
JJ looks at Kiara mournfully. “Ricky and his nine toes would argue.”
And Kiara tries, really tries not to laugh. Fails miserably when Matilda lets out a high-pitched noise next to her, and Kiara looks at her to find her holding in her laughter too.
“JJ—”
“I refuse to be a squirrel or a chipmunk, is all I’m saying.”
Kiara’s face softens, her chest collapsing with something close to fondness.
Before she can say anything back, the bells above the wooden door chime, Kelce walking into the pub and heading straight over to the bar with a big smile on his face. “Hey, K.”
Kiara mirrors his expression before she can think too much about it, the corners of her lips stretching upwards. “K.” Her eyes flicker to JJ for a second. She tries not to pick the sudden frown on his face apart. “How are you doing on this fine spring evening?”
“Not bad, actually,” Kelce says, leaning comfortably against the bar. “I made a great sale at work today, so that promotion I was telling you about last week is looking more and more likely.”
The excitement she feels is genuine. “Look at you, thriving!”
Kelce half-bows, the expression on his face bashful. “I try.” He taps the counter top for a moment, eyes flickering between her and JJ. “You get off soon, right?” His gaze continues to dart between her and JJ like he’s not really sure he should be asking this in front of him. But he perseveres anyway. “Got any plans? I was thinking we could go somewhere? Maybe celebrate?”
The question should not surprise her as much as it does. Kelce has been inching ever closer to actually asking her out, so it figures that he’d take a chance on a night he’s on a high.
Still, it catches her off-guard. Worse still, some unfiltered part of her brain almost feels like she’s… cheating.
She tries to school her features into something more flattered and less sour. “Oh, I don’t know if I can, tonight. JJ and I were just discussing…” She looks at JJ, only to find his gaze trained firmly on the beer bottle clenched tightly in his fist. She keeps her eyes on him for a long moment, willing him to look back at her. “Sorry, you’ve met JJ,” she says, forcing both their attentions on her, “right? My roommate?”
On anyone else, she would miss it. The minute downturn of shoulders, the thin set of pink lips, the frown line between a pair of bright, pale blue eyes, only for a split second. It’s subtle enough to pass for shock, if anyone notices, or maybe even confusion.
But it’s JJ. And in the short months Kiara has known him, she has learned a few things. Like how he does everything grandly.
Shock will usually come with the flailing of arms and a wide gaping mouth; happiness will come with loud laughter and eyes that squint so tightly, she thinks the lines will be there long after they’re back to their normal shape; anger will come with a hard set of shoulders, and fists that clench so tight his nails dig into his palms.
But that’s all for show. That’s when he wants you to know what he’s feeling.
It’s moments like right now, that are more frequent, yet harder to catch. The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it emotions he cannot contain as well as he wishes.
When his throat bobs up and down because he can’t hide his fear for a split second. When he looks away but thumbs at his nose because whatever he’s saying is so sincere it catches even him off guard. When he looks down at his lap, like he’s doing right now, because whatever he’s thinking or feeling is something he believes he is not allowed to think or feel.
As fast as it comes, the moment is gone, and JJ straightens up, and plasters his signature JJ smile on his face.
“I’ve seen him around,” Kelce says, snapping Kiara harshly out of her thoughts. Jesus Christ, she almost forgot he was here. “But we haven’t officially met. I’m Kelce.”
Kelce steps closer to JJ, extending a hand towards him. JJ presses his mouth into a thin line, staring at it for a long time, like it’s a personal offense.
Kiara swallows thickly, breath catching in her throat.
“JJ,” he says finally, shaking Kelce’s hand awkwardly. “Kiara’s… roommate.” He bites his lower lip for a second, taps his thumb ring against the deep green of his beer bottle. “Yeah.”
Kiara clears her throat. Breathing is still a relative problem. “So, anyway, we were making plans for tonight, so I don’t know if I’m free—"
“No, actually,” JJ cuts her off, “go ahead.” The thing is, Kiara has been talking herself into going out with Kelce for a while now, so she surprises even herself when the disappointment swells in her chest at JJ’s words, and she turns to glare at him. “I’m tired anyway,” he explains vaguely, already half-off his stool. “I think I’m just gonna go home and pass out.”
She has no control over the bitterness that seeps into her tone. “You literally just said you wanted to do something—"
JJ winces, shrugging his jacket on. “I didn’t really wanna bail on you, but since you got a better offer…”
“You can join us, if you want,” Kelce jumps in.
He sounds sincere, is the problem. Because Kiara could not think of anything more horrifying than going out with the two of them at the same time.
“No, no, that’s cool,” JJ declines. “I just wanna crash early.” He fishes some bills out of his pocket, throws them on the bar, and Kiara just stares. She can’t remember the last time JJ actually paid for his drinks. Not since the night right after Kiara moved in - he hadn’t wanted to drink because he didn’t have enough cash on him when he showed up that night, but Kiara had told him to just leave it and get some groceries for the house the next day instead. And that’s how it’s been since. JJ drinks for free and Kiara barely ever has to stock up on anything for the house. He even remembers to get her those fancy, overpriced, vegan granola bars she likes, even though he always complains that they taste like dirt. “I’ll see you at home, Kie.”
His eyes linger on hers for only a second more, but it’s enough for her to catch it. Longing, or sadness, or disappointment.
And then he’s gone, and Kiara knows it’s not any of those things. She’s seeing what she wants to see, once again.
So she reaches for the notes, shoves them in the cash register without even counting them. Swallows past the lump in her throat, and turns her attention back to Kelce, plastering on a smile.
“So, where do you wanna go?”
It’s the wrong thing to ask. Or it’s not, maybe, but whatever words came out of Kelce’s mouth were going to be the wrong ones anyway, because he’s not the right person.
Her eyes flicker to the empty stool, and then to the door, and back to the man in front of her. “Kelce…”
He smiles. Shoots her a knowing look. “I’m too late, aren’t I?”
Kiara winces. ”I’m sorry.”
Kelce waves her off, eyes full of something she doesn’t think she deserves.
She looks over to Matilda, unties the apron around her waist. “Cover for me?”
Matilda nods, but her eyes furrow together worriedly. “Is JJ upset because we told him he can’t be a snail? Is that why he left? Tell him it’s okay, he can be a snail if he wants.”
Kiara laughs almost deliriously. Has the urge to hug Matilda right then, but there’s no time.
She looks over to the door one more time, and then she’s sprinting around the bar.
Fuck it.
He's just past the first crosswalk when she catches up to him.
“JJ!”
He turns around, watching her almost get run over by a cyclist, and then a car, and then another car.
The second driver honks loudly and curves himself half out the window, cursing at her and screaming “watch where you’re going, psycho!” before she’s even out of his way.
JJ’s fingers wrap around her wrists to pull her over to the curb fully, before they both turn towards the speeding car, Kiara flipping the driver off at the same time as JJ tells him to “fuck off!”
Their eyes meet as the car disappears on the other side of the street, and Kiara can’t help but match the wide grin on JJ’s face. She only looks away when breathing becomes a problem again, and then she’s bending down and gripping her thighs and side in an effort to catch her breath.
“Fuck,” she mutters with some difficulty, rubbing a hand over her face and pushing her hair away, “why the fuck were you walking so fast?”
JJ’s eyebrows disappear under the golden strands brushing his forehead. “I’m not?”
“You are! I called out to you, like, six times. I had to run to catch up to you. Cardio, JJ. You made me do cardio.”
JJ bites his lower lip, and when Kiara finally straightens back up, she doesn’t miss the amusement coloring his features. “I can literally see Cleo serving people from here.”
“Shut up,” she mutters, almost amused. But then she remembers exactly why she ran like a maniac after him, and suddenly, all her confusing emotions come back in full force. It’s anger that takes the upper hand, and she feels herself frown, shoving JJ with much more force than she intends. “You left!”
JJ frowns in confusion, rubbing the spot on the side of his collarbone where Kiara’s hand collided with his skin. “What the fuck was that for?”
“Why the fuck did you just leave?”
JJ continues to rub at his shoulder, brows furrowing closer together. “To go home?”
It’s the wrong thing to say, because Kiara only feels the swirl of anger in her chest magnify. He’s either truly that dumb, or he’s acting dumb, and she doesn’t know which of the two annoys her more.
“We were literally just making plans to go back together, and you ditch me just like that?”
JJ’s face clears all of a sudden, eyes flashing with something even more blue, mouth circling to form a small O.
“I’m not ditching you, Kie. Believe me, the last thing I wanna do is dit—” he cuts himself off, sighing deeply. Scrubs a palm over his face, and looks down at his feet, cheeks flushing a deep pink color. He takes a deep breath, and jerks a hand through his hair, before he finally looks at Kiara again. “You’ve been waiting for this guy to ask you out for, like, two months.”
She has.
She’s also been waiting for someone else to ask her out for a lot longer than two months.
“Yeah, but—"
JJ shakes his head, reaching a hand to curl around her shoulder. It’s all she can focus on, really, whatever argument she was about to make evaporating into thin air the second JJ’s thumb grazes her collarbone.
“So go say yes, and I’ll go home and get some sleep before you get back,” he says, dropping his hand, and she wants to kick herself for the way her stomach dips uncomfortably. “And if you’re alone, I’ll make us some shit-date-nachos, and if you’re not alone… Well. The walls are pretty thin, so napping before you show up might not be such a bad idea.”
She wants the shit date nachos, is the problem. She wants to go home alone, and wake JJ up because Kelce actually turned out to be a dick, and sit on the lonely stool in their kitchen, and watch as he rummages through the small space to make her his promised heartbreak cure, muscles taut under his sleeveless (sideless) shirt, golden hair curling at the nape of his neck, right where the top of his VW van tattoo peeks under the collar of his shirt.
And for a stupid, stupid moment, she considers pretending to go on a date with Kelce and coming home early just for this.
It’s that thought that makes her angry. All the hoops she has to jump through to spend time with JJ, all because she’s scared she’ll tell him the truth and he’ll pretend he doesn’t understand. Again.
Her tone is harsher than she wants, when she speaks. “No shit. Why do you think I overpaid for those noise-cancelling headphones?”
It doesn’t seem to bother him. “It’s not like you’re not that loud either.”
She crosses her arms in front of her briskly, glaring at him. “Fuck you, I’m not.” JJ looks at her pointedly, lips curling together in amusement despite the way he bites down on his lower lip to contain it. It’s infectious, and Kiara likes the bastard, and it’s hard for her to keep her stoic composure, even when she’s mad at herself specifically because she likes the bastard. “Okay fine, I am,” she concedes. She looks down at her feet, tugs on the necklaces around her throat. She can’t keep doing this to herself. She can’t keep waiting for someone who acts like he wants her, but then rejects her when she tries to say she wants him too. But she also can’t keep stringing Kelce along. Or lying to JJ. “But I can’t say yes to Kelce.”
She thinks she imagines the way JJ sucks in a breath.
“Why not?”
“Wouldn’t be fair to him.”
She’s teetering on dangerous territory. She hopes that JJ doesn’t prod, because she’s not sure she can keep it all bottled in much longer.
JJ prods. “Why not?”
She sighs, rubs her forehead. Tugs a strand of hair behind her ear and winces. She’s about to fuck up their friendship for good, she can feel it.
“Don’t make me say it,” she pleads.
“Why not?”
Two words. That’s all it’s taking for her to unravel right in front of his eyes, on a dark street curb between their apartment and her workplace.
“Because I’ll say it, and you’ll shut me down.”
Like something right out of a shit romcom, the past few months flash behind her lids. Shit-date-nachos with an unholy amount of salsa on the side, and nights spent getting high on the couch and laughing blindly at every single movie they try to watch; dart boards and assholes and shared beds; old tattoos and new tattoos and semi-matching tattoos; colorful cocktail drinks and dicks on the wall; fleeting touches; fingers curling around elbows, shirts, wrists; fingers curling; a hacked-off surfboard, and light peeking through the window; a boy Kiara barely knows, and a boy Kiara knows too well; walking out of his bedroom, and then walking right back into his life.
And maybe out again, now.
She can’t look at him when her chest feels like it’s going to cave in on itself, so she doesn’t, eyes flickering everywhere but his face.
“Kie…”
“I’m not into Kelce,” she says quickly, because she can’t let him talk, either. Because if he talks, he’ll reject her, and if he rejects her, she won’t stay this time. She still has a few minutes with him, however many she can buy before he says the inevitable. “Not the way I wanted to be.”
JJ scoffs. “What are you talking about? You’ve got inside jokes and everything. K and K.”
It’s the tone, that makes her look up. Somewhere between amused and bitter, and full of mirth.
“You literally go by JJ, dipshit,” she says, because she has to say something, or else she’s going to overthink the reason why his lips are curled up on one corner, but his jaw is set tightly, like he’s biting something back. Something as sharp and bitter as the nerves in the pit of her stomach.
He laughs, waves her off. “Fair enough.” He pauses then, thumbs at his nose. His face is uncharacteristically sober, all of a sudden. Serious, like she’s only seen him on few occasions. “You don’t like Kelce.” It’s not a question, but he still looks at her like he’s expecting an answer, saltwater eyes bright and heavy under his fallen locks. She doesn’t think she can speak, so she shakes her head. “But you wanted to like him?”
She did.
It’s easier.
She doesn’t realize she says it out loud until JJ asks, “Than what?”
Once again, fuck it. “Being into someone who doesn’t like you back.”
Something resolute flashes on JJ’s face. Like he’s just made up his mind about something. “So you’re into someone else.”
She makes her mind up too. Nods.
“Questionable fashion sense,” she says, shrugging. “Kind of an asshole, but also kind of funny.” She thinks about his smile, and how he will sometimes drop by the pub on his way back from work, just to bring her those cookies she likes so much. “Kind.” And how he sides with John B. Always. Even when they’re debating the merits of longboards versus shortboards, and Kiara knows that JJ actually agrees with her. She curls her nose unpleasantly. “Loyal to an annoying degree.” JJ laughs. “And he’s got great hair. It’s his only redeeming quality, really,” she adds, to try and scrape a sliver of dignity off the dirty pavement they’re standing on.
JJ shoves his hands into his pockets, whistles low under his breath. “Sounds like a catch.”
She rolls her eyes, but doesn’t really stop to think before she speaks next. “And sometimes he says and does things that make me think maybe he has a thing for me too.”
“He’d be a fool not to,” JJ says, cutting off whatever mortified thought was about to chew at Kiara’s brain. “I mean, you have excellent hair, you can cook, and you make a mean drink and look good doing it. A trophy wife and a housewife rolled into one? That’s the dream.”
It’s not like she was expecting him to be serious about it. Hoped, maybe, for a split second, before she remembered who she was talking to. Remembered she liked him because he was a dumbass, and not in spite of it.
So she rolls her eyes, and punches his shoulder lightly. Mutters “asshole” under her breath, and smiles when he laughs and catches her wrist before she can pull her hand away, locking eyes with her.
“You’re funny as fuck, and you don’t take shit from anyone,” he says, voice low, eyes firm. “You only have to sit with me, and I feel…I’m good. You’re good.” He looks away, and clears his throat, like he doesn’t know where to go from here. Kiara thinks her heart might jump out of her throat. “And you have nice tattoos. Especially the, uh, the sun one…” He trails off, thumbs at his hip.
Kiara smiles, because she doesn’t know what else to do. Some part of her brain understands what JJ’s saying. Knows that he’s not good at this, even worse than she is. The other, bigger part of her brain has been burned too many times to believe this is more than her roommate admitting he likes living with her. “Yeah. Yeah, I like that one too.”
He drops her wrist, like he’s just realized he was still holding it, and shoves his hands deep in his pockets. “So if he’s so great, what’s the problem then?”
There’s no way they can come back from this anyway, so she might as well tell him the truth. “I don’t think he likes me back.”
He looks almost… offended. She would laugh, under different circumstances. “Why would you think I don’t like you back?”
He says it so naturally, like it’s not a deliberate choice of words. Like he doesn’t even notice he’s given up on the charade.
Kiara, on the other hand, thinks every bone in her body is about to upend from its socket and propel her forward, until she’s pressed to him from head to toe.
She finds her words. “Because every single time I’ve tried to make a move, JJ, you’ve shut me down.”
Her voice only catches on the word shut, and she calls it a win.
“I have not-“
“You have,” she cuts him off, shaking her head. “So now, even though this fucking…” she waves her hands in the air, tries to find the words to qualify her feelings, “…thing in my chest, whatever the fuck it is, it won’t fucking go away, I’m fucking scared to even try. And it pisses me off, because I’m not this person. I always try.”
JJ shrugs his shoulders, cocks his head to the side. “I mean, you ran after me,” he says, and she thinks she should be embarrassed. But she’s not. Because he’s not making her feel like she should be. He actually sounds… impressed. “I think you’re trying just fine.” She smiles, because she doesn’t know what to say, and he smiles too, for only a moment, before he looks down, stubbing the toe of his boot against the gravel. “Maybe I’m scared too.”
She wants to curl into a ball and hide. She wants to hide him with her, where no one can hurt him, because he sounds scared. And she can’t possibly understand why.
“What do you have to be scared of?”
JJ shakes his head. Bites the inside of his cheek, and pulls a hand out of his pocket to run through his hair. “I don’t know, that I like you too much.” Kiara is suddenly sure her heart will never dislodge from her throat. “That you’ll wake up and realize I’m just a fuck up with daddy issues, and you’ll leave.”
She doesn’t know where to start, to tell him how wrong he is.
She shakes her head, takes a step forward. “You’re not a fuck up. You’re JJ Mayban—” she winces even as she’s saying the word, smacking herself on the forehead. “Fuck, sorry, you don’t like your last name—"
“No, it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not,” she insists, still shaking her head and trying to convey just how sorry she is. “You’ve told me, I don’t know why I’m so fixated on it—”
“Kie, it’s fine, really,” JJ cuts her off, reaching forward and wrapping his fingers around her wrist again, softer this time, much more gentle as he pulls her hand away from her face and tucks it in his. “It doesn’t feel like a bad thing when you say it.”
Maybe it’s the way he’s looking at her, or the way his hand feels around hers, or the way he doesn’t put up too much resistance when she twists her palm to lock their fingers together. But she feels okay, all of a sudden. Hopeful, even. Like she knows, without the shred of a doubt, it’s all going to work out the way it should. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” His voice catches lightly, and Kiara’s chest feels achingly hopeful. “It feels, I don’t know. Like you kinda like the name.”
“I do,” she tells him, nodding. “I like the person who has it.”
He looks caught off-guard, and it makes Kiara want to laugh. She must really not have been obvious at all, if he’s that surprised by it. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She smiles when he steps even closer to her, the tips of their shoes touching, fingers twitching around hers and then holding on to her more firmly. “I mean, where else am I gonna find someone who will break into my ex’s house to get me my boots back?”
JJ laughs, looks down in time to see her wiggle her boot-clad feet. “They are excellent boots.”
She nods. “They really are.”
His grin matches hers, when they look back up, eyes locking together again, faces dimly lit bit a corner streetlight, long lashes casting shadows over sharp cheekbones.
He cocks up an eyebrow, and Kiara doesn’t know if she imagines the way he licks his lips. “So, what now?”
She bites her lower lips, looks up at him. “Are you single?”
JJ frowns. “Yeah?”
“Straight?”
He laughs, catching on. “Not exactly, but I’m into girls, sometimes.”
Kiara can barely contain her smile. “Into me?” JJ nods. “Into only me?”
He doesn’t answer. Closes the distance between them, instead, letting go of her hand to brush his fingers across her cheek, pressing his lips to hers in a way that feels achingly familiar.
She meets him halfway, smiling embarrassingly wide, even as they’re kissing.
His eyes are hooded, when they pull apart, fingers digging into her side, searing where they graze her bare skin.
She grins. Presses closer into him. “Wanna fuck me in nothing but those boots?”
JJ coughs. Grins. Kisses her again.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
He walks her to the pub two days later, because, she’s quickly learning, he’s just as embarrassingly into her as she is into him.
He’s wearing his aviators low on his nose, snapback tipped high on top of his head, arms windmilling widely as he tells her about his plans with Pope and John B for the afternoon.
It puts a smile on her face. Sparks a memory of a day not that long ago, the two of them walking together to find her car and move her into her new apartment.
They’re still figuring out their dynamic and boundaries, so he stands in front of the bar when they get to the pub, watching her walk behind the counter, fiddling with his rings as she ties her apron around her waist.
She thinks he’s waiting for something, and she kind of wants to jump over the bar and kiss him, but she’s not sure where he stands on PDA. She was never big on it herself, but it’s different with him. It’s less about wanting to show anything off and more about just wanting to be in his general vicinity at all times.
Not very different from how they were before, she thinks. But with a lot more kissing.
He jerks a hand through his hair, props the other on the bar. “So, I’ll see you tonight?”
She nods, reaching a hand to touch his. “Yeah. Drop by and we’ll can go home together?”
He nods. Takes a reluctant step back, hands lingering together for a moment.
It’s not enough, Kiara decides. She bites her lip, smiling up at him. Thinks, fuck it.
She rounds the bar again, walking past Cleo and wasting no time before wrapping her arms around JJ’s neck. Any doubt in her mind evaporates when he immediately snakes his own hands around her waist. He’s smiling, too, when his lips meet hers.
“Wait, no, ew,” Cleo’s voice comes from somewhere behind them. “Why are you two kissing? What is this?”
JJ tucks his lower lip between his teeth, when they pull back, brows flying as he looks at Kiara from under a row of thick, blonde lashes. He squeezes her hip before he drops his arms, and she grins, walking back behind the bar as she tries to curb her smile. His eyes linger on her back, she knows, eyes a dopey shade of blue when she looks at him. One that she doesn’t think is anyone’s but hers.
She pushes herself over the bar, wipes some remnants of the matte purple lipstick she put on this morning, most of which has now been smeared all over his lips, and jaw, and pulse point. A splotch on the collar of his shirt too. She allows her fingers to linger on his cheek, curves a thumb to the shell of his ear before she yanks her hand back. Get it together, Carrera. If she doesn’t, she might just throw in the towel right now and drag him back to the apartment to wipe the fading lipstick off his neck and replace it with a more permanent bruise.
Matilda materializes out of thin air, standing next to Cleo and wearing a matching confused frown on her face. “I thought you said you weren’t together?”
JJ is still looking at her. He doesn’t have to nod, for her to know. But he does anyway.
“Fuck it. Yeah, we are.”