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JJ wakes up with the sun hitting him in the face. He’s used to the cramped nature of the back of the van, the way he has to sleep a little sideways or curl up in the fetal position. Still, it’s not the worst deal – especially with Kiara next to him.
It’s late September in Southern Mexico and the nights are hot and stuffy. They’re parked in the backyard of their friend Pedro’s Auntie, Tia Juanita, which means they can leave all the windows open and let the air circulate. Kiara is sprawled next to him, her skin warm and covered in the slightest sheen of perspiration, her mane of curly hair splayed on the pillow. Their mattress is just shy of being big enough for two people, and she’s definitely taking over the majority of it.
When the gold came in and they started planning this trip, they could have bought literally anything they wanted. A giant camper van, a whole ass tiny house – hell, they could have bought a jet plane if they wanted to. What they ended up settling on was an old, sturdy late ‘90s Airstream van they found on Craigslist. Converted it themselves, built all the interior features, the tiny kitchenette, the shower room. Put solar panels on the roof and Kiara spent weeks researching battery makers and energy efficiency and storage capacity.
They have a big hammock on the back that unhooks easily and doesn’t take up any precious space. On the warm, clear nights they leave the backdoors wide open, swing out the hammock and lay there, watching the stars as they fall asleep. It’s anything and everything JJ could have ever dreamed of.
The one thing JJ’s sure as hell not going to miss once this trip is over, however, is the way the morning light filters through the back window, waking him up at all sorts of ungodly hours. Every. Single. Morning.
He had told Kiara to measure twice before she tailored the curtains, but of course she hadn’t, and now what should be their black-out curtains are more like black-out-until-6:00-in-the-morning curtains. According to Kiara, buying new ones which fit properly would have been wasteful – which is how they’ve been stuck with these poor excuses for window treatments going on two years now.
Even more aggravating, Kiara is never bothered by the light. JJ’s been lying awake for probably 15 minutes, but she’s still fast asleep, her head nearly buried in her pillow and her ankle crossed over JJ’s. An errant curl falls across her face, and JJ would worry that she’s not breathing if it weren’t for the slight movement that curl regularly makes.
He resists the urge to reach out and tug it. He doesn’t want to wake her up just yet, so he tries to fidget with something else. The edge of the blanket, the folded up hammock tucked into the pocket of the backdoor, his own pillow. Kiara had complained about their bed for the first week of the trip, until she pulled the van into a Bed, Bath & Beyond somewhere in New England and bought a set of extra plush pillows which she insisted were essential. JJ, for his part, had thought the bed was perfectly fine from the get-go, but he wasn’t about to complain about a new pillow.
Fast-forward to two years later and they’ve somehow acquired a mattress topper, cooling sheets, and a weighted blanket as well. JJ’s joked with her that he wouldn’t have pegged her for such a bed-snob, considering all the time they’ve lived at the Chateau where they most definitely did not have this level of comfort on the crusty old pull-out couch. Kiara responded by raising an eyebrow and warning him to be careful with his words if he cared about keeping his access privileges to the bed. So, the twelve thousand blankets had stayed.
Deep down, JJ can’t say he doesn’t appreciates it, really, even if all ths extra comfort makes her sleep like a fucking log when he kind of wants to go catch a few early morning waves. They’re on the wrong side of Mexico for that at the moment, the Gulf sea spectacularly beautiful but flat as a sheet. So he doesn’t mind her sleeping in.
It doesn’t last long, anyway. A few more minutes and suddenly Kiara starts stirring next to him. He looks at her, smiling as she stretches.
“Morning,” Kiara grumbles, rolling over and nearly kneeing him in the process.
JJ just laughs. “Morning.”
Kiara accidentally hits the edge of the van with one of her feet. “How long have you been awake?” she mumbles.
JJ shrugs. “Not long,” he says. “Just long enough to hear you snoring.”
Kiara glares at him, not even entertaining him with an argument. It would be a repeat of a debate they’ve had several, several times.
Instead, she yawns loudly. “Want breakfast?” she mumbles, the words running together until they’re barely discernible.
“Who, me? Nah. I only drink psychedelic radish milk in the morning,” JJ says, smirking. He reaches out and brushes Kiara’s hair out of her face.
She doesn’t appreciate his effort. “Asshole.”
Kiara had been quite keen to pick up a whole array of weird ass concoctions to start the day with, under the advice of a spiritual healer she met in Peru. JJ had been less than receptive, but Kie had insisted it was to get better immersed in the culture . The radish milk is actually a true story (JJ was not a fan). The whole experiment came to a halt one time that they both suspected the weird tea they were given might have actually been mildly hallucinogenic. He still likes to rib her about it from time to time, or whenever he’s given the chance.
JJ dodges Kiara’s half-assed attempt at elbowing him and rolls out of bed, on a mission to brush his teeth.
They have a tiny wet room in the van that they built back when they converted it. It’s served them well, but when they’re not connected to a water main, washing needs to be kept to a minimum, so at the moment they’re opting to shower at work.
JJ fills up a glass with drinking water from a gallon-sized bottle they store under the sink and steps outside with his toothbrush and biodegradable solid toothpaste that Kiara forces them both to use. It’s a menacing black due to the active charcoal in its ingredients, but Kie swears by it. She doesn’t complain when he spits it straight on unsuspecting plants, either, so JJ guesses that’s a win.
Kiara likes to lay in bed until the very last minute, and JJ likes letting her do that. She sits up as he steps back though the side door a minute later to drop his toothbrush and glass on the counter and smiles at him.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” she says, and JJ just nods, sliding the door shut gently behind him. He pulls their camping table and chairs out from under the van where they’re stored overnight when they can’t be bothered to deal with the under-bed storage they should use. JJ pops them up, then settles himself in his chair as Kiara comes out.
Their current spot on Tia Juanita’s land sits underneath a huge mango tree. Every morning Kiara picks one or two ripe fruits and slices them up over their flimsy camping table for breakfast. It’s one of their sacred daily rituals – sitting together underneath the branches, the morning breeze fresh around them, chatting and planning the rest of their day.
“We’re out of coffee,” Kie announces, breaking the idyllic moment as she plops down in front of him on her chair.
“A travesty.”
“Can we stop in town on the way and get a cafè con leche ?”
JJ smiles at her hopeful face. As much as she tries to pretend otherwise, Kie does not function in the morning before her cup of coffee.
“Sorry, tough luck,” he says, bopping his foot against hers under the table. “We’re running super late already, Ms. Tortoise. And we don’t want to be late on our last day, right?”
Kiara groans very inelegantly, stuffing a piece of mango into her mouth and glaring daggers at him as if he were personally responsible for the lack of caffeine in her system. JJ laughs at her face.
“Come on, time to get going.”
JJ honks the horn as he parks the van in the staff parking lot, same as every morning, and just like every other morning Pedro leans out from the kitchen window, brandishing a spatula in lieu of a deadly weapon.
"¡Miércoles! ¡Pero que manera de molestar! ¡Nos vas a volver locos con esos bocinazos!" he yells in their general direction. His smile betrays him, though, and JJ waves back from the rolled down window of the van while Kie is already jumping off on the dusty gravel, stray hair flying around her face in the morning breeze.
Kiara smiles as she approaches the window Pedro’s leaning out of, volleying something back at him that JJ doesn’t quite catch.
JJ pulls the keys out of the ignition, the hoard of key chains clattering together like wind chimes. Kiara detests almost anything that could be construed as touristy, but she’s still gotten a keychain from every place they visited. Looking at it today, he feels almost nostalgic, even though the trip hasn’t technically ended yet.
Back when they first set off, on a rainy October morning almost two years ago to the day, Kie and JJ had no real plan of where they wanted to go. They spent the first few months touring the North American continent, moving locations every few days, chasing adventures wherever the waves took them. They took the ferry to the mainland and drove up the East Coast of the States, then crossed over to Canada and continued on to Nova Scotia just in time to freeze their asses off on those sweet winter swells. Crossed Canada coast-to-coast, drove up all the way to Alaska in the middle of Winter, spent Christmas holed up in a little cabin surrounded by snow and nature and silence. They stopped by Vancouver Island on the way back down to the States and then religiously toured every nook and cranny of the West Coast, checking out a different surfing spot each day.
By the time they got to Mexico, some six months after leaving home, they were almost all surfed out. They made their way down the Pacific Coast, Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco and all the way down to Oaxaca. The most beautiful beaches, the freshest of food, long nights dancing in smoky bars, drinking tequila with the locals. They were starting to think about their next steps, by this point, what to do with their freedom and their money and all the time in the world for the rest of their trip. JJ would have been happy continuing on touring the continent, and then maybe the world, driving where the waves took them. Kiara had different ideas, though. Never one to idle around, she had already started concocting grand plans to save the world and the biosphere and the oceans with their own two pairs of hands. At this point in the trip, anytime JJ was driving, or when they were chilling by the van having breakfast in the morning, or basically any time they weren’t surfing, Kie was on her laptop, hotspotting her phone, researching volunteering programmes in South America for the next leg of their journey.
“I think I found it,” she said one night, tilting her laptop screen towards him.
JJ politely pretended to squint at the text for approximately five seconds before giving up. “I’ll get us a beer, and you can tell me about it?” he offered.
“Deal.”
He came back out two minutes later carrying two glasses and a cold beer from their mini fridge, the surface of the bottle wet with condensation.
“So,” Kiara started, accepting the glass from his hand. “I’ve found this organisation, and they seem to tick all the boxes. They’re based in the US, which I don’t love, but they seem totally legit. They work with grassroot activists all over the place and they can put volunteers in contact with places that need help. They have a whole sub-section on environmental and/or conservation projects, mostly led by indigenous people. What do you think?”
JJ took a sip of his beer. “Sounds great. Where do we start?”
And that’s what life has been like for the past year and a half. Their South American adventure took them away from the coast and onto a remarkable series of remote villages. They’ve lived in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, and Costa Rica – spending four to six weeks each time in a different community. And, now, they’re back to Mexico – this time on the Gulf coast. Their last stop before finally heading back to the OBX for the first time in two years. Not the surf trip he had dreamed of at 16, maybe, jetting from beach to beach in search of the biggest waves. Somehow, though, it’s been even better.
It was a strike of luck, really, finding Comunidad Pad – their current place. Their last stop before here, in a remote fishing village in Costa Rica, they met another couple of American volunteers, Liv and Manu. Kie had been starting to think about next steps, by then, whether to finally retire the van and jet off to farther places and new continents, or whether to take a break for a while and start to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a marine conservationist. After almost two years away, they both agreed it was time to head home, but whether their homecoming would be a quick visit before the next leg of their trip or a more permanent pause on the adventure to try and build something in Kildare was still up for debate. There were many nights on the hammock, after long days of work, talking back and forth, reciting pros and cons lists at each other.
In the end, it was Manu who accidentally made the choice for them. Turns out, her cousin here in Mexico worked at an Ocean Center with a focus on marine mammals, and could hook them up with a volunteering post at the adjoining community café. It was almost too good to be true, one of those perfect coincidences in life. Kie’s eyes were shining bright as Manu told them about it. JJ, for his part, doesn’t exactly care too much about marine mammals either way, but what he does care about is supporting Kie in all her ambitions. So here they are.
They mostly make coffees and sandwiches, but the café also hosts a variety of sustainability-related talks and events, plus a bunch of other activities for the community. Kie is a hundred percent in her element. She has been able to connect with some of the researchers, and has snatched a research assistant role solely thanks to her enthusiasm and the promise of free labour. She’s been going out at sea on expeditions a couple of times a week, coming back crusty with seaspray, eyes twinkling like no other time.
The café isn’t necessarily busy, most mornings, but they also aren’t a very efficient crew. JJ gets distracted easily, and Kiara gets pulled into conversations about research, and Pedro will bust open the window and talk shit to anyone who he recognizes walking by. All in all, Comunidad Pad is a place made up of mad dashes and putting out fires – sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically.
JJ’s going to miss the chaos, he thinks, as Pedro rings the bell that sits in the pass through between the kitchen and the dining room.
“Hey, Gringo,” Pedro calls, and JJ resists the urge to flip him off. “A veggie omelette for table three.”
“That’s Kiara’s table,” JJ says, even as he picks up the plate.
Pedro gestures behind him, pointing to where Kiara is talking animatedly with the new researcher at table three. “You tell her that.”
JJ sighs, but he smiles as he catches glimpses of Kiara gesturing wildly with her hands.
Pedro scoffs. “Young love,” he says.
“You’re just old and grumpy,” JJ shoots back.
“Sí y que,” Pedro says. “I’m also trying to run a business.”
“More like run it into the ground, from what I can see.” He flashes Pedro an innocent smile and pretends not to hear him grumbling something probably offensive under his breath. Pedro shakes his head and sends him on his way with a begrudgingly amused look before retreating into the kitchen.
“Veggie omelette for the lady,” JJ announces, and Kiara looks rightfully apologetic as he slides the plate in front of her new friend. JJ shakes his head at her, telling her not to worry about it.
“JJ, this is Julia,” Kiara says, introducing him to the woman at the table. “She’s coming out on the boat with us today.”
“Hi,” Julia says.
JJ shakes her hand and smiles, then politely slips away when their conversation starts veering towards terms like ocean acidification and all those other things that frankly make his head spin. He manages a few more minutes of solo-ing the whole cafe before Kiara finally breaks free from Julia and makes up for the minutes she was distracted by working double time.
The rest of the morning flies by. Right at the end of the breakfast rush, Kiara unties her apron, ready to step outside for one last expedition with the sea monitoring crew. She leans over the counter where he’s dutifully prepping sandwiches and plants a kiss on his cheek.
“Say bye to the dolphins from me,” he says, passing her a paper bag with packed lunches for the whole crew. Kie unzips her backpack to place it inside, along with her freshly refilled hydro flask.
“Will do!” she promises. And with one more smile, and a wave over her shoulder, she’s gone.
At three o’clock, JJ high-fives the head cook on his way out. Grabs a couple bottles of iced tea from the fridge and salutes the kitchen staff before getting on his way. He crosses the property to the other side of the gravelly parking lot, to the spot under the cane-covered pergola where he’s set up shop. A little crowd’s already there waiting for him, Sergio standing tall in the middle, both Gabe and Teresita at his sides.
"¡Hola! ¡No esperaba verlos aquí!" JJ calls to them, most likely butchering at least half of the words. It doesn’t matter, though, the kids seem to understand him alright.
Sergio smiles, gesturing towards him. "¡Por supuesto que sí! Hoy es tu último día, ¿no?"
The last day. It sure is. So bizarre. JJ fist-bumps Gabe and ruffles Teresita’s hair, then rounds the makeshift shop and dumps his tool box on the particulate-board surface of the improvised work table. He smiles back to the kids and points to the work in front of them.
"¡Así es! Ahora a trabajar."
Three afternoons a week, JJ cuts his workday short and offers his time for mechanical repairs. Local staff and volunteers have spread the word in town, between family and friends, and work is not usually in short supply. A handful of kids from around the town like to “help”. Sergio, a tall kid with a mess of dark hair, is probably the one with the best knack for it. He can do more than hold a wrench, at the very least, and he’s surprisingly fluent in JJ’s own brand of Spanglish, which is definitely more confident than it is precise – especially when it comes to engine parts and the like. Sergio’s little brother, Gabe, follows him around like a shadow, and is about as helpful as one, even if he’s cute as shit. JJ’s favourite is the little girl, Teresita. She doesn’t come round every time, but she’s here today. She’s quite shy, but she always smiles when JJ asks for her help with something.
There’s not much to keep them busy today, to be perfectly honest, only Señora Lucía’s derelict Nissan Tsuru to finish up with the parts that JJ picked up last night from town.
It all started, like most things in JJ’s life, almost entirely as an accident. Over a year ago now, while they were spending a couple of months in a remote Peruvian village, old Abuelo Quispe needed help fixing up his broken down, ancient truck. JJ – who in his day has seen his fair share of engines held together with duct tape and prayers – offered to take a look at it. One thing led to another, and before he knew it JJ was checking out all sorts. Ancient tractors; a collection of pick-up trucks each a good decade older than he is; tiny rusty cars with even rustier engines.
Somewhere along the way, one of the village kids started hanging around while JJ was working. A tiny thing, no more than eight years old. Took to handing him tools and whatnot. JJ didn’t think much of it at first, when he started explaining what he was doing in butchered Spanish – almost as an afterthought. It just came easy, like second nature.
One kid became two became five. Suddenly JJ was holding court in the middle of the village, dismantling the engine he had just fixed just to better show them the parts. He hasn’t stopped doing that since.
He likes it, it’s the thing. He likes feeling useful, and watching the kids absorb what he says with wide eyes, taking it all in. He gets the greatest feeling of accomplishment when he oversees a trembling hand handling a wrench and successfully fixing what’s broken. The pure joy in those bright eyes as they take in his praise. He’s good at it, too. He’s patient, and the kids seem to take a liking to him, and their parents bring him all sorts of baked goods as a thank you for fixing their cars and watching their children and teaching them useful life skills while at it. He’s pretty sure he’s gained a size or two in the past year just from all the tamales and empanadas he didn’t have the heart to turn down.
“Hard at work, I see!”
Kiara walks up behind him just as JJ’s popping the coil back in place. She smiles at the kids, waving to them in greeting. Her hair’s blown back from the boat ride, and when she leans down to kiss him she smells just the slightest bit like low tide. Teresita looks up at her with wide eyes as Kiara leans over the engine.
“Are those the new spark plugs?”
JJ smiles wide. “A thing of beauty, aren’t they?”
“That they are,” Kiara indulges him. “But the real question is, does it work now, Mr. Fix-It-Man?”
JJ gives one last check to his afternoon work. “Let’s see,” he says. He leans over the side, yelling to where Sergio is seated behind the wheel. “¿Lo puedes arrancar?”
The engine catches a few times before finally starting, and JJ slaps his hand on the hood in celebration. “Runs like a top,” he says. Gabe starts cheering like a top! like a top!
Sergio climbs out of the front seat, as ungraceful as JJ had probably been when he was first growing into his limbs.
“Muchas gracias, man,” JJ says, holding his hand out.
Sergio claps his hand. “De nada,” he says. Then, he smiles as he mimics JJ’s voice. “Man.”
JJ pushes his head affectionately. “You tell a kid he’s good with a torque wrench once, and he suddenly thinks he’s hot shit.”
Sergio smirks. “I am hot shit.”
Kiara groans. “Don’t repeat that in front of your mom,” she warns. “We’d like to be allowed back in the country in the future.”
Sergio’s face falls a little at the reminder that they’re leaving. JJ kind of feels the same way.
The kid lowers his eyes to the ground, moving some of the gravel under the sole of his sandals. “Pues puedes volver cuando quieras,” he mumbles under his breath.
JJ slaps Sergio’s shoulder, and then pulls him in for a hug. “Good, cause we’re gonna be back.” He pauses for a minute, then nods to where Señora Lucía is walking up the street. “Let’s get this on the road for her.”
It doesn’t take much to get her on the road, it turns out. She’s overly grateful, and she hands JJ a frankly overwhelming number of conchas in return. As she drives off, JJ makes sure to portion them out for each of the kids, wrapping them in foil and borrowing some paper take-out bags from the café.
Teresita hugs them all, then runs off with her bag of conchas in one hand. Gabe bites into one of his right away, then doles out hugs at Sergio’s insistence. Sergio follows after him, awkwardly hugging them both and patting them on the back.
Gabe runs off to follow the girl, but Sergio hovers back for a second.
“Nos vemos pronto,” JJ says. It’s a goodbye and a promise – someday, he’ll come back here to see them again.
Sergio accepts it with a nod, bouncing on his feet. “Hasta luego,” he says, like he’s going to hold JJ to his promise.
He’s gone after that, taking off down the street after his brother.
Kiara wraps her arms around JJ’s bicep, rests her head on top of his shoulder.
“They love you,” she observes.
JJ tries not to let it get to him. “Of course they do,” he says. “I’m very lovable. What’s not to love?”
Kiara doesn’t point out that, maybe, his voice is a little thicker than normal. “A few more weeks and instead of holding shop, you’ll be teaching kids to surf back home,” she says, gentle.
And well, isn’t that a thought. JJ likes to think he’s able to keep a straight face, but a smile is threatening to burst at the corner of his mouth and his heart is doing a little cartwheel in his chest.
Sometime while they were staying in the Brazilian Amazon, a couple of months after starting his accidental mechanics gig, JJ finally found the courage to quietly ask Kiara one night if she thought they could maybe look to find a place near the coast to volunteer at next, so that in his off time he could try his hand at teaching surfing, too.
Kie had given him one of those looks that made him want to avert his eyes immediately, and possibly start tearing his hair off in handfuls for how incredibly seen he was suddenly feeling. Then, to his complete and utter horror, she had started apologizing, beating herself up for not having thought of it sooner, too caught up in her own save-the-world mindset (her words) to pick up on this very real desire JJ had been harboring – as if JJ could fault her for not reading his mind. Long story short, Kiara thought that yes, of course they could do that. And so more research had ensued, and they’d ended up in Costa Rica, working their asses off in a little fishing community whose survival was threatened by big commercial fishing companies depleting its waters. At least a couple of hours a day, JJ would take the village kids out on the waves. He got new boards for the ones who needed them, checked their form and taught them tricks, researched local competitions they could aim for and opportunities to go pro.
He had loved it more than anyone had anticipated he would. Taken to it like a fish to water, Kiara had said. Though JJ had been excited to move on to their next adventure, leaving those kids had been damn near devastating. And so a few weeks ago, when plans to finally go home became more concrete, JJ called John B and asked him what the situation was like with the surfing camps around the Island. Just as JJ remembered, all the surfing schools on Kildare were for profit, and catered mostly towards Tourons and the wealthier side of the island. And JJ didn’t really have much interest in that.
It took a little finagling – especially with JJ out of the country – but between the two of them and Kiara, they managed to figure out the logistics of starting their own surfing camp. John B scoped out the perfect location and with the help of Sarah managed to close the deal on a beach shack they could convert into a surf shop, right on the easternmost point of the Cut. They’re going to open the doors in three weeks' time, merely a week after him and Kiara are due to make it home. He’s got first-day-of-school jitters when he thinks about it too much. His own surf school.
He has no idea who allowed that to happen.
“Come on,” Kiara now says, tugging him away from under the pergola. “Let’s go for a swim.”
JJ raises his eyebrows at her. “You spent all day on the water, and now you want to go back?”
“It’s our last day.” Kiara shrugs. “You don’t?”
Well – that’s as good of an argument as any.
Kiara scrunches her nose into her signature mischievous smile. “Plus. You stink, mister.”
“Fair enough.”
The beach is on the other side of the café, not even a two minute walk. White sand peppered with dark, bulging rocks, an expanse of turquoise water in front. The sun is lowering in the sky as they duck under.
They swim next to each other in the pristine water, warm and inviting, and it’s so peaceful and perfect that it makes JJ wonder why they’re leaving in the first place. He reaches out for Kiara underwater, limbs aching for one another, and for a little while they just exist, entangled together, the sky golden with the last of the daylight and the splashing sound of waves all around them.
He gets out of the water first, reaching out for his hat as he takes a seat on his towel on the sand. He leans his elbows on his knees, watching the sun set and the rhythmic movements of Kiara paddling parallel to the waves. It’s one of those moments when everything quiets down, so beautiful and shiny he wants to commit it all to memory like a picture, every single tiny detail.
When Kiara finally gets out of the water, she smiles at him – rivulets falling from her soaked up hair onto her golden skin. She’s so gorgeous she takes his breath away, and he’s reduced to staring at her with the loopiest grin on his face, eyes squinting in the evening sun even below the brim of his cap. He wonders how he got so fucking lucky.
“Hey,” she says, her voice taking on an almost shy quality when she catches him staring at her.
“Hey,” he responds, the doopy grin never leaving his face.
She sits on the edge of the towel, leaning forward to kiss him. “Penny for your thoughts?”
JJ swallows, looking out at the ocean and the sunset as Kiara leans into his shoulder.
“We did pretty good, didn’t we?”
“Yeah,” Kiara sighs. “Yeah, we did.”
They say goodbye to everyone at Comunidad Pad and it’s a little bit sad, but then it isn’t when they find out Pedro and his wife Mariana have put together a farewell barbecue for them. Kiara’s face is wet with tears as she hugs everyone, from the researchers to the kitchen staff and their extended family – but she’s smiling, too. Promises are made, invitations extended, contacts exchanged. It’s become a familiar ritual along the way – every new place is different and yet the same, meeting new people who become like family only to have to say goodbye when the time comes.
They eat too much food and drink too much beer and have to fend off tequila shots once they remember they still need to drive back. Kie is way past safety so JJ offers to stop drinking and lets her give in to the hospitality on steroids and chug down a couple more.
It’s pretty late by the time they get back to Tia Juanita’s property and park the van in its usual spot under the mango tree. The moon is high in the sky, the night silent and still. Kiara’s face is hot and flushed, a smile bright on her lips.
“I’ll miss everyone,” she says, her back sinking in the passenger seat. “Won’t you?”
JJ pulls the handbrake, twists slightly in his seat. “Of course.”
“Like, we’ve met so many people on this trip. Made so many friends. For sure we met more people on the way than we both knew before leaving, right?”
He nods, pensive. “Yeah. Probably.”
Kiara shrugs, wraps her arms around herself. “It’s nice, in a way. To know we’ll always have people we know across the continent. And don’t get me wrong, I’ve missed people back home, too. I’ve missed the Pogues. But I just– I don’t know. Maybe I’m just getting sentimental because it’s the last night.”
JJ leans across from his seat, kisses her right on the tip of her nose. “Come on. Let’s get the hammock out. I think tonight calls for some stargazing.”
Kie smiles. Runs her fingers lazily under the hem of his shirt, leaving a trail of goosebumps on his side.
They walk around the van and swing open the backdoors. JJ pulls the hammock out and ties the loose end on the trunk of the mango tree. He climbs on and Kie follows suit, burrowing at his side. He runs his arm behind her shoulders, starts twisting his fingers between one of her messy curls. It’s not their last night on the road, most definitely not their last time on this hammock. And yet something about tonight feels final, like the end of a chapter. For the first time in two years, when they drive off tomorrow they’ll be heading back home. Kie is the sentimental drunk of the duo, but JJ feels it in his chest, too.
“Do you think things have calmed down?” he says, playing mindlessly with her curls. “At home?”
Kiara’s laugh comes out as more of a snort. “When have things ever been calm on the OBX?”
JJ smiles at that, dropping his hand against her shoulder. “Yeah, I guess that’s fair.” He sighs, and Kiara shifts next to him, tucking a little closer to his chest. “Maybe we’ll go back and no one will remember the Royal Merchant ever existed.”
Kiara’s hums noncommittally. JJ knows as well as she does that there’s no possible way anyone’s forgotten.
JJ had been 18 for a week and a half when the gold came through, exactly a month and four days after graduating high school. It had been the mother of all windfalls, and when the dust settled around him, it was like everyone wanted something from him. His family, old friends, and people he had barely acknowledged in the hallway at school had all seen the news stories. Everyone knew the Pogues were millionaires, now.
That’s when he knew they needed to get out of the Outer Banks. He had walked into the living room of the Chateau one night, completely overwhelmed, and asked Kiara, “Hey, how about now for that surf trip?”
Kiara had looked at him. Smiled.
“I guess it’s time for you to get that passport, uh?”
That’s how it had all begun.
For the last two years, they have lived in relative anonymity. A few people scattered around the States had recognized them from the fifteen minutes of fame the gold had gotten on the national news cycle, but even those had been few and far between. Almost no one knew who they were or what they had been through, and somehow that made it more manageable.
Going back home now means going back to an island where everyone knows the story or, even worse, were featured in the cliff notes. There’s a level of scrutiny there that JJ’s not excited to return to, but he can feel that it’s time. They can’t keep living out of the van forever, and at some point, they’ll have to return home.
Doesn’t mean JJ’s not going to miss this. The stars and their hammock, not quite big enough for two people but kind of perfect for the same reason. He pulls Kiara in a little closer, kisses her on her temple.
“It’ll be nice to see the Pogues again,” JJ says. “And the Chateau, of course.”
“Can’t forget the Chateau,” Kiara agrees. “Maybe we can throw a Boneyard Party, for old time’s sake.”
JJ is suddenly flooded with images and memories, those golden summer nights of their teenage years, feeling invincible on their own corner of the island. Kiara mastering the keg stand, and the hoards of Tourons coming in and out. Those still, perfect moments when they felt like the Kings and Queens of Kildare, despite how less than stellar everything around them could be.
He scoots closer to Kiara, now, buries his face into her neck. They’ve come a long way since then, him and her. They’ve built a life together, travelled the world, done things and seen places that he couldn’t have imagined in the wildest dreams of his youth.
They never got to go to Spain, or South Africa, or Micronesia, but that’s okay. They still have time. They have a whole lifetime in front of them.