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The mid-morning sun sits high in the sky, reflecting little kaleidoscope patterns on Kie’s legs crossed in front of her on the dock. The boys are still inside sleeping off what are sure to be massive hangovers, while she and Sarah somehow managed to peel themselves from their respective beds and outside for a little wake and bake because there’s nothing else to do today. Kie had been in the middle of re-rolling the joint for the second time when Sarah suggested she go drag JJ’s ass out of bed to do it. Kiara has never really been good at rolling, somehow always finding a way for it to be uneven and falling apart because she never really has to do it. That’s always JJ’s job , as Sarah had reminded her.
But Kie had been a little too quick to shoot down getting the blond up to help them, citing the fact that she was pretty sure she may have fucked their entire friendship up the night before much to Sarah’s confusion.
“Wait, what?”
“Drunk Kie has no self control,” Kiara huffs out, eyes rolling and Sarah bites back a comment about how sober Kie barely has any self control. Instead she raises a brow at her, prompting her to go on. “We kissed last night.”
Sarah perks up, her mouth hanging open for a second and her eyes are so wide that it would be comical if Kie wasn’t feeling so damn self-conscious.
“ No way . Wait, is that why you guys were so weird on the drive home? What happened?”
Kiara shrugs, avoiding her best friend’s gaze. “I kissed him.”
“So you kissed him,” Sarah sings. The blonde is leaned back against a wooden post of the dock, one sunkissed leg curled in front of her and the other hanging off the ledge so that her toes can skim across the water’s surface. She waits for Kiara to carry on and rolls her eyes when she doesn’t. “And then….”
“And then I ran away.”
“Shut up. Are you kidding?” The laugh on Sarah’s lips dies as quickly as it came, voice taking on a slightly more serious tone and her brows tugging together in confusion. “You’re not kidding? Okay. Start at the beginning, what happened?”
————
The Night Before
The boneyard is, as usual, crowded and loud and can feel the bass of the music thumping through her feet, her hips swaying along to the rhythm of a song she can’t quite place. Kiara isn’t drunk — at least, not entirely. She’s bordering somewhere between tipsy and buzzed, her brain nice and fuzzy. A rosey blush sits high on her cheeks, a warm feeling spreading through her chest that she blames one hundred percent on the alcohol and not on the way JJ Maybank’s chest is pressed up against her back, thank you very much . They have danced like this before plenty of times, so many that Kie doesn’t think she could put a number on it even if she tried but lately there has been a shift between them.
There has always been a certain tension between them but Kie had always just chalked it up to the fact that JJ was just being JJ , flirting with anything with legs and a heartbeat and she happens to have both of those things. Their relationship had always had a natural give and take to it, the banter coming as easily as breathing between them and though he annoyed the shit out of her sometimes, Kie also genuinely enjoyed the back and forth.
So because they have always just been like that , it hadn’t been immediately obvious when things had changed. Even now, she doesn’t think she could put an exact timestamp on the moment when the lines between just friends and something else began to blur between them, all she knows is that they have. While he has never been shy about checking her out before, it’s different now. There’s a heat behind her gaze that hadn’t been there before — or maybe she’s just now only able to see it because it’s reflected back in her eyes too. It’s there in the lingering touches or the looks that last just a beat too long to go unnoticed, in the flirting that goes just a bit too far to be completely platonic anymore.
And it’s there now too. In the way her back is pressed up against the firm expanse of his chest. In the way his calloused fingers drag against the silk of her dress, his hand resting comfortably on the curve of her waist. In the way her head lulls back against his shoulder as she tries to ignore the way his breath tickles the side of her neck and his nose brushes against her jaw and the way that it makes every nerve in her body feel like it’s on fire. Something twists inside of her and her brain short circuits for a second, the only coherent thought is a constant mantra: kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me .
She squeezes her eyes shut, inhales deeply in an effort to calm her racing heart and mind.
Get a fucking grip, Carrera.
The feeling of his nose against her temple has her eyes opening, his free hand is raised now, a joint dangling between his fingertips just a few inches away from her eyes.
“Smoke?” He exhales the word against her ear and Kie nods immediately.
Her hair brushes against the exposed panes of his chest as she tilts her head to look back at him, pink lips tugging up into a little smile. “I love the way you think sometimes, you know that?” It pulls a laugh from him that does little to calm the butterflies in her stomach, and when he moves his hand from her hip to lace their fingers together she can’t help the stupid lovestruck grin that tugs up on her lips.
She lets him pull her through the crowd and doesn’t question it when their hands stay connected even once they’re past the bulk of people. Instead she just falls into step beside him, happy to follow his lead on this one.
The party is still in full swing about a hundred yards behind them, the dull thump of the music and the sound of people whooping and hollering carrying over but it’s almost peaceful where they are now. The party is all background noise, the sound of waves crashing against the beach drowning it out and Kie can actually hear JJ when he’s speaking again.
“You wanna sit?” He asks, already having plopped down into the sand.
She nods, smoothing her dress out over the curve of her thighs and sits beside him. She leaves enough space between them that she doesn’t overthink it, but the warmth that always radiates off of him still reaches her and it makes her smile just a little.
“You havin’ fun tonight?” He asks. The joint between his teeth bobs with the question and he lifts his zippo to spark it up, inhaling deeply and holding the smoke in for a split second before letting it go.
And Kie can’t stop staring at his lips like some kind of freak.
Get a grip.
She shrugs, taking the outstretched blunt from him and taking a hit of her own. Her eyes fall shut again, focusing on the familiar burn in her lungs and exhaling slowly, her nerves calming instantaneously.
“Yeah, I am. Keep thinking about what a dump this place is going to be in the morning though. I counted twelve solo cups in the sand while we were walking over here,” she frowns, brows pulling together and she knows that tomorrow afternoon she’ll be out here in the hot sun picking them all up.
“Can’t even take one night off from saving the planet, can you?” JJ laughs, taking the blunt back from her again.
She opens her mouth to say something witty in response, moves to jab her elbow into his side but when she turns to look at him again he’s closer than she remembers him being before. She can feel his knee against hers, can smell the body spray he wears mixed with sea salt and the weed. Fuck , maybe she is drunk because all she can think now is: have his eyes always been that blue? Has he always looked this good in the moonlight? And is he moving closer or is she?
One drunk kiss won’t ruin the friendship, right?
She doesn’t have time to think much more after that, barely aware of the way her hands are moving to cup either side of JJ’s face and it doesn’t matter who had been leaning in before because now it’s her . She’s pulling him over to meet her part way, slanting her lips over his and her thumbs sweeping across his cheek bones. His arm curls around her back, palm pressed against the small of her back and something in Kie’s brain clinks into place: finally .
Kiara isn’t entirely sure how long they kiss for. All she knows is she doesn’t want to be the one to break it but eventually when her lungs are screaming for air she has no choice but to pull back. A noise sounds in the back of JJ’s throat and her lips tug up into a grin as she kisses him again one more time before fully pulling back.
His eyes flutter open a second after hers, brows pulled together and he looks confused. Not angry, not upset, just… confused and that’s almost worse. Maybe all of this had been in her head, maybe he hadn’t been sending all those signals she thought she had been getting and now she’s just completely thrown him for a loop and fucked everything up.
“Kie?”
Her heart is hammering in her chest, brain in overdrive and before she can stop herself she’s jumping back. Her hands drop from his face as if his skin is burning her and she pushes herself up out of the sand.
“Fuck. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… I’m so drunk right now.”
JJ opens his mouth to say something, but whatever it is goes unheard because Kie practically sprinting back to the party and they didn’t talk about it. Not when JJ finally made his way back to the party, his eyes trailing over her as she danced with Sarah. Not when they piled into the back of the Twinkie, thighs pressed against each other in the backseat while he bickered with John B about the music choice. Not when they awkwardly shuffled past one another in the bathroom door.
Maybe they never will. She thinks she could be okay with that. Maybe.
————
A beat of silence hangs over the two girls when Kie finishes her retelling of the night before. She chances a glance up from the poorly rolled joint she’s holding — good enough , she thinks. She isn’t redoing it for the fourth time — and something about the way Sarah is looking at her makes her feel far too exposed. She has always hated how well the blonde knows her. Sometimes it feels like Sarah can read her mind, like she knows every thought and feeling going through her with so much as a minute of eye contact. It makes Kiara feel uncharacteristically self-conscious.
“Wow,” Sarah whistles under her breath and the smirk on her face makes Kiara scowl. “You’re down bad, huh?” She says it in a way that it isn’t a question at all, rather that she is stating a fact.
“Shut up,” Kie huffs, standing up and brushing specks of sand off her thighs. “I’m going inside. It’s too early for this shit.”
“Face it, Kie. You’ve got it bad.” Sarah’s laugh carries across the dock, loud and unbothered by the middle finger she received in response.
And yeah, maybe she does got it bad but that’s none of Sarah or JJ’s business.