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JJ loves Pope. He really does.
It’s very important that he reminds himself of this small but not insignificant detail right now. It’s the reason he and John B drove for almost four days straight to go from coast to coast, after all. To spend some time with their best friend because he couldn’t take any breaks to go home this year.
Their best friend who all but barked at JJ when he woke up starving, asking him to kindly fuck off and go find some food on his own because he was trying to sleep.
Rude.
It’s not JJ’s fault that Pope has to be at the lab at 6 in the morning, or that it’s already midnight. He could barely keep upright when they got here this afternoon, passing out on Pope’s bed the minute his head hit the pillow, while John B went to find Sarah, never to be heard from again.
So yes, he’s very much awake now, and very hungry, and even though Pope is being an asshole about it, JJ loves him.
He reminds himself of it once again as he takes the elevator to the ground floor, wandering off to find the vending machine Pope assured him is there. It takes him a while to locate it, right next to the bathroom door engraved with “ALL GENDERS” in fancy block letters, under which someone felt compelled to add “should stay out of here unless you want to be the next one to leave a floatie” with a bright red sharpie.
JJ turns his attention to the vending machine, his grin evaporating as he observes his options. He takes a deep breath, tightening his jaw.
I love my best friend.
Did he say options? He meant a sad bag of Cheetos, exactly one Snickers bar, and 600 bottles of Gatorade.
The change he fishes out of his pocket is pilfered straight from Pope’s nightstand – it’s what happens he deserves for leaving JJ to fend for himself. JJ approaches the machine and drops the coins into the slot, making sure to get the numbers right. He watches as it whirs into action with the subtlety of an elephant on roller blades.
He spots the girl coming from his peripheral vision, a whirl of long, dark curls framing what he thinks is a pretty face. It’s the only way he knows she’s there, really, because there is not a world in which he could’ve heard her over the pound truck currently working to drop his bag of Cheetos into the tray.
She stops behind him, and JJ chances a proper look at her; takes in her pretty brown eyes, long lashes and even longer legs. Her lips are pink and round when she pouts, looking past him to peek at the items on display in the window.
Her eyes flicker to his when she realizes he’s looking at her, brown meeting blue for only a second before he’s distracted by the sound of the bag hitting the tray. He turns and kneels down to grab the bag from the flap, then straightens back up and finds more change in his pocket.
He slots the coins in and pushes the numbers in the pad, turning his attention back to the girl when he’s done. She smiles at him for a fleeting breath – it’s inexplicable, the way JJ’s entire body relaxes when she does – before she whirls her neck to look past him again, eyes widening and brows curving down in a frown.
She turns her gaze to him. “Hey, that’s a dick move.”
If he wasn’t so confused by her words, he’d stop to marvel at the fact that she even looks pretty when she’s pissed.
“Excuse me?”
She crosses her arms over her chest, frown deepening as she waves her hands vaguely in the direction of the vending machine. “You can see I’m behind you. You already have your Cheetos. Maybe don’t be an ass and leave something for me?”
Well. They‘re off to a great start.
JJ scoffs, leaning down to grab the Snickers bar now in the tray.
“First of all, I was here before you even showed up,” he tells her as he stands back up, “and second of all, you could be here for the Gatorade?” He motions at the colorful array of bottles still on display in the window.
She rolls her eyes. “I’m not here for the fucking Gatorade. This is the third vending machine I’ve tried.”
He’d feel bad for her if his intestines weren’t actively trying to claw their way out of his stomach.
“Lady, that’s not my problem. I drove a long way to visit my friend, and he essentially told me to find my own fucking food. And I don’t know my way around this fucking campus.” He scratches the back of his neck, irrationally angered by this whole place. Not only did this university take Pope away from him, but it just dangled a girl straight out JJ’s dreams in front of his face, only for her to attack him for no reason. “Why does it need to be so big? Why do you need six buildings that look exactly the fucking same?”
The girl groans, scrubbing a hand down her face and looking more defeated by the second. “So you don’t even go here, but you’re still hogging the food.”
JJ waves the bar in question in the air. “Hey, I paid for my fucking chocolate,” he tells her. “Not my fault you’re slow. Natural selection and all that shit.”
He thinks she might be smiling, but that illusion is quickly squashed when she rubs her eyes, falling back against the wall and sliding all the way to the floor. She pulls her knees up once she’s sat down, hugging them close to her chest and propping her chin on top.
JJ watches as he tucks the bar of chocolate in his pocket, then tears the bag of Cheetos open.
The girl looks up at him, ushering him away. “You can fuck off now.”
He rolls his eyes. Flips her off for good measure, and turns to walk away.
This proves a problem for several reasons. For one thing, he can’t go back up to Pope’s room, because he knows he will make a racket and Pope will chew his head off. But he also doesn’t know where to go. John B is not an option, unless JJ plans on locating Sarah Cameron’s room and scarring himself further by walking in on their “reunion”.
Also, there is the slight matter of JJ not wanting to walk away from this girl. It’s the kind of stupid reserved for people like John B and Sarah Cameron, but fuck, there’s something. Some gravitational pull that JJ can’t fucking make sense of, that’s making him not want to look away from her face for too long.
He wants to kick himself for that thought alone. He doesn’t fucking know this girl, and she is kind of a jerk. And it shouldn’t matter that she looks really fucking sad hunched over herself right now, or that JJ really, really, really wants to stick around. It shouldn’t.
But. The truth is, if she’d gotten here minutes before, the roles would’ve been reversed, and JJ knows without the shred of a doubt that he’s an asshole when he’s hungry – he would’ve been so much more of a jerk to her than she was to him.
From his peripheral vision, he sees the girl unfold her long, tan legs, cracking her neck and crossing an arm over her body to rub her shoulder tiredly.
JJ looks down at the bag of Cheetos clutched between his fingers, now open to reveal bright orange dust covering a small pile of oddly-shaped potato chips. He sighs audibly, regretting his decision even before he’s made it.
He walks over to the girl, leaning back against the wall and shimmying down to the ground next to her.
She turns a pair of confused – but still really fucking pretty – get your shit together, Maybank – eyes at him.
JJ props the bag of chips on the floor between the two of them, careful not to graze her leg in the process. The last thing he wants or needs is for her to think that he’s a creep on top of being an asshole.
He shrugs. “Wanna share?”
The girl looks at him for a long time before her frown makes way to a somewhat reluctant smile.
JJ feels like he’s won something. It’s sickening.
She nods carefully, biting her lower lip in a way that should not make him feel the way it does, before she scoots closer to him, until their shoulders are almost touching, careful to move the bag and prop it on their legs instead.
“I’m Kiara. Kie.”
Something about this feels familiar, but JJ has one barely functioning braincell in control of his whole existence right now. The odds of him figuring out why that is are not looking good.
The girl extends a hand over the bag, invading JJ’s space and startling him for a moment, knuckles grazing the front of his grey cotton shirt. She props her palm open in front of him, and JJ releases the breath he’s holding when he realizes what she’s doing; he can’t remember the last time someone offered to shake his hand.
Her fingers are long and thin when they wrap around his palm, her small collection of rings cool to the touch. In some odd way, thy match his own, when they wrap around the back of his hand. Even the colorful bracelets tied around her wrists are similar to his own.
“JJ.”
He takes longer than socially acceptable to let go of her hand. But then again, she doesn’t seem all that eager to let go either.
“I would say nice to meet you,” she says as she takes a potato chip between her fingers and holds it up, “but I’d have a full bag of this and a Snickers bar to myself if I didn’t.”
JJ grins. “Fair.”
She smiles too, and even that feels groundbreaking.
“It’s not even your fault,” she adds after a moment, sighing. “It’s my stupid roommate and her boyfriend. They’re in my room, so I can’t get any food.”
“And what? You can’t just barge in on them?”
“Not without holy water,” she mutters. “The last time I walked in on them, I saw some things…” she trails off, shuddering, eyes disappearing in the back of her head for a moment, and JJ can’t help but laugh lightly. “And they haven’t seen each other in a month, he just got here today, so… yeah.”
Somewhere in the back of JJ’s mind, a chorus of bells is ringing incessantly. But then Kiara’s fingers brush his in the bag of Cheetos, and his brain short-circuits.
He clears his throat. Shovels some chips hastily into his mouth, in a poor attempt to cover his embarrassment.
“Well, can’t you find some other place to eat?”
Kiara drops her head back, closing her eyes and wincing as she repeatedly bumps it against the wall. “I left my wallet in the room like a fucking idiot, and my battery’s dead because I’ve been stranded without a charger all day. Fucking Sarah and her fucking hippy himbo boyfriend.”
“Hippy himb—hold on.” JJ straightens up suddenly, the cogs finally clicking into place. Sarah. Her himbo boyfriend. Kie. Kiara. “Sarah Cameron’s your roommate?”
Kiara’s eyes fly open, a small v appearing between her brows when she turns to look at him. “You know Sarah?”
“John B’s my best friend.”
“Oh.” She stares at him with a pair of wide eyes for a minute longer before her features melt into something softer, lips curving sideways in a small smile. “Fucking small world,” she mutters, and JJ can only nod, his expression mirroring hers. She nibbles on a Cheeto thoughtfully. “Yeah, well, your best friend is awesome in the daylight, but when he and Sarah are apart for more than five minutes—"
“Yeah, no, trust me, I know,” JJ cuts her off, shaking his head. “Last time Sarah came up to Kildare, I had to evacuate the Chateau for three whole days.”
Kiara grins, looking highly amused. “The Chateau?”
“It’s what we call the house we live in,” JJ explains, before he waves her off. “It’s… a long story, kinda.”
“Well, I got nothing but time,” she mutters, and JJ’s heart jumps to his throat. But then her eyes are widening again like she just caught herself, “Sorry, fuck, forget I said that. You had a long drive, you probably want to go to sleep—"
“No, no,” JJ cuts her off quickly, because there is not a world in which he’s going to pass up the opportunity to spend more time with Kiara. “I napped for like five hours, I’m good. Just hungry.”
He grabs the now-empty bag between them and tips it upside down to illustrate his point, revealing nothing but powdered crumbs in a synthetic orange color.
Kiara looks at him thoughtfully. “There’s a food truck by the Poli Sci building that makes a really good Cuban sandwich.”
He jumps at the opportunity. “Great.”
He doesn’t linger, pushing himself off the floor and turning around to help Kiara up. But then he takes in the state of his hands, and the moldy, rust-colored chunks clinging to his fingers, and he thinks better not. He looks around for something to clean them up, then, when he finds nothing useful, ventures into the all gender bathroom of doom. It smells like someone died in there, the water barely runs, and there is no soap or tissues in sight, but he makes due, wiping his hands on his jeans when he’s done.
Kiara is still on the floor when he walks back out. Doesn’t really look in a hurry to get up. JJ swallows thickly, wondering if he misunderstood. Maybe she wasn’t offering to go with him.
He could leave her and go alone. He could call it a night, and walk away, and just ignore the way his skin is tingling with anticipation for something. The way his ribs feel like they’re too big for his chest all of a sudden. Have been feeling like that for the past 10 minutes. Ever since he first spotted a long mop of dark curls in his peripheral vision.
The thing is, he’s never really been big on girls, or boys, or dating as a whole. He was the first one out of his friends to get a serious girlfriend, for over half a year when he was 14. And then the first one to get his heart broken. Or at least, that’s what it was supposed to feel like, according to John B. But when Sam told JJ that she didn’t want to see him anymore, all he could think was finally. Finally he had more time to spend with John B and Pope. The only people who mattered. His family.
But he looks at Kiara, and he doesn’t mind not going back to Pope’s right now.
So he walks over to her, stopping only when the toes of his boots are inches from Kiara’s yellow sneakers. She looks up at him in a way that makes his stomach curl, and when he reaches a hand out to her, her smile is almost relieved.
The words topple out of his mouth unbidden, like they do with John B and Pope. The only people who don’t make him feel like he has to guard himself, and weigh his every word. “You thought I was gonna leave your sad, broke, underfed ass here?”
She snorts as she takes his hand and allows him to pull her up, careful to keep her Cheeto-infested fingers out of reach. Again, her hand lingers in his for more than strictly necessary.
JJ waits as she disappears inside the bathroom, then reappears, hands dripping water tinted with a faint orange color. She shimmies her hands aggressively to air dry them, and when JJ walks close and offers the hem of his cut-off shirt for her to use, she shakes her head with a smile, wiping her hands on her shorts instead.
“For the record,” she says, “I’m not sad.” JJ bites the inside of his cheek to curb his shit-eating grin, eyebrows probably touching the ceiling. “Okay, fine,” she concedes, rolling her eyes and dragging her feet dramatically, “I’m a little sad. But can you blame me? You took the last Snickers bar.”
He shakes his head, digging around in his pocket for the chocolate bar and throwing it her way.
“Come on,” he says when she catches it, nodding his head in the general direction of the entrance hall and starting to walk. “I’ll buy you dinner,” he ventures, chewing on his bottom lip. There are more words he wants to say, right there on the tip of his tongue. He’s never been a gambling man – that’s his father all the way. And if there’s one thing JJ never wants to be, it’s his dad. But he wants to get to know Kiara so much that it overpowers his fear of becoming Luke, so he takes the gamble. He throws a sideway glance at her, tries to keep his voice light. “It’s the least I can do on our first date.”
The fact that she doesn’t immediately run the other way is probably a good sign. She scoffs instead. “Who said this was a date? We literally just met.”
“At midnight, on a badly-lit campus, in front of a sad vending machine, fighting over the last Snickers bar,” JJ lists, shoving his hands in his pockets.
He slows down to a stroll once they’re outside, allowing Kiara to lead the way.
She looks confused, even as she nods her head to the left and starts walking in that direction, JJ following suit. “So?”
“So, it’s too good a story not to be something we tell our kids.”
Fuck’s sake. He’s always been good at flirting, that much he knows. And yet for some reason, every word he’s said to Kiara so far tonight sounds like it came straight out of the John Booker Routledge Handbook for Lovestruck Dumbasses.
It’s a miracle if Kiara doesn’t walk away immediately.
She doesn’t. She does roll her eyes, though, and lets out a noise somewhere between a snort and an amused laugh. “Jesus Christ, we have kids now?”
“Well, not for a few years,” JJ reassures. “I gotta make sure the surf shop is up and running first, and you gotta get your degree in—"
“—Environmental Engineering, with a minor in Gender Studies.”
JJ rolls his eyes. “Of course.” Kiara smiles. He can’t stop smiling. Fucking John B syndrome. “And your PhD, after that,” he adds.
It’s the right thing to say, judging by the way her lips stretch so wide, she has to bite down on her lower lip to contain it.
It’s embarrassing, how proud he is of himself for making that happen.
“Of course.”
“And then maybe wait a few years. Figure out how I’m going to convince you to move to the Outer Banks instead of—"
“—Charleston.”
That catches his attention.
“You’re from Charleston?”
He’s been to Charleston many, many times. Stayed over at his cousin’s place for three whole months when he was 15. What if he’s seen her before? What if he ran into her and didn’t know?
Kiara nods. “Born and bred.”
An irrational part of his brain thinks he could’ve met her earlier than today if he’d tried hard enough. It’s dumb at best. Downright embarrassing at worst.
You’re acting like a fool.
He pinches the bridge of his nose. Forces himself to stay focused on the task at hand. He might not be entirely sure what he’s doing here, but it’s working well enough that the coolest girl he’s met in his two-something decades on this planet has not yet bolted, despite the number of times his foot has landed in his mouth tonight.
“Well then, there’s nothing to fight about. If you won’t move to Kildare, I’ll just move to Charleston and commute to the OBX every day.“
Their elbows brush. JJ stills for a moment, worried he’s overstepped. Their elbows brush again. JJ breathes.
“Isn’t that, like, an eight-hour drive?”
“Okay, fine,” he concedes. “Every other day. I’ll still see you, like, three days a week, maybe. Could be better for us. Keep things spicy in the bedroom and all,” he adds before he can stop himself. White, hot fear takes hold of his stomach when he realizes exactly what he’s implying, but Kiara only scrunches her nose up lightly, lips curled upwards when she rolls her eyes. He breathes a sigh of relief. “Plus, I won’t have time to get sick of you.”
“Who says I won’t get sick of you?” Kiara challenges.
“Oh, you will,” JJ reassures. “But I’ll reel you back in. I’m very charming when I want to be.”
She narrows her eyes at him. Still looks unfairly hot doing it. “I highly doubt that.”
“Do you? You’re on a date with me right now. A perfect stranger.”
“We are not on a date,” she tells him immediately, eyebrows high on her forehead, only the amused lilt in her voice betraying her. “And you’re not a perfect stranger. You’re friends with John B who, despite having an aversion to buttons and shirts that have less than nine different colors on them, is actually a nice guy.”
His snort is very undignified, but he can’t help it. She really captured John B’s essence.
She points at a concrete building a little further ahead, and JJ assumes that must be the famed Poli Sci building she mentioned. It looks exactly the same as every other building on this whole fucking campus.
JJ nods, then continues. “Which brings me to my third point.”
“Your third point?”
“We know too many people in common,” he states, matter-of-factly. “John B, Sarah. I bet you even know Pope."
“We have been known to associate,” she admits, almost reluctantly.
“So you can’t escape me,” JJ says.
She looks at him with a dubious expression on her face, and he winces. “What exactly is your point? Other than waving that massive red flag in my face?”
She’s not wrong. He only heard it after he’s said it. Fuck.
He tries to course-correct. “I’m just saying, we’re bound to run into each other. You and Sarah are close, if the way she talks about you is anything to go by.”
Now that he thinks about it, Sarah has brought Kiara up in every conversation they have ever had. Not that they’ve known each other for long, but still. It’s a little weird. And if JJ didn’t know that Sarah Cameron is sickeningly in love with John B, then he might wonder if she maybe has a little thing for her roommate.
He throws a glance at Kiara’s profile. Takes in the curve of her nose, and the way she pouts her lips to hide the extent of her smile, her cupid’s bow accented in the street light. His gaze lingers on the curls falling on her shoulders, the cheekbones high on her face, the colorful beaded chokers around her long neck, and the small tattoo peaking under the neckline of her shirt.
He can’t exactly fucking blame Sarah if she did, can he now?
“We are,” Kiara says, snapping him out of his trance.
He’s suddenly thankful for the blanket of darkness provided by the night. His cheeks feel hotter than the sun’s surface.
He clears his throat, tries to continue his argument. “And despite having known each other for all of 97 days, John B plans on proposing to Sarah before we leave.”
Maybe he shouldn’t be telling Kiara that. But then again, John B plans on executing his terrifying plan in broad daylight, so she’s bound to find out. As long as she doesn’t tell Sarah, they shouldn’t have a problem.
Kiara balks. “What?”
“Yeah, he’s got a whole elaborate plan that involves a public proposal, matching bandanas and a flock of pigeons—"
Kiara stops walking, reaching out a hand to tug on JJ’s arm and keep him in place. “WHAT?”
JJ has zero control over the way his entire body lights up when her fingers touch his elbow, breath shallow when he steps closer to her.
“Just, stay on track here,” he says to try and keep his front. “We’re gonna have to cross paths. A lot.”
“He’s proposing?”
“Kie…”
“Okay, fine.” She starts moving again, dropping her hand, and JJ wonders why the fuck he was so eager to get her back into the conversation. She shrugs. “So we have people in common. We can be friends who cross paths.”
“Well, yeah, we can,” JJ admits. “We can do that whole will-they-won’t-they thing, and date other people, and pine for each other in secret.” He has no control over what he’s saying anymore. This is truly a shit show. She’s going to either bolt or deck him, and he cannot fucking blame her either way. “Or we can avoid all that drama, and you can stop pretending you weren’t actually checking out my ass when we were in front of the vending machine—"
“Hey, I wasn’t—"
“You don’t have to lie. I saw your reflection in the glass display.”
This is it. This is the moment where Kiara Last-Name-Pending punches him in the face and walks away from him forever.
Her expression is indecipherable when she looks at him. Which is totally fucking valid, because he doesn’t actually know this girl, does he? What the fuck is he doing, telling a girl he doesn’t know that he knows she checked out his ass, what the fucking fuck is wrong with hi—
“Okay, fine,” Kiara groans, and this time it’s JJ that fully stops walking.
What?
Her look before may have been indecipherable, but he recognizes a guilty expression when he sees one. After all, it’s the expression he’s been inadvertently wearing for one reason or another almost every single day of his life.
“Wait…” he trails off, blinking at her several times.
He was talking straight out of his ass when he said that. But she actually fucking likes him.
Relief is the first thing he feels, followed closely by disbelief. Once again, the smile that creeps on his face is nothing he has any control over.
Kiara stops walking too, turning a pair of curious eyes to him, her voice especially breathy when she asks, “What?”
She fucking likes him. He grins wider. “Nothing.”
Kiara’s eyes widen in sudden realization. She groans, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You asshole, you didn’t see shit, did you?”
JJ shakes his head. Kiara groans again, bracing a hand to slap JJ on the shoulder, but he jumps out of the way in time.
“I, in fact, did not,” he manages in between bouts of giddy laughter.
“Well what about you, then?” she bites back, exasperated. JJ raises a pair of confused eyebrows. “You were checking me out too!”
“Hey, I’m out here making a PowerPoint presentation with a ten-year plan for us, I’m not exactly hiding the fact that I think you’re cute.” He tries to keep his voice casual, starting to walk again, mostly because he can’t stand to look at her face while he’s admitting to all of this.
She wrinkles her nose. “Cute?”
JJ nods. “Cute.”
“You’re going through an awful lot of trouble for cute.”
Ouch. Caught.
“Well, I think you’re some other things too,” he says, running a hand through his hair, trying to keep it vague. Because he can’t exactly tell her that she’s the prettiest, funniest, most infuriating, smartest, hottest, most out-of-this-world stubborn, coolest girl he’s ever met in his life. “But I can’t give all my cards away on the first date.”
She sighs deeply. “This is not—"
“A date,” he finishes for her, eyes circling to the back of his head, “I know.” Did he mention she’s stubborn? Because she’s really fucking stubborn. And he fucking likes it. “You said.”
“It’s not,” she insists.
JJ takes the bait. “Why not?
“Because that pre-supposes that I’m going to kiss you at the end of the night,” she says, and JJ is positively sure he stops breathing. Because yes, he’s thought about kissing her already, despite only knowing her for less than an hour. Can you blame him? She just exists with that face, and with those lips, and in that body, and he’s supposed to be immune to her charms? But never in his wildest dreams did he think it was really a possibility. Especially not tonight. But she just made it one. “And I have no intention of doing that.”
Fuck.
He’s too far in it to back down now. This is either going to be everything JJ Maybank didn’t even know he could dream of, or it’s going to blow up in his face so bad, he’s going to have to go into hiding for at least a year.
“Well. You know, it’s only 12:23 am. That’s almost a full day before the end of the night. Things might change by then.”
She ducks her head to hide her smile. Breathing is still a problem for JJ.
“That’s some strong math skills,” she teases. “Didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Yeah, well. I’m full of surprises.” He wrenches his eyes away from her face, because it’s becoming creepy. He spots a bright yellow food truck on the lawn up front, with a random array of benches, tables, stools and chairs scattered around it, mostly occupied by other students. “’This the place?”
Kiara nods. “Are you sure this is okay?”
JJ waves her off. “I gotta earn that kiss somehow,” he says because fuck it, there’s really no going back anymore. “You wanted the Cuban, right?” Kiara nods again. “Anything to go with that? Fries? A drink? Dessert?”
She smiles. Shakes her head. “I’ll go find us a seat.”
His chest tightens as he watches her walk away from him, eyes lingering on her back for an embarrassing amount of time.
Simp.
It’s distinctively in Pope’s voice, is the worst part.
He shoves his hands deep in his pocket and walks up to the truck to place his order, then allows his eyes to wonder over to where Kiara is wrestling with a lone, upside-down bench, trying to straighten it back up. She finagles the seat upright, then drops down on it with a satisfied smile, eyes shining even in the dark. She doesn’t miss the dumb smile on JJ’s face when she turns to look at him.
Caught. Again.
Just tie a fucking bandana around his neck and call him Bird already.
He collects their order when it’s ready, tucking the brown paper bag under his arm and walking over to her. He straddles the bench next to her, leaving some room between the two of them, before he sets the bag down and rips it open to reveal a couple of sandwiches, some fries, and a collection of small colorful packets.
Kiara eyes all the food suspiciously.
JJ shrugs. “I know you said no fries, but I brought enough to share, so… and I didn’t know what you liked, so I got a bunch of condiments.”
She smiles, reaching for the barbecue sauce and tearing the packet open with her teeth. “You’re really going all out.”
“Told you. Gotta make sure our kids get a good story.”
She squeezes every last drop out of the packet on the side of the paper bag, then grabs a fry and dips it in the sauce. “Right.”
“Oh, also, before I forget,” JJ says, standing up and pulling out a small power bank and a charging cord from his back pocket. He hands it to her. “It should have enough power to turn your phone back on.”
Kiara stares at the small battery sitting in the palm of her hand. “You could’ve given this to me before.”
JJ nods, grabbing one of the sandwiches and unwrapping it as he watches her pull her phone out and plug it. “I could’ve.”
“But?”
He takes a bite of the sandwich. “What will I tell the kids? I gave her a power bank, so she charged her phone and left to buy her own food.”
“God forbid we disappoint the kids.”
We.
JJ might burst.
He wipes some mustard off his chin with his thumb. Sucks on it, and takes another bite. “Fuck, this is so good.”
“Told you,” Kiara says smugly, digging into her own half. “So instead of telling me you have a charger, you’re holding me hostage?”
JJ shakes his head. “No one is forcing you to be here. You could’ve stayed on the floor in the dorm.”
“I wasn’t gonna say no to a Cuban sandwich,” she defends lamely.
“That’s on you, then.”
The smile that creeps onto Kiara’s face is not dissimilar to the one on JJ’s lips.
Her phone comes to life then, lighting up, the sound of a thousand notifications descending upon them. She turns her attention to the screen, where JJ can see a string of texts crowding up her display. She bites the inside of her cheek as she reads through the blue bubbles, then turns her phone face-down on the bench in front of her.
“So, you call your house the Chateau?”
JJ is not what Kiara expects. She doesn’t know what to expect, exactly, because this whole night was not something she planned or anticipated. But meeting a guy with arguably the prettiest eyes she has ever seen and hair made of what she is pretty sure is actual gold, who is also annoyingly funny and good friends with her favorite people on campus, almost makes up for being forced out of her dorm for most of the day.
The fact that he’s clearly into her and not even attempting to hide it, and worse still, that she might actually very much feel the same, takes her by complete surprise.
Not enough to say no to him at 1 in the morning when he suggests she shows him the house that she swears is haunted, which happens to be only three blocks away from campus. Not enough to walk out on him when they stroll by the skate park on the way back and he finds an abandoned skateboard and insists on showing her some of his moves. (Joke’s on him, she’s been skateboarding since she was 9). Not even enough to turn him down about an hour later, when he suggests they grab breakfast because he’s hungry and it’s the only logical thing to do at 5 in the morning.
Cleo should be back by now. Kiara could head over to her place and crash on her couch for the next couple of hours, until they have class.
She doesn’t.
“You don’t have to walk me back to my dorm.”
He wants to tell her it’s more for his benefit than hers, because he can’t fucking stand to imagine this day coming to an end.
But. Whipped as he might be, he’s been burned too many times. Had too many good things crash and burn in the blink of an eye for him not to still account for the worst every single time.
He tries to keep his voice casual. “What if they’re not done yet?”
“They have to be,” Kiara reassures. “Sarah has an exam in 20 minutes.”
“So you’ve said. But I’m not sure I trust them to remember that,” he says, and she snorts.
“Touché.”
“Besides, somebody has to walk John B back to Pope’s room.”
She smiles, stopping in front of what he assumes is her dorm room door and turning to look at him. She tugs her lower lip between her teeth, hands fisted on either side of her, and JJ feels the breath catch in his throat. This is it.
She has things to do and places to be and a life to live. This is where they separate.
He wants to say something, but he can only stare at her. She looks equally at a loss for words, eyes flickering frantically across his face.
She sucks in a breath. Opens her mouth to speak. “Th—”
The sound of a door opening abruptly drowns out whatever she says, and before they know it, Sarah Cameron is standing in front of them in all of her yellow-haired glory.
“There you are,” Sarah says excitedly, but then her gaze catches sight of JJ, and her expression devolves into something much more confused.
“Hey, Sar.”
Sarah ignores Kiara’s greeting, eyes zooming in on her boyfriend’s best friend. “JJ? What are you doing here?”
“I’m, uh. Here for JB,” he stammers, unsure what to say.
He looks to Kiara for help, but she avoids his eyes, looking at the ground pointedly.
If he didn’t know any better, he’d say she almost looks… disappointed.
“He left last night,” Sarah says. “I texted you to come back when he left,” she adds, turning to Kiara. “And, like, nine times after that.”
Oh.
“Yeah, I was…” Kiara trails off. “My battery, uh, died.”
JJ can’t quite wrap his head around this. There is no way that Kiara knew that she could come back to her room but still chose to spend time with him. Is there?
“But then you charged your phone,” he rambles, doing a shit job of hiding his confusion, “and—"
“Wait,” Sarah cuts him off, narrowing her eyes and waving a finger between the two of them, “how do you two know each other?”
“Uh, we met in front of a vending machine,” Kiara says, “and…” She trails off, rubbing a hand against her forehead. She still won’t look at JJ for longer than a second. “You know what, it doesn’t matter.” She looks at him now, almost frantic. “Thanks for dinner, and the power bank. It was fun.”
JJ frowns. “Yeah, it was.”
“Okay, I’ll see you around.”
What the fuck?
All his delusions aside, they did have a pretty good night together. He will even go as far as to say, if he can somehow miraculously disregard the massive crush he has on this girl, which up until now he thought might have been somewhat reciprocated, they can actually be pretty good friends. And she’s not even going to acknowledge that beyond an it was fun?
“Wait, hold on, we didn’t even—"
“Sorry, I gotta shower and get ready for class,” Kiara dismisses, making to walk through the door to her bedroom, but finding Sarah standing in the way. She sighs. “I’m already running late.”
“Shit, me too,” Sarah says abruptly, looking at her phone and dashing back inside for a second. She comes back out with a purse, a tablet and a pen. “I gotta…” she trails off, hands windmilling awkwardly before she smacks an obnoxious kiss to Kiara’s face, ruffles JJ’s hair, then dashes down the hall. “I still wanna know how you two met!”
“Yeah, later,” Kiara mutters. When she looks at JJ, her eyes are shuttered, expression blank. Like somehow in the past five minutes, she’s shut down on herself, and now there’s an insurmountable distance between the two of them. “Bye, JJ.”
The door doesn’t even make a sound when it swings shut behind her.
It’s a good thing JJ accounted for the worst.
Kiara doesn’t stop thinking about JJ the whole day.
Not when she’s in class, or when she’s working on her presentation with Cleo. Not even when she goes out for lunch with Ben, the guy who’s been hitting on her all semester, or when she goes to the aquarium in the afternoon to feed the seals like she always does, or when she checks the progress on the turtle sanctuary she and Sarah are partially funding.
She doesn’t even know why she fucking shut the door in his face this morning.
She actually wanted to kiss him, is the ridiculous part, but then he said he was just there to see John B, and she second-guessed every fucking thing that happened between the two of the since midnight. And then Sarah mentioned her ignored texts and JJ looked almost smug - and he had every fucking right to be, Kiara would’ve been too, if the shoe was on the other foot - but… fuck. She doesn’t know why. Her fucking pride, or whatever it is, got in the fucking way like it always does, and she felt too fucking vulnerable.
Falling for a guy she met only hours before? Stupid. Dumb. A recipe for disaster.
So she shut the door in his face, and didn’t get his number, and didn’t kiss him at the end of their date.
And fuck, she really wanted to kiss him.
You still can, you idiot.
She can get his number from Sarah, or look him up on Instagram, or even just go find him in Pope’s dorm room. She knows where it is - she’s spent too many nights there this semester not to remember where it is, curled up with pizza and beer on Pope’s bean bag, complaining about numbers and figures and begging him to explain to her why the fuck it is that she needs to know all of that just to save the planet.
Point is, if she wants to see JJ again, she can. She has real, tangible, easy ways to get in touch with him.
Or, she could go to the vending machine. Not right now, that would be stupid. But tonight. Around the same time she went last night. He’ll be there, because it’s exactly the kind of fucked up, dopey, cosmic fate shit he seems to enjoy so much. It’ll be the perfect, dumb, Hollywood, trash romcom story he can tell his kids.
So she’ll go. And if he’s there, then that’ll be her sign to stop being so fucking afraid of good things and give whatever this is a chance.
About an hour before midnight, she throws on her favorite oversized hoodie and piles her hair haphazardly over her head, because she’s not about to try too hard for some stupid guy with stupid golden hair and ridiculously blue eyes, no matter how much she likes his laugh. Or that infuriating dimple on his cheek. Or the way he smells, and talks way too loud and way too fast all the fucking time, and gesticulates entirely too much when he’s telling her all the reasons why they should call whatever went down between them last night a date.
Point is, if he thinks she’s going to dress up just to go meet him at a vending machine, he’s got another thing coming.
She talks herself out of it the whole way there. Turns around twice, and then back around again, because she’s haunted by saltwater eyes and a shared Snickers bar.
Her heart leaps to her throat when she walks through the double-doors that lead into the building.
She might throw up. She can’t throw up. She’s not going to throw up, it’s embarrassing enough that JJ’s going to find out how much she actually likes him.
Or not. Because he’s not there. He’s not at the vending machine.
There’s a couple of guys making out next to it, and the same array of colorful Gatorade bottles on display, but no blondes with ridiculous cut-off shirts and too many rings on their fingers.
Kiara’s disappointment is palpable, pulsating through her body in a way she can’t quite fully make sense of.
It’s fine, she tells herself. She’s early. And if he doesn’t show, it’s still fine.
She supposes that having to wait for him is penance for the way she slammed the door in his face, so she leans back against the wall and slides all the way down, settling on the floor, trying to ignore the dread in the pit of her stomach.
She takes out her phone and starts mindlessly flipping through her Instagram, mostly because she doesn’t want the two guys to think she’s some creep perving on them. Not that they would notice her, the way they’re going at it. Next to the bathroom from hell, of all places.
She scrolls through her feed, and waits.
And waits some more.
And keeps waiting.
And the closer to midnight it gets, the more irrationally angry she gets.
Because she feels like crap, and she got her hopes up, and it’s fucking JJ’s fault. It was his stupid idea. He’s the one who said they were on a date. He’s the one who said they had a full day to kiss for it to count.
And now that she’s in, he’s not here?
She’s seething by the time it’s half past.
If he thinks he can blow her off like that and get away with it, then he’s barking up the wrong tree.
She doesn’t really think about it when she pushes herself off the floor and drags her feet over to the elevator, absently pushing the button to the sixth floor when she’s in. She stomps her way over to the end of the hallway, and barely stops to make sure that she’s got the room number right, checking for the Pogue Life sticker that she knows is there, before she’s banging on the door.
She hears a loud clang on the other side of the wooden door after a moment, and then the door flies open. Pope Heyward stares back at her, looking both half-asleep and deliriously alert, eyes as wide as an owl’s. He’s got a baseball bat in hand and pillow creases on the side of his face.
He backs away when he sees her. “Kiara?” His voice is so hoarse that it brings Kiara back to reality, and she realizes exactly what she’s doing. “What the fuck?”
She follows him into the room, deflating, ready to apologize profusely for waking him up in the middle of the night like a crazy woman. But then JJ emerges behind him, barefoot and confused, wearing another ridiculous cut-off shirt in a blue that matches his eyes this time, and it knocks all the sense out of her again, her anger returning in full force.
“Kie?”
How fucking dare he?
“Where the fuck were you?”
“What?”
Kiara closes the distance between them, finger poking JJ in the chest. “I go and fucking wait for you at the vending machine and you don’t even show up?”
Not even the taut muscles under her finger can distract her. Well, not fully.
JJ’s brows push so close together, she swears his eyes cross. “What?” His expression melts into something full of regret, immediately. “Fuck, did we agree to meet up?”
He sounds so sincerely torn up about it that it drives all the fight out of Kiara, her anger making way to guilt.
“No,” she mutters, “but—"
“No?”
When she looks up at him, she knows the guilt flaring in her chest is reflected in her eyes. “No.”
JJ’s expression turns to something more sour, eyes harder than they were seconds before. But he doesn’t look like he’s written her off, yet. Not like she probably would have, if the roles were reversed. “Well then how the fuck was I supposed to know I was supposed to be there?”
He sounds frustrated, more than anything. Like he’s trying to understand.
Well, join the fucking club, buddy.
“I don’t know! You’re the one who kept banging on about the story we would tell our kids,” she accuses. “This is what you wanna tell them? That you ditched me without even properly ending our first date?”
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wonders how much Pope is judging her right now. She has a lot of respect for Pope Heyward and his big brain, and there are certain aspects of her life she’d rather he doesn’t find out about. Like the fact that she’s willing to indulge in the odd Real Housewives episode with Sarah. And that she likes to post thirst traps, every once in a while, because she appreciates an ego boost as much as the next girl. And that she’s apparently not beyond stalking a man she’s known for a day to yell at him for not holding up the end of a fairytale bargain he didn’t even know he made.
The same man who is rubbing his eyes and looking quite unsure about his place in the world right now. “Ditched you—Kie, what the fuck? Weren’t you the one who quite literally shut the door in my face this morning?”
She winces. She did do that.
“Well, yeah, but—"
“But?”
“I panicked.”
JJ blinks. “You panicked.”
Yes, it sounds fucking stupid, she knows. “Stop repeating everything I say.”
“He does that a lot when he’s confused,” Pope interjects, walking to the other side of the room to place his baseball bat down.
JJ groans. Turns towards his friend. “Pope, this is none of your business—"
“You’re literally in my fucking room at the ass crack of dawn.”
“It’s not the ass crack of dawn,” JJ barks at him, sounding a lot less collected than he did when addressing Kiara, and for the first time, she realizes just how much she’s getting to him, and how hard he’s been trying not to lose it in her face. “It’s barely midnight.”
She swallows thickly. She doesn’t like being vulnerable, never has. But JJ deserves at least that much. “No, it’s after midnight.”
“Yeah, and that’s still not the ass crack of dawn.”
“Yeah, but it’s after midnight.” Her voice is low, but it’s enough to catch JJ’s attention. His features soften, something less angry and more curious in the way he looks at her. “It’s not the end of the first day, anymore. It’s the next day,” she continues. “And we didn’t…um. You know.”
He blinks once, twice. Frowns for a second before—“Oh.”
Kiara tries to hold her ground. She’s never felt more exposed. “Yeah.”
JJ jerks a hand through his hair, leaving a trail of disheveled locks the color of cornsilk in its wake. He rubs the back of his neck, then turns back to Kiara.
“Look, I know I maybe came off as someone who actually knew what they were doing last night, but I was floundering for most of it,” he admits. A nervous chuckle bubbles past his lips, and Kiara realizes he’s meeting her halfway. He’s letting his guard down too. “I wasn’t even sure if you really liked me back.”
Her eyes widen. Sure, she tried to save face and play hard to get for most of the night, but she was eating up his every fucking word, there’s no way he couldn’t see that. Does he think she would’ve gone to see a fucking haunted house in the middle of the night with any other part-stranger she only met an hour before?
It’s her turn to laugh. “You knew I was checking you out.”
“Yeah, but that was before we spent any time together,” he argues.
“And then Sarah ratted me out about the texts.”
He half-sighs half-laughs. It’s endearing as hell.
“Well, yeah, but you also kinda locked me out of your room right after,” he counters, and Kiara winces again. “Without giving me your number, or your full name, or any indication that you actually wanted to see me again,” he lists off. “I can take a hint.”
That was really not her finest hour.
She rubs her forehead. “Not the hint I wanted you to take,” she mumbles. Then she looks up at him again. “Like I said, I panicked.”
“You pan—"
“JJ. I swear to fucking god, if you’re going to rep—"
“Fuck, sorry, sorry,” he jumps in immediately, holding out his arms to touch her shoulders, then dropping them immediately, like he’s worried he overstepped. Kiara wants to tell him that he didn’t. That she wants him to hold her, and she wants to hold him back, if that’s okay with him. “I’m just, confused. What you would panic about.”
Really? What would she panic about? How about the fact that she has always considered herself a pragmatic girl with a good head on her shoulders, until a stupid surfer dude type with dumb combat boots and the longest eyelashes she has ever seen strolled through her campus and stole her Snickers bar, and she spent the next 12 hours weighing the pros and cons of flying over the to the East Coast twice a month with Sarah. Just until she graduates in five months.
“I don’t have the best track record,” she tells him. “Usually when something feels too good to be true, it’s because it is.” JJ’s face splits in the widest grin he’s given her since she got to the room, and she’s momentarily distracted by how fucking bright it is, until she realizes what she actually said. “No—”
His eyes are positively shining. “I’m too good to be true.”
“Absolutely fucking not.”
His smile is fucking contagious is the problem, so denying it when she has to forcibly bite on her lower lip to keep her teeth from showing doesn’t give her all that much credibility.
He flicks the drawstrings of her hoodie, fingers hesitant, careful not to overstep. “You think I’m excellent.”
“Absolutely not,” she insists. “You’re an ass,” she adds, slipping up and full on laughing on the last word.
Great work, Kiara. Very convincing.
JJ cocks his head to the side, smile softer now. “But an ass you like.”
Yes. So fucking much, it’s quite frankly concerning.
“Maybe,” she allows.
“For the record,” JJ says, ducking his head and lowering his voice, “I’m not entirely convinced this isn’t a dream.”
She frowns. “Why would it be a dream?”
“Because a very hot girl who is entirely out of my league and way too smart for me is banging on my door in the middle of the night.”
Oh.
She realizes belatedly what he’s telling her – that’s it’s just as much of a big deal to him. That he’s scared the possibility is actually just a mean trick too.
“It’s technically my door.”
Fuck. She forgot anyone else was in here.
JJ groans again, craning his neck to look at his friend. “Pope, will you mind your fucking business?”
Pope crosses his arms over his chest, glaring at them. “This is my fucking business. You’re literally interrupting my sleep.”
“Pope,” JJ says before Kiara can react, turning away from her and looking at his best friend. “Please,” he pleads, voice low, like he doesn’t want her to hear. “I have never in my life asked you for anything—"
“You literall—”
“Not like this, Pope.”
Kiara can’t properly understand what transpires between them after that, in part because JJ has his back somewhat turned to her, but mostly because whatever silent conversation he and Pope have is the sort of telepathic exchange that only two friends who have known each other all their lives can have.
JJ turns to Kiara with a smile on his face even before Pope huffs.
“This is sickening,” Pope grumbles. He shoves past them, then turns to point a menacing finger their way. “I’m going to find something to eat.”
JJ grins. “I hear there’s a vending machine downstairs!”
Pope flips them off as he walks out the open door, slamming it behind him with all the force a distressed squirrel possesses.
Kiara laughs, something light and giddy floating in her chest. She feels a light tap on the side of her temple. Turns in time to see JJ’s finger poking her forehead.
“Ouch!” She shoos him away, flicking his finger away with her palm. “What was that for, dumbass?”
“Just checking that you’re real.”
Fuck, he’s cheesy.
And she likes him for it. Who is she?
She grins, rubbing her forehead. “And you could not think of a better way?”
JJ shrugs. “The nose felt more invasive.”
She shakes her head, trying to curb her smile. She’s about to do something she never thought she would do. “Wow, you really are a dumbass, huh?”
JJ holds a hand to his heart. “Hurtful.”
He looks confused when she approaches him, but then she closes the distance to press her lips to his, and he only flails for a moment before he wraps an arm around her waist, his other hand snaking up her neck, thumb grazing her jaw in a way that makes her melt entirely into his touch. She’s kissing someone she didn’t know two days ago, and the only thing that’s weird about it is how fucking familiar it feels. Like they’ve done this before, or something. Like the way his tongue feels against her bottom lip and the way she grips the front of his shirt to tug him closer are things her body already understands, even if they ignite something in her she didn’t even know was there.
When JJ pulls away, it’s only to smile against her lips. Fuck, even that feels better than anything she’s felt before.
She mirrors his expression. “What?”
He pulls away far enough for their eyes to meet, but keeps his hand firmly on her face, thumb fitting in the corner of her mouth.
“I get to tell my kids their mom was banging on my door at the ass crack of dawn because she was so desperate to kiss me.”
And he’s grinning, and she wants to punch him but also kiss him.
“I hate you, I hope you know.”
He shrugs. Tugs on her waist to bring her closer, and she’s putty under his hands. Much like he is under hers, she suspects. “We can work around that.”
They better.