Chapter Text
“Dude, would you chill out?” John B hisses, then smiles and tips his solo cup at the cute blonde who couldn’t quite look away from the two Pogues crashing Chelsa Harris’s yearly blowout event at her parent’s beachside mansion.
“I’m chill, man, so chill.” JJ cranks his ring around his finger. “Like, so chill if you took a big aquarium of water from the north pole and dumped a bunch of ice in it? ‘N then lowered me in smoking a bong or something, you couldn’t get me any chiller.” The ring twists around his finger again, and he doesn’t even notice the blonde girl sneaking another glance at his arms. “How’d you swing us invites again, exactly?”
John B takes a quick drink and winces. Tastes like ass. “Ah, you know.”
“So we’re crashing. Great. I can’t get in a fight tonight, bro.”
“No, no, it’s not crashing.” Glancing around the pool deck, John B nudges JJ closer to the dark side by the beach. “Chelsa invited me.”
“For real?” JJ stops cranking at his rings long enough to look John B in the eye. They’re finally at an equal height and John B’s still not quite sure what to do with it.
After years of being short as hell, JJ’s body cut him a break and shot up this summer, just in time for high school. Which is good, right? Because JJ’s always been scrappy, but some of the Kooks older than them saw the way JJ wore his clothes down to holes and weighed seventy pounds soaking wet as a reason to toss him around.
Now that JJ’s got some height, that should stop. John B won’t have to be up his ass all the time to make sure he doesn’t look like an easy target. Not that JJ ever was, but whatever. The height’s a good thing. It is.
“As a joke?” JJ squints, then smirks and tosses his arm over John B’s shoulder. “Or was she lookin’ to get a little freaky with a Pogue?” JJ jostles him, a little too hard, and John B’s not mad about the growth spurt, he’s not.
“Oh, I don’t know, JJ,” John B says flat as he twists JJ’s arm off his shoulder. “Maybe she likes my personality.”
JJ snorts. “The personality of your dick.”
John B shoves him and a shout goes up, but not over in their darkened side of the expansive patio. No, this comes from the pool house, as one of the seniors comes parading out with a longboard held over his head.
“Ain’t they never seen a board before?” JJ mumbles as a cheer breaks through the party. The senior winds between the impromptu dancefloor, past the hot tub, weaving between dancers and drinkers and clusters of talkers, working his way towards the beach.
“Don’t think he’s going surfing, J.” John B watches two other dudes haul a big metal oil drum after the senior, staggering from the weight or more likely, the booze, cheering and whooping and gathering a trail of stragglers in their wake. Excited stragglers, mostly upperclassmen, hauling along freshmen who look as confused as John B feels.
JJ steps toward the commotion.
“Dude, maybe we shouldn’t—”
“Yo gather ‘round losers and show me which of you can surf!” The shout comes, and okay, yup. There goes JJ. The kid loves surfing more than weed and, well, weed’s practically a positive family tradition for the Maybank clan. Running it, smoking it, growing it—lacing it with coke for personal use or laundry detergent to sell, Maybanks do it all, do a lot, and from a very young age.
“Damnit, JJ,” John B mutters and slides after him. What else can he do? JJ pokes at trouble and John B hauls him outta it has been the motto of their entire friendship… except for that patch this last summer where it was ‘I don’t ever want to see you ever again, John B’ and the solid three months where JJ hadn’t.
Maybe that’s why John B hesitates to find JJ in the crowd, for all that his gaze lands on him immediately, the way it always does. Sure, they patched things up before school started, and don’t get him wrong, John B’s glad for it! It’s just…
Hearing JJ say he hates him makes John B wonder if JJ ever cared at all.
‘A one-sided relationship will never work,’ Kiara told him the other day. Granted, she was talking about his kinda dating/not really dating thing he had with Kim from math class, not his best friend, but ever since the summer, since that night JJ showed up crying, and then all the days since when JJ showed up joking around like those three months never happened, John B’s felt… off.
Tense. Nervous. Like the sand might give out from under his feet.
“Dude, c’mon,” JJ says from his elbow, because JJ’s circled back for him. Of course he did. They’re best friends.
John B shoves anything else away.
When they push through the upperclassmen to the cleared circle on the beach, they find the seniors digging a hole in the sand. The oil drum gets planted sideways, a quarter of the way under, and now, with the top sticking out, John B can see one whole side’s been bent to more of a point.
“Here we go!” yells the senior, and the older teens whoop as he balances the longboard on the pointed metal edge. “Now all my lil freshman babies out there, take a nice long look because you are seeing history. Tradition!”
“A bunch of drunk fucks!” someone yells and the senior laughs.
“Hell fuckin’ yeah, baby!” He downs the solo cup eager hands pass him and chucks it in the direction of the interruption. “Now shut the fuck up, here’s how this works. Take a shot, balance on the board. Whoever stays up the longest gets a lovely bottle of Don Julio—”
“So y’all’s asses better not cheat!”
“You cheat we dump you in the ocean. Now who’s up first? Tony?”
As the chant starts up, ‘Tony, Tony, Tony,’ rolling through the group, JJ nudges at John B. “I think I can do it,” he says, which is—objectively—a terrible idea.
Because while John B wasn’t lying, Chelsa did invite him—he might have left out how she vomited on his shoes immediately after.
Blackout drunk invites are still invites, sure… but not the kind of invites where you try to show up a crowd of drunk upperclassmen who can buy your life five times over. On their allowance.
If JJ falls—which he might, not from the booze or nothing, but JJ tends to trip over air and eat sand even when he’s sober—they can kiss any chance of the rest of their high school experience going easy goodbye.
If JJ wins—which he might, JJ can surf like the ocean’s paying him to do it—then they have a crowd of Kooks who just got taken down by a scrawny Pogue with holes in his tee shirt and a buck fifty to his name.
Bruised pride is a nasty thing.
Kooks are even nastier.
Even if they win, they still lose.
“JJ—” John B snatches at his arm, but JJ yanks away from him. See that’s the problem with the growth spurt thing: it’s a hell of a lot harder to haul JJ outta trouble when they’re at an equal weight class. “Damnit.”
JJ gets to the front just in time to watch Tony faceplant off the board. A girl gets up next, drains the shot and lasts almost twice as long as Tony. The girl after her lasts half. JJ watches them all with a narrowed, excited look.
Person after person, cheer after boo, the game goes on. No matter how many bets are placed, peers are pressured, or drinks are drank: everyone eats sand eventually. Then the senior who brought out the board says, “Yo, you wanna try, freshman?” and growth spurt or not, John B’s gotta pull JJ outta there.
Only, he’s not talking to JJ.
“Careful bro,” Rafe Cameron tells the senior. “Topper placed in the Mid Atlantics.”
“Dude, shut up. It was nothing.” Topper looks flushed and pleased and vaguely punchable.
(Topper always looks vaguely punchable if you ask John B.)
“Not nothing.” Sarah Cameron, Topper’s kinda unfairly beautiful girlfriend, goes up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek. “Give it a shot, babe.”
Babe. Gross. John B goes to share an eyeroll with JJ, but JJ’s too busy squinting at where the seniors hold the board still while Topper gets up. Sarah passes him the shot, he downs it, the spotters let go, and the timer starts.
Topper’s… not bad, as much as John B hates to admit it. In fact, he’s so not bad, he’s beating everyone else. It sucks.
The seniors don’t seem to think so.
“Yo, look at the kid go!”
“Fuckin kids, man.”
“He’s beat your ass, Jeremy.”
Yeah, well Jeremy took eight seconds to faceplant, so, not that impressive.
“Whoo! Go Topper!” Sarah bounces next to John B, all flushed and excited. He kind of hates it. Seriously, how’d Topper convince a girl like that to take him seriously?
Finally, Topper shifts, tries to correct, and ends up jumping into the sand. Finally.
“New leader!” the senior announces over the cheering. Topper, red faced and beaming, kisses Sarah in front of everyone. It’s kinda perfect, in a white bread, cookie cutter, oh thanks dad for the Porsche kind of way.
He’s still fucking punchable.
“Fucking best surfer here!” Rafe throws an arm over Topper’s shoulder and yanks him close. “Piss off Sarah. We gotta get my boy some drinks!” Rafe shoves out of the circle…
And right into JJ.
JJ doesn’t go sprawling, like he would’ve last year, but he does get shoulder checked back a step. Something the senior notices.
“Hey kiddos, no fucking fights on the beach.”
“Wasn’t fightin’.” JJ’s drawl comes out…noticeably strong. It’s trouble.
‘Cause there’s this thing about JJ, where no one notices him. He can slip through a crack like nobody’s business. But once you do notice him? Good luck tearing yourself away.
Rafe steps back. “You want to go, Pogue?” he offers, and John B might shove a few girls to get beside JJ. Because Rafe’s offers? Yeah. Not really an offer.
“JJ—” John B reaches for him, but it’s too late.
“Sure,” JJ says. “Gotta get someone up there who ain’t a Kook.”
Oh, John B’s gonna kill him.
“Dude,” he hisses, but JJ waves him off.
“’s fine. It’s a surfboard, how hard can it be?”
JJ means it, that’s the problem. Because though his expression stays all even and unbothered, he’s got this tempered excitement sparking around his eyes, all lit up and trying not to be. John B could tell him no and JJ would—well that’s just it.
John B doesn’t know anymore, not after the summer.
What if he tells JJ it’s a bad idea and JJ does it anyway? What if he gets his ass kicked by a bunch of butthurt Kooks and John B’s gotta take a few to the face in order to manage, ‘I told you so’ through a busted lip? Or, worse, what if John B just stands by and watches, because JJ told him to fuck off the last time he tried to protect him? The sand shifts and slides under John B’s feet.
Finally, John B groans. “If you get us kicked out, I’m gonna kill you.”
With that promise, JJ grins at him, so bright John B’s almost convinced he made the right decision.
Almost.
“Yo JJ,” Rafe goads, “Get permission from daddy yet?”
JJ steps up to the board. “You wanna call John B Daddy? Didn’t see that coming, but you know I don’t judge…” Rafe makes a snatch for him, but the guys are already holding the board still so JJ can clamber up. He braces his feet, eyes going focused and still the way they only do when he’s surfing.
John B passes him the shot.
“Bottoms up, bubba.” His fingers press against JJ’s as he takes the cup. JJ shoots it, crumples it, and tosses it.
(If the cup happens to hit Rafe in the face, then that’s no one’s business.)
The spotters release the board, which should start JJ’s time. Only John B watches one of Rafe’s friends push down instead of letting go. Jesus Christ. Not even a second in.
The board tips, but JJ doesn’t fall. No, he makes some invisible shift in his weight and the board balances. Stabilizes. “Woah,” Sarah Cameron says at John B’s side. “He’s good.”
John B snorts. “You should see him in the water.”
Sarah smiles at him, and it’s kinda perfect, in a never met, hands brush, I think I could fall in love with you kinda way. A shout snaps him back.
“Dude what the fuck?” Someone yells over the hollering as JJ lifts one leg in the air.
He doesn’t fall.
“Oh, boy,” John B mutters. See this is what he meant, about the noticing thing. JJ’s got the whole group glued to him, cheering, yelling, counting with the timer. And he’s not even looking at a single one of them. John B’s gonna kill him.
After a long, precarious moment, JJ gets his foot back down and grins at John B.
“Looking good, Js,” John B calls, then, “He’s so fucking dumb.”
Sarah elbows him in the side. “Jealous?”
“Of the ass kicking he’s gonna get from your brother? Not really.” The board makes another tilt, but JJ rebalances.
“Oh shit, Top!” John B hears behind him. “He might actually take you.”
Topper’s friend is right. The minutes have been counting up, and JJ shows no sign of wavering. The mess of them press closer, the circle getting smaller as the seconds until JJ beats Topper’s time flick away one after another.
20
“He’s gonna do it!”
18
“Taken out by a Pogue, goddamn.”
15
“C’mon JJ!” Sarah shouts, and shrugs at John B’s surprise. “He’s good, and Tyler totally tried to fuck him over at the start.”
7
JJ wobbles.
6
JJ stabilizes.
5
Everyone’s yelling.
4
He’s almost done it.
Almost.
Because at three, as the bodies press close and the sweat shines on JJ’s face, Rafe Cameron reaches out and knocks the longboard.
JJ staggers as the board jerks, keeps himself in the air for the shout of ‘two!’, and goes crashing into the sand before the clock hits one.
“Dude! You tripped him!” John B shouts, but Rafe throws his hands up, all smug innocence and untouchable reputation.
“Don’t be a sore loser, Routledge,” he says, and when John B looks around the group that cheered for JJ only moments before, he finds no one paying attention.
“Anyone else? Going once, going twice, and freshman Topper Thornton wins the fucking year!” the senior hollers out and Topper flushes and tugs Sarah away and shouts with everyone else at the grand fucking winning champion of the fucking year.