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With bleary eyes and a spinning head, JJ trudged up the dock, bedraggled and battered. His shirt and shorts soaked through and his frame heavy with exhaustion. Groff’s words ran in dizzying circles in his head as salt water dribbled into his eyes and his legs wobbled beneath him.
I'm your father, JJ
Those words had been stuck on repeat for the past 80 minutes straight, right from the moment they’d reached his ears, through the futile swim he’d attempted to make to shore, and they hadn’t left even when a kind group of joy riders dropped him safely off outside the Wreck.
Had he just traded one shit Dad for another?
Groff was lying. Surely…but then why had Luke all but confirmed it?
Why would Luke put him through such hell as a kid for no good reason? Why not just abandon him on some doorstep if he wasn’t even his? Why had he ached for so long to be accepted by a man who wasn’t even his blood?
The pungent aroma of grease, fish and spices tugged on his heart strings and yanked him out of his daze.
Kie.
JJ’s spiralling mind cut him a break for a brief moment.
Kie would know what to do.
JJ pressed on in hopes of a warm smile and a full belly. He could taste the crab legs now and imagine the warm gumbo soothing his throat. Sure, Mike isn’t his biggest fan, but his state of disarray would be reason enough to take pity on him, right? I mean, he looked like hell.
Before JJ could even set foot on the bottom step of the rickety stairs, a blur of grey and brown came flying at him.
“You sneaky little bitch!”
Unseen hands haul him back down and fling him against the nearest wall. The blow knocks the air out of his lungs and tosses his head about in a dizzying spin.
“What the fuck…” his sleep deprived brain struggles to latch onto the face in front of him and make sense of the string of angry words tumbling out of it’s mouth.
“You knew. You knew what I was working on and you just had to fuck it up”
“Rafe…” JJ sighed as those familiar, wide lemur eyes finally came into focus. Blue and blinding like a glaringly bright morning on a hungover Saturday. JJ can’t help but snark back at him with an exhausted, lopsided smirk. “Enlighten me! What have you been working on?”
“Don’t play coy!”
“Noone gives a fuck about your little passion project, Rafey, didn’t you hear? We’re gonna get kicked out of our house!” JJ shoved him off, but Rafe quickly pinned him again.
“I’m dealing with it.”
“Sure you are!”
“I’ve been working on this for weeks, you little shit, and you just swoop in and take it!” JJ squirmed as Rafe lingered too close to his face, ranting and raving like a rabid dog. “God, you should be grateful I’m even trying to help you idiots keep your silly little shop!”
“Help us? Please!” JJ rolled his eyes.
“You screwed me, Maybank. Again”
“What the hell are you talking about?” JJ finally managed to wrestle his way out of Rafe’s vice-like grip, the weather boards of the wall leaving deep burning indents in his back that would bruise. Rafe conceded very little ground, still panting, eyes sharp and furious.
“The old man left it to you.”
JJ’s blood ran cold, and the world slipped off its axis for the third time this week. Groff and Luke had been bad enough. Now this.
“That zombie crackpot thought Sure!” Rafe continued, “ Why not invest in a scrawny little nobody! Not his son-in-law. Not a hippy little nature reserve Greenpeace thing. You!”
“I don’t need this right now…” JJ sighed, too tired to fight and too tired to care. He attempted to shove past the Cameron sibling, but he was caught again, this time by the throat.
“You swear you didn’t know?” Rafe lifted JJ up to his level, his grip tightening on his airway, and JJ’s toes just managing to keep hold of the ground.
“It’s news to me, cupcake,” JJ manages to joke through the pain, and Rafe scoffs and drops him in a heap at his feet. JJ forced a laugh through rasping gulps of air. “Jesus, Rafe! Do you honestly think I’d be out here looking like this if I just found out I was a secret millionaire!?”
Rafe scoffs and storms off in a huff.
Rafe’s lost track of how many hours he’s been staring at the map of Goat Island splayed out on his table as night set in around him. Maybe it’s the scotch in his hand or the gentle bobbing of the boat beneath his feet or the soft yellow light off the lamps dotted around his makeshift office, but time feels slow and hazy.
“Rafe?!”
Sofia finally shakes him out of his daze. His eyes stay fixed on the outline of the Genrette house etched onto the map, surrounded by acres and acres of land. Vast, varied, and valuable land all wasted. All squandered. Even the small patch that he’d planned to keep for himself. It was all gone.
“Babe, come look!”
He shakes himself from that spiral and follows Sofia’s voice out onto the deck. When he finds her, she stands by the railing, clinging to her folded arms and squinting into the darkness. His brows drop at her unease.
“I think there’s someone down there.”
She handed him the binoculars, and sure enough, a dark, shadowy figure sat at the end of the furthest row of the marina. Pogues never set foot this deep into Figure Eight, let alone made it into the private marina without anyone noticing.
“It’s probably just one of the others having a smoke.” Rafe waved it off and pecked the top of her head goodbye, turning back to go inside, but she insisted.
“No, something’s wrong.” Sofia kept her eyes in the binoculars. “Look at his clothes, look at how hunched he is.”
Rafe wrapped his arms around her as he entertained her whim for just a moment longer and followed her gaze across the rows upon rows of glittering lights and swaying ships. “You’re such a scaredy cat.”
“Shut up,” she chuckled and jabbed him sharply with her elbow. “I think he might jump.”
The height of the dock was minimal, and the marina shallow but someone high or drunk could still drop pretty quickly to the bottom. Especially if they didn’t want to fight. He reluctantly untangled himself from her and pecked her cheek.
“I’ll check it out”
JJ pressed a firm hand to his chest to try and press down on the pressure building there. His palm pushed deep and hard against his sternum, but the panic wouldn’t shift. So instead, he lifted the beer in his free hand to his trembling lips and focused on the cool glass and the burning liquid.
The past 48 hours had been a living hell. What was he supposed to do now? Just go back to his old house as if it wasn’t full of memories of Luke? Just smile at Kie and pretend the very foundations of his life weren’t crumbling?
Closing his eyes, his tear-stained cheeks glistened in the moonlight as he listened to the lapping waves, distant winds, and the creaking of the dock. It quietened the chaos in his mind for a brief, blissful moment.
Then Cameron showed up one again to ruin it. “Maybank. Look, man.”
JJ doesn’t turn but drapes a protective arm over his remaining 4 bottles. He feels the wood sag and shift beneath Rafe’s weight as he shuffles about. Good, he made him uncomfortable.
Wait, since when was Rafe Cameron awkward?
“You can’t stay here. You’re freaking out my girlfriend.”
Oh right. The girlfriend. He’d been sent on an errand and wanted to report back and get rewarded.
JJ chuckled and sipped his beer, his words slurring slightly as he sneered at him, “Rafe Cameron has a girlfriend? Wow! Hell really has frozen over.”
JJ enjoyed Rafe’s heavy sigh and shift in tone. All pleasantries falling away. “Just go home.”
That was more like the Rafe he remembered.
“This is home now, buddy boy.” JJ finally turned and waved a hand towards the glittering lights and pristine white boats. “Groff’s here…” he tilted his beer towards the apartments on the shore, spilling some as his movements got sloppier. “That blonde MILF is here. ” Rafe suppressed a smirk at the mention of Hollis, but JJ still caught it and grinned. “Where else would I be?”
JJ kicked back, leaning against the nearest wooden pole with his hands behind his head and his ankles crossed. JJ saw a twitch in Rafe’s jaw as he teetered dangerously close to the edge.
“Which one’s yours?”
“That’s Need To Know.”
“Sure sure….” JJ waved the matter off. It’s not like he really cared to steal from Rafe anyway. He had bigger fish to fry, “Sarah said you weren’t lying about the whole helping thing. That’s very unlike you.”
Rafe scoffed. “Oh, cause you Pogues think you know everything?!”
“Oh, and Kooks don’t? With your silver spoons up your butts…Anyway,” JJ swung his legs back down off the edge of the pier and faced back out to the water. After a moment, he slid the rattling half-empty six-pack towards Rafe in a silent truce. JJ once again provoked a satisfying, exacerbated sigh in Rafe as he slid down beside him and plucked out a bottle.
“What else did she say?”
He'd got him! Hook. Line and Sinker. JJ had to remember to dangle Sarah over Rafe’s head more often.
“That she doesn’t trust you. Who would? Rafe Cameron suddenly showing mercy to Pogues? Our gracious savior!”
“The gold’s not for you. It’s for Sarah. It’s her cut.”
“Right… ’ fairness’ ” JJ muttered beneath his breath, turning back to drinking. Since when did Rafe care about even cuts and promises? He took what he wanted. He always had.
He watched the moon’s reflection wobble and bob on the waves as Rafe cracked his beer open and choked on his first sip with spluttering gags.
JJ grinned.
“That’s disgusting!”
Poor baby.
“More for me, then!” JJ shrugged, hiding his glee, and he tried to slide the pack back, but Rafe was lightning fast. One large hand clamped down on top of the three remaining bottles, and he tightened his grip so they stayed firmly planted directly in the middle. Rafe always got exactly what he was owed.
JJ didn’t hide his laugh this time and relented with raised hands. “It’s your funeral.”
An oddly cordial silence settled in between them for a moment and JJ decided to crack open another drink. The night was still and warm and peaceful.
This wasn’t the first night JJ had spent wandering the island and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Some nights, like tonight, Mother Nature welcomed him with open arms and let him drift through town dry and warm. Other nights she was stormy and unforgiving. Rafe had probably never been out on his ass in his life and even if he had he’d probably still somehow played it to his advantage: a booty call, a bleeding heart Kook Mom, a vacant Cameron Development rental. He’d always come out on top.
A persistent tapping disrupted his peace, and JJ noticed Rafe’s fingers rapping on the boards and his eyes darting back and forth across the sea.
“Dude! Chill! Your brain is so loud, I can hear you thinking from here.”
“Did you talk to Groff?”
A chill shot down JJ’s chest and blew through his gut at that name. The cause of all of his problems. The reason he was here: getting drunk with the second-worst person alive and unable to face his friends. JJ’s jaw clenched tightly.
“Not yet.”
Rafe shifted to face him properly resting his weight back on his hands and his knees encroaching into JJ’s territory. JJ’s eyes shot to his face as his tongue ran over his lips to prepare for what Rafe had really been trying to ask behind that seemingly caring question.
“Would you ever-”
“Nope. Don’t start.” JJ immediately shot down any talk of business and chugged a larger gulp of his beer. God, Rafe really was an opportunistic asshole. See a boy in tears and try to steal his fortune? He probably scammed widows and pissed on babies too.
“Ok ok. ” The Cameron sibling shifted back to his original position sitting on the dock with an overconfident smirk melting away as he sipped his drink “I’ll wait. You’ll come around.”
“You honestly think I’d go into business with you? Of all people?”
Rafe simply shrugged. “You want to live in that Barbie Dream House monstrosity with your friends, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but-”
“It’s your dad’s house. You paid for it.”
“Yeah with shared money that we needed to live. I fucked up.”
“Sell some of Goat Island to me. Pay them back.”
“It’s not about the money. They-”
“It was your home. Not theirs”
Some home.
Living with Luke had been a nightmare, and Poguelandia 2.0 had meant to be a fresh start. A new family but he’d ruined it at the Enduro. Broke their trust. He had to earn that back. He couldn’t just throw money at the problem like some Kook.
Maybe he was a Kook now. Maybe he always has been. Yuck.
“Wait…” JJ eyed Rafe for a moment, “Then why’d you sell Tanny Hill?’
Rafe shrugged it off with his beer halfway to his lips. "Too big”
“Your new house is literally the same size!”
“Since when have you been to my house?!”
“Sofia orders in from the Wreck. I’ve been running deliveries to get Mike to like me?”
“Is it working?”
“No!” JJ sighed exasperated and flabbergasted and the pair burst into laughter between sips of beer. Rafe slipped off his slides to dip his feet in the water as his brows lifted and his lips puckered in an impressed pout. JJ clocked it.
“You thought I didn’t know her name, didn’t you? Wow! Someone’s clearly never worked in hospitality.”
Rafe’s laugh felt a little more hollow the second time around as he rolled his beer back and forth between his palms, shoulders slumping, and his eyes fixed on the brown glass.
“Ward made me,” he mumbled.
“Fuck ‘im”
“Yeah….”
“Dads, man…Right!” JJ slapped his thighs and sprang to his feet. “Should I go so Sofia can get her beauty sleep?”
Rafe was slower to adjust back into the evening, his mind still preoccupied. JJ stared down at him as his eyes watched his feet swirling in the water, and he gnawed on his bottom lip. “Yeah…you should bounce. You can’t sleep here.”
“You’re a lucky man.” JJ slid his cap back on and dusted himself off, leaving the rest of the beers for the couple. “She’s way out of your league.”
“Oh, and Kie isn’t?!” JJ gaped at the sudden petulant snap and scowl from Rafe.
“Geez, I guess we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming! My mistake!” JJ raised his hands in mock surrender. “I meant Kie wants to be a Pogue. Always has. Kie chose this. Did she?”
“Fuck off”
“Gladly,” JJ removed his hat and swung in a low, deep bow. “By your leave!”
He was halfway down the pier before he heard Rafe finally clamber to his feet and tidy up. “You can just cut Groff out, you know?” The bottles rattled at Rafe’s side, and an uneasy wind toyed with the tufts of hair that had escaped JJ’s hat. “Keep it all for yourself. He’s a snake anyway.”
JJ turned to see if he was serious and found him deadpan. He looked so small against the backdrop of the vast dark ocean and the tall yachts and sailboats. The villain of his childhood nightmares and the nemesis of his teens suddenly seemed so insignificant compared to the weight of the world he was carrying.
“Not my style.” JJ shrugged. He knew himself. He knew despite his best efforts to protect his peace or whatever shit Sarah would say he’d struggle to turn his back on his family. Even this patched-up wreck of a family he’d been thrust into.
“Yeah, you should’ve ditched Luke years ago.”
And for the briefest of moments, he understood Rafe Cameron. The worst parts of him, at least. Petty, Scrambling. Cowardice. A recovering addict with a hideous temper, only trapped in the body of an angry young kid rather than a washed-up middle-aged man. He and Luke had known each other. Crossed paths at Barry’s. Maybe they were more alike than JJ had ever realised. Maybe that’s why Rafe had always disgusted him.
Maybe JJ had done what Rafe never could. Gotten out from under his Dad’s thumb and built a life and community out of his shadow.
“Yeah, maybe…” JJ’s eyes wandered to the warm lights glowing in the windows of the super yachts across the way, looking for a petite silhouette in a sweet sundress. Someone who hadn’t ditched Rafe just yet. He remembered what that felt like. Hoping things would turn out differently this time.
His focus slipped for a moment to his friends, the smile faltering on his face. How much more of his shit could they take before they threw him out for good?
JJ shook that horrifying thought away and turned on his heel. No point dwelling on what-ifs. He could tell them everything tomorrow. For now, he just needed to go home and sink into the sofa and sit in their silence and feel whole again. He pushed on towards the exit and waved back over his shoulder.
“See you 'round, neighbor!”