Someone to stay || JJ Maybank

09

"Diver down"

JJ's plan wasn't much of a master plan but no one expected that anyway. In my opinion, it was good enough to work and we should try that. Pope disagreed, obviously, but after a while everyone agreed to it. Even John B.

The plan was to burrow some scuba gear from Cameron's. John B works for Ward, Sarah Cameron's father, and has a key to the boat where they apparently keep all the gear. Then we can easily dive to the boat and see what there is. I don't know what else JJ told John B about his plan than this, but somehow he made John B agree right away. Told him something that made him instantly change his mind about the marsh. Good that he did it but I just wonder how.

So, while John B is stealing, or burrowing, how we expressed it to Pope, we're just waiting for him. For a long time.

"How did it go last night?" Kiara asks me. We're laying in a hammock side to side while Pope and JJ are inside.

"What do you mean?" I ask slightly confused. What about last night? JJ slept over at my house, it's not a big deal. And she shouldn't even know that.

"Did you take JJ home? Did you get any sleep or did you lie awake worrying about John B?"

"Oh, right." She didn't know that JJ slept over, of course. But the truth is I slept better than most nights last night, which sounds horrible since I should've been worrying about John B. Maybe it was the alcohol that made me fall asleep easier. Or then the company.

"JJ slept over at my house, actually. He said he couldn't go home and I just didn't have to energy to fight about that with him so I took him to my place."

"What?" Kie sounds suprised. "I don't think I've ever slept over at yours. I thought you weren't allowed to bring friends over."

"No, that's not it at all! I just do it rarely", I try to explain. We met with Kie only about a year ago. It was summer and she came to our shop. She was looking for something special for her mom since her birthday was coming up. I helped her, and we quickly became close during the gift hunt. I introdused her to the boys, who immediately loved her and welcomed her with open arms. We hung out a lot that summer, but then the school started again.

She went to a different high school than us, kook academy, as we call it. She started acting like every other rich kid here and complitely forgot about us. Then one day she came back, after Sarah betrayed her and all kind of other things happened. But we're over that now, and I only blame her about it sometimes, when I'm really mad at her. Which hasn't thankfully happened yet. The thing is that I was so exited to have another girl in the group and then she just went away. But she's here niw, and I couldn't be happier about it. But that's why Kie has probably never had a sleepover with me at my house.

"But you did for JJ? When he was drunk? That's crazy. My mom would kill me", Kiara continues.

"That's why I didn't tell her."

Kiara just smiles at that. "So is there something going on between you and JJ?"

"What? No!" I quickly answer, slight panic in my voice. Why would she think that?

"Mhm, sure", she mumbles smiling at me from the side. I elbow her to the side. "Ow!" And again. "Okay, okay. I don't know, I just thought.. but nothing."

"I think he likes you anyway", I say before I think about it, and regret saying it as soon as Kie turns her eyes to me and I see the smirk on her face.

"So you do like him", she says.

"I didn't say that", I roll my eyes.

"Why would you even think he likes me?"