spitefulwriters

[spitefulwriters]

JJ Maybank x Kiara Carrera (1.1k)

But sometimes – sometimes, nights were like this. Moonlit curls splashed on a pillow, Kiara salted and still catching her breath underneath him, flushed with a lip-bitten grin.

He leans down for a kiss, slow and lazy. And it tumbles out of his mouth before he can fully assess, murmured against her lips.

“We should go out for a bit.”

Or, JJ and Kiara take on the night with an accidental date night.

Chasing daylight was becoming easier for JJ. Tangling his fingers in golden-streaked curls, sliding his hands on sun-warmed skin, kissing Kiara anywhere, everywhere he wanted. Maybe he held on tighter than he should, with nights lurking just beneath the horizon, fragmented with nightmares and wounds that never quite healed, with ghosts that were never quite silenced.  

But sometimes – sometimes, nights were like this. Moonlit curls splashed on a pillow, Kiara salted and still catching her breath underneath him, flushed with a lip-bitten grin. 

He leans down for a kiss, slow and lazy. And it tumbles out of his mouth before he can fully assess, murmured against her lips. 

“We should go out for a bit.” 

“Right now?” She chuckles softly, runs her fingers through his hair. Says “Where?” but she’s looking at him like she’s already there anyway.

He rolls to his side, slides a hand to her waist as he draws her in. “Sure, why not? The night’s still young.” 

She laughs, but there’s a distant flash in her eyes – because they are too, but it hadn’t felt like that in a while. Still shadowed by blood-tainted treasure, cloudy with restless nights. Overcast with everything that felt far too adult, far too heavy for this moment. 

But he refuses to let it weigh them down. “Let’s take out the boat. The best bitin’s at night anyway.”

JJ remembered that, always. Just hadn’t had the courage to actually go out at the midnight hour, to face what was simmering beneath those dark waves. Not since he was nine and Luke’s weathered hands were wrapped around his as they cast a line. 

Then again, he hadn’t realized he had the courage to do a lot of things. Things that had nothing to do with jumping off motorcycles or cliffs, and everything to do with Kiara Carrera all bare and bronze next to him, snagging his sweatshirt from the pile of blankets at the foot of their bed.  

“Fishing?” Her voice muffles as she tugs it over her head, and he watches, entranced by her hair spilling over the worn Kildare label on the back of his hoodie. “You wanna go fishing right now?”

Propping himself up, he winds an arm around her waist from behind. “No time like the present, carpe diem and all that shit.” He rests his face in the hollow of her neck. His sweatshirt will smell like beaches and flowers for days now. “You in?” 

When she nods and turns to ghost her lips over his, when she says “in,” he wonders if she knows just how all in he really is.

*

It’s something akin to summer at sixteen, Kie’s hand in his as she boards the ship, backpack and cooler in tow. 

It’s not all cloudless and shimmery sun, but he doesn’t miss it, gazing at Kiara now under the crescent moon half-hidden in fog, the starlit canopy dotting her cheeks. Her hand still in his but altogether different. 

Maybe it’s how she pulls him in when she climbs aboard. How she drops a kiss to his lips. How she looks at him over her shoulder, beckoning him to join her at the bow. 

She casts her line, curls lifting in the ocean breeze. “What gave you the idea for night fishing?” 

“Just heard about it,” he says automatically. Clears his throat, tries again. “From my dad.” 

She hums, tucking her hair behind her ear. Her eyes are still fixed ahead, but she leans in a little closer, his beachy sweatshirt warm against his exposed arm. Luke’s not her favorite person, he knows. But she never tried to take those moments away from him, the few he’d told her about. And it made him feel like maybe he wasn’t stupid for holding on to them. 

There were so many things Luke wasn’t right about, that JJ’s tried really hard to undo. But then there were some things, Cut things, like now, their haul bigger than ever, that Luke knew better than anybody. He smiles to himself. 

When they’re done packing up the fish, Kiara crinkles her nose, waves him towards the cabin. They barely fit side by side at the tiny sink, soapy arms up to their elbows, bumping shoulders and matching grins, her eyes finding him from under her lashes. It would’ve made more sense to go one after the other. 

But this doesn’t really make any sense either, Kiara sprawled out on the deck with him, on his own boat, leg slung over his as she takes a pull from her PBR. 

She plays Marley on her phone, lights a vanilla candle she’d left there the other day. She crunches down on carrot sticks, and he beats his record on how many pieces of popcorn he can catch in his mouth in a row. And she whoops and laughs and glows. 

It’s quiet for a time, tangled on a blanket as they blink at the star-fallen sky. Until she finally whispers, “I don’t think we’ve ever really done anything alone before.” 

JJ laughs lightly, brushing flyaways from her face as he looks down at her. “Well, Jesus, I sure hope we were alone earlier when we were–”

She elbows him in the ribs, fighting a smile. “That doesn’t count.” 

“Why not?” he breathes out through a chuckle. “It’s my favorite kind of alone time.”

She narrows her eyes. “I meant, we haven’t really been alone like this.” Shrugging, she runs fingertips along his cheek. “Y’know, like none of the other Pogues around. And not just to, like, go on a beer run or finish a joint or something.” 

“Hm,” he mumbles to her hair, considering. “Just me and you. Alone for a whole evening.”

“Yeah,” she confirms. Angles her face to look up at him, brows furrowed. “Did we just go on a date?” 

He clicks his tongue, eyes scanning the boat. “Food. Candle. Music. Macking,” he lists off on his fingers. “‘Fraid so.” 

She rolls her eyes at the last one, but she buries further into his chest, does little to beat the allegation when she slides a hand under his shirt. “Have you ever been on one?”

He snorts. “Kiara.”

“Okay, well,” she concedes with a laugh. “I haven’t either.” 

It’s not how he’d pictured it, whatever a damn date is supposed to look like, not that he’d ever even pictured one at all. Really, he hadn’t pictured any of this, not in any sort of reality. 

But he’s not sixteen anymore, dreamy when she clasped her hand in his with a shy smile, wondering what it all means. And maybe they carry a lot more with them now, but he wouldn’t trade this reality for anything, seeing all of Kiara, letting her see him. In the day, night, or otherwise.

“It’s kinda nice, though, yeah?” he whispers, the tide lulling them closer. “Just us.” 

“Yeah,” she whispers back, bright-eyed in the dark of night. “Kinda is.” 

[spitefulwriters]

JJ Maybank x Kiara Carrera (1.5k) JJ doesn’t turn down a dare, not ever. Right?

JJ Maybank wasn’t a fan of games.

Not the kind you played at parties, anyway. Even as a kid, he found things like musical chairs and pass the parcel stupid. Who wanted to wait to watch someone else open a gift? Especially one their parents could afford anyway. And what was the point in doing all that running for a seat if he was gonna get in trouble when he fought for it in the end?

And when he got older and stronger and braver and stupider, he found that the novelty of truth or dare wore off pretty quickly too. JJ never was a fan of telling the truth. The truth tended to be quite boring, unless you knew the right questions to ask. So he always picked dare and that grew old too, because JJ never turned down a dare, never said no. He bore the scars and bruises and had the stories to tell after each one, boasting and bragging about jumping from the highest cliff until there weren’t any left for him to climb.

But then one night when the tide was out and the summer had gone on too long, had grown too thick and sticky, some kid he’d once known from Mrs Peterson’s chemistry class chugged a beer, threw the empty can at his feet and dared him to kiss Kiara Carrera.

Even if they hadn’t made that stupid rule back in middle school, JJ was pretty sure kissing one of your best friends was pretty risky business. So he looked to John B and Pope, watched as they both hid their grins behind their drinks and shrugged and JJ suddenly felt like his cheeks were hotter than the sun.

Sarah was by her boyfriend, sitting on the sand between his bent knees and she was grinning, she was gloating and she took way too much joy in telling him and the rest of the group, “you don’t back down from a dare, do you, JJ?”

JJ narrowed his eyes at her, baring his teeth in what was supposed to be a smile but the girl knew differently.

“You know the script, Cameron,” he tried to sound casual, he tried to sound unaffected, but his gaze was wandering and trying to find the head of dark curls he’d last seen at the shore line. “No pogue on pogue macking.”

“Didn’t take you for one to follow the rules,” she shot back, still beaming.

“You could always pass,” the other kid said, smug and smirking at the rest of his friends, already pushing out his chest at the idea of finally getting JJ Maybank to turn down a dare. “Pick truth, you know, the easy way out.”

So JJ downed his beer, cheap and probably stolen and warmed from the lingering sun, and he pushed off of the tree he’d been leaning on to a chorus of whistles and cheers. It was never easy to walk steadily in sand but he did his best to keep his head held high and his shoulders squared as he pressed past the rest of the crowd.

Drunk people, high people, dancing people and people he didn’t know. People from out of town, people from the wrong side of town, people who got too close and tried to steal his attention with bubblegum scented chapstick and the promise of something more behind the old fish shacks.

He didn’t let his eyes stray from the girl at the edge of the beach, bare feet in the shore. Kie had left her sandals and her bottle of beer near a rock and JJ already knew she was following the prints in the wet sand, tiny scuff marks that told her the cluster of baby turtles she’d been watching had finally made their way home.

“Any stragglers?” He called out to her when he was close enough.

Kiara’s head shot up at the familiar voice, the edge in her eyes that told JJ she’d been on guard quickly fading away at the sight of him. She smiled, shrugging, bashful as if she’d been caught doing something embarrassing.

“None that I can see,” she told him. Kie toed at the wet sand, waiting for the boy to stand by her side like she knew he would. “Which is good. Gotta make sure everyone takes their trash home with them though, I’m so sick of picking up beer caps. Do you know that eighty percent of—”

“You gonna kill my buzz with the rest of that sentence?” JJ interrupted knowingly. He said with a lazy smile, his usual charm and flirt and Kie knew by now not to take too much offence to it.

Still, she rolled her eyes but she didn’t continue, her shoulder knocking his as she let her gaze flicker over his face. He looked a little off, a little lost in thought with pink cheeks and guarded eyes.

There was no drink in his hand, no pre-rolled joint tucked behind an ear.

“What’re you doing down here?” The girl asked. “The keg's back that way.”

JJ snorted, squinting out to the sea before running a hand through his already messy hair. He could feel his heartbeat rattle his bones and he was sure his cheeks matched the colour of the water by now, the sky above too. A rosy, hazy pink-red, an almost scarlet at the horizon as the last of the light sunk into the sea.

“What? M’not allowed to come say hi?” JJ huffed, all faux dramatics and offence. “Real nice of you Kie.”

Kie didn’t answer, she just kept looking at him, brows raised. A sweep of the beach told her enough, the rest of her friends huddled around a pile of wind-worn logs with some kids she once knew from school. They were all staring, waiting, whispering and passing what looked like money into each other's palms.

“You have an audience,” she murmured, looking back out to the sea. The waves were turning cotton candy with the setting sun, frothy pink amongst the blue. “Are they expecting a show?”

JJ shrugged, lips downturned and his nonchalant act started to slip. Kie’s arm brushed against his, bare skin on bare skin and the wind carried the smell of sea salt and the girl’s sunscreen.

Coconut, peach and something else that reminded him of an afternoon spent on a surfboard.

“Nah,” he drawled. He wrinkled his nose, tried not to look at her for fear of giving everything away. His task, his act, his feelings. “Just another dare.”

Kiara gave a soft snort and looked back over her shoulder at the group. Sarah waved, a wiggle of her fingers that Kie returned with confusion. “What’s the dare, Jay?”

Silence. Heavy and warm like the summer and it lingered between them in the same way.

“Something stupid.”

Kie raised a brow. “Like, you might get hurt, stupid?”

JJ turned then, swallowing the nervous lump in his throat, swallowing the lie with it. “No,” he murmured. Kie found his gaze, smiling and confused, her brow crinkled. “Maybe,” the boy conceded.

“That’s only slightly concerning,” Kiara joked but she moved a little closer all the same, shoulder bumping JJ’s as the tide touched her toes. “What is it this time? Jumping off that cliff at Rixon’s? Stealing Shoupe’s lawn furniture?”

JJ laughed and shook his head, careful not to move even closer, because if he did, the back of his hand would touch the girls and then it might have not been able to hold his cool for much longer. He could feel Sarah’s eyes on the back of his head. “Nah, nothin’ like that, don’t worry.”

So Kie waited, expectant, the silence filled with the sound of the water and the muffled music that came from way back by the treeline, where the greenery met the sand, an old Bluetooth speaker that came from god knows where. She watched JJ while she stood, the slight breeze that only came out at night picking at strands of their hair. The boy turned golden in the last of the sun, his bottom lip tucked between his teeth and he worried at it, wondering what to say next.

“I feel— I feel like it’s one of those things, this dare,” JJ coughed, voice breaking a little with nervousness. “I feel like I should do it because I want to, y’know? Not because someone else told me I should.”

Kie wasn’t sure what to take from that, what to say. She wasn’t sure at all what kind of dare would elicit this type of reaction from JJ but the boy’s eyes were flitting across her features, searching for something she wasn’t sure he’d be able to find.

“It sounds like it’s something worth waiting on then,” she finally said. Kie licked at her lips, suddenly self conscious. She took note of how her friend watched the movement. “Like something you should do for yourself.”

And JJ couldn’t find it in himself to disagree, dare be damned. He’d take the loss, head still held high and shoulders squared as he made his way back across the sand to the group. He wouldn’t call it a defeat, not when Kiara was walking by his side, shoulder bumping his as she laughed at one of his bad jokes.

He’d wait. He’d waited long enough.

He could wait a little more.

[spitefulwriters]

JJ Maybank x Kiara Carrera (1k) How do you turn a haunted house into a home?

“Hang on, just gotta finish laying out all this plastic that you brought over. Nice to see money hasn’t changed you.” 

JJ barely has time to duck before the still wrapped paintbrush goes flying over his head.

Glowering in the doorway, Kiara holds an unopened can of paint in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. She’s doing that thing where she’s pretending to be angry but is a little too high to keep up ruse. He gives it five - ten seconds, tops - before she gives up. 

“Don’t worry, already signed us up for tomorrow’s beach clean up. We’re leaving at dawn. Knew you’d want to clear your guilty conscience as soon as possible,” she says, a challenging stare lighting up her eyes.

The most obnoxious part? He can’t even be mad at her, ‘cause she’s standin’ there in overalls, bandanna wrapped over her braided hair, in the middle of his living room.

Kiara fucking Carrera, in his house. The same one he never let anyone inside. The same one he had to enter through a window when they returned to the mainland. The same one that used to hold nothing but empty beer cans and pill bottles and the screams of a thousand past screaming fits.

That house.

“Only way I’m showing up to the beach that early is if I got my board with me.” 

She smirks, kneeling down to open the can of paint, fingers covering the suspiciously scrawled White Dove label. “They’re already tied to the surf rack.”

One of these days, he’s gonna stop walking right into her traps. Maybe.

He grabs the painting off the wall, doing his best to keep his calloused fingers away from the delicate canvas. It’s the only halfway decent thing left here. JJ thinks his mom picked it out, has a hazy memory of her crying - with happiness, for once - when they stumbled across it at the thrift store. Luke was sober enough to hammer a nail into the wall, steady enough to hang the painting level over the mantle.

It hasn’t come down since. Not when her favorite dishes were smashed and thrown on the porch. Not when her remaining clothes had been tossed into the yard since she ain’t ever comin’ back for ‘em anyways. 

JJ stumbles, unprepared for the weight of the frame, and takes a shaky step backwards. And then Kiara is by his side, calm and warm and smelling so strongly of coconuts that it makes him think of the island. The thought steadies him, even more than her light grip on his elbow.

His next step is more confident and he manages to turn, painting now securely in his grip. Her hand falls away silently and she retreats, the way she does when she’s trying not to make a big deal out of something. Like she’s trying to defuse a bomb before the spark is even lit. And maybe in the past that would piss him off enough to call her out on it, want to prove that he’s not that fucking fragile, but they just threw out the last of Luke’s shit. He won’t fling anger and pride and resentment back on the walls, not when they’d taken so long to scrub clean.

Instead, he sets the frame down in the kitchen, safely hidden, and returns to find Kiara struggling with the lid. She’s pulled back the curtains in the room, a haze of sunlight filtering in. JJ’s a little surprised to find the place capable of holding so much light, so much space. Maybe there’s no such thing as a lost cause after all. 

Messing with the screwdriver, her brow furrows in frustration as she mutters out a string of curses, JJ only catching every third word. After her second sadistic piece of shit, he snorts out a laugh and joins her on the floor. 

“Alright. Hand it over. This is a man’s job.”

Fury covers her features as she thrusts the tip of the screwdriver at him in what’s probably supposed to be a very threatening manner. Thing is, he knows when Kiara’s about to detonate too. Sometimes, he likes to light that fuse himself.

Sue him.

“JJ, I swear to god, I will walk right back out that -”

He cuts her off with a kiss, the screwdriver jabbing him in the chest before it falls between them, her hand snaking up to his neck. 

Kiara pulls back first, the fire in her eyes changing hues. Slightly out of breath, she whispers, “I hate you.”

“Hate you too,” he replies, throwing on the smile he knows drives her just a little crazy. And it’s not that JJ can’t say I love you. 

He has. He does. He will.

But they’ve figured out there are so many other ways to say those words, ways to show those words too.

JJ investing in his childhood home, working to repair something he could have easily torn down or run away from. Kiara showing up to help without being asked, despite all the shit he’d hurled her way the last time she was here.

Yeah, there are a lot of different ways to show it.

He shows it now by picking up the abandoned screwdriver, leveraging it just right, and flinging the newly opened lid at Kiara’s overalls. She grabs a paintbrush from her back pocket in retaliation, dunking it in the can, and flinging paint right at his face.

“Oh, you’re gonna regret that,” he cries, diving across and tackling her to the ground. Her laughter rings through the living room, nestling into the walls, swirling with the light and dust in the air. 

The house finally starts to feel like home.

-Lydia (SW4)

[spitefulwriters]

your favourite collection of bitches are now on AO3 🖤

[spitefulwriters]

Don’t ever stop writing jiara fics and the smut

we’ll keep them coming 😌

[spitefulwriters]

JJ Maybank x Kiara Carrera (3.1K) JJ and Kie happen to bump into each other at an event. By chance. Totally by chance. 18+

“You’re kidding.” 

Pope’s head turned to look his way, his brows furrowed together slightly at the biting tone in his friend’s voice. He noticed something catching the blond’s attention, found his gaze following to see what had caught his attention. 

Not what.

Who. 

The boy’s face softened and something quite like sympathy shone in his eyes. Not that JJ noticed, not at all. His eyes were locked on the body across the room, watching the figure move amongst the crowd, movements so fluid it almost felt like a dance. And fuck, he didn’t want to look away. 

“JJ,” he murmured under his breath, nudging the boy with his elbow until those blue eyes snapped around to look at him. “Listen, man, I didn’t know she was going to be here—”

But JJ just shook his head.

“It’s fine,” he said like it was true, like he wasn’t gripping the glass with obscenely expensive whiskey in his hand so tight it could shatter. 

Pope didn’t look convinced. “I know the breakup was hard—”

“I said it was fine, Pope,” JJ bit out between gritted teeth. 

Because it was fine. It was so fine. And even if it wasn’t fine, he wasn’t about to show that to Pope. He needed to keep this up. He needed to keep up the facade in front of Pope and John B and everyone else attending this stupid museum gala. He would smile, he would drink this stupid whiskey and he would pretend like the collar of his suit wasn’t cutting off his circulation. 

He would do it because he had to.

“I’m gonna go get a refill,” he announced aimlessly as he tore his eyes away from his friend, clearing his throat a little.

Pope frowned. “But you haven’t—”

He was cut off as JJ downed the rest of the whiskey in his glass, allowing the liquid to burn down his throat before slamming the glass on the table. 

“Like I said,” the blond flashed him a smile. “I need a refill.”

He didn’t give his friend much of a chance to say anything as he wandered away from their table, pushing through the crowd with half-hearted apologies mumbled under his breath. He glanced at the bar, contemplating getting another drink but thought against it. He needed to be as close to sober he could get. 

He needed to stay sharp. 

JJ ignored the questioning looks and the lame attempts of random old, rich people reaching out to talk to him. He knew what they wanted, he knew they just wanted to talk to him just so they could say they did. 

One of The Six. 

That was all they cared about. For his whole life, people cared about his name. They cared that he was Luke Maybank’s son, that he was another Maybank generation of disappointment, that he was just a lowlife that would achieve nothing in his life like his ancestors before him. His whole fucking life revolved around his name. 

And after El Dorado, it seemed like nothing really changed. People didn’t care about him, not a single bit. They just cared about what his name was attached to, like a shiny, new toy hanging in front of them that they were desperate to dig their claws into. They cared about what his name could do for them. 

JJ didn’t know which one was worse. 

JJ didn’t know if it made him a little twisted to miss the lack of expectations people had for him, when he was young and stupid and didn’t realise what the pitying looks from his teachers meant when they saw the blues and purples colouring his skin. 

He just wanted to go back to when he was a fucking nobody to everyone. 

Everyone but her.

“I thought we agreed to wait half an hour.” 

JJ lifted his head from against the wall, blinking his eyes open as the whirling thoughts came to a sudden halt and every cell in his body was screaming for something else. He blinked once, then twice before he let out a shuddering breath. 

Kiara Carrera was gorgeous. 

It wasn’t an opinion or an observation. It was just a fact. A plain and simple fact. Humans needed air to breathe, the Earth revolved around the sun, there were twenty-six letters in the English alphabet and Kiara Carrera was so damn pretty that it made his heart hurt.

She was pretty when she was laying in bed, her curls a mess on her head and her eyes still blinking away the sleep as she reached out for him. She was pretty when she was mad, her nose scrunching and her glare biting him in a way that excited him. She was even pretty when she was sad, those glossy eyes staring at him like he had the answer to everything. 

But pretty didn’t even begin to cover how fucking breath-taking she looked in front of him right now. 

The dress was a deep red, silk and flowing and clinging onto the curves of her body in a way that would make Aphordite jealous. The peak of her skin just made him spiral further, making it a little harder to breathe when he knew exactly how soft and smooth it felt under his fingertips. The way her curls cascaded down her shoulders, hints of lighter strands from the days spent in the sun after hours of surfing the same waves they have been riding for years. 

But it was the lips that got him.

The lips that were the same fucking colour as the stupid dress she was wearing. 

The lips he wanted to fucking feel against him. 

“When have you ever known me to stick to the plan?” He retorted, suddenly wishing he had grabbed the extra drink from the bar when he felt how dry his mouth was. 

Her lips twitched upwards. “Or be patient.” 

A beat passed as they both stared at each other, feeling a million miles away from the gala in the abandoned hallway. They let themselves bask in the moment, in their own little bubble of frozen time before he couldn’t take it anymore. 

“Fuck, I missed you.”

Something in his chest eased the second he wrapped his arms around her, tugging her into his chest as he buried his face into the crook of her neck. He took a deep breath, letting the smell of her vanilla perfume overwhelm him until his lungs were full of it. He felt her sink into the embrace, felt her body sag against his and it was the closest he had ever felt to coming home.

“I hate this,” she murmured as her hands fisted the material of his blazer between her fingers, like she was scared someone was going to pull him away from her. “I really hate this.”

“Me too, baby, me too,” he murmured back, his lips brushing against the junction of her neck that he knew would have her crumbling in his hands in seconds. “But we gotta do it. We can’t risk them knowing, can’t risk them taking you away from me.” 

And maybe that was the hardest part of it all.

JJ was used to acting first and thinking later. He never cared about the consequences when it came to himself, he never really had a sense of self-preservation. It wasn’t that he never valued his life, he just didn’t go out of his way to care about it as much as he should have. But when nobody else really cared for you, was there ever a reason to care about yourself?

But this was different. This wasn’t just about him. He wasn’t the one who would get punished if they found it. 

When he had broken Kiara out of Kitty Hawk, it seemed like a no-brainer. There were no thoughts about the consequences or the repercussions. He just knew he needed to get her out of there, he just needed her. 

The Carrera’s didn’t see it as much. 

Even on their return from El Dorado, even when the rest of the world saw them as heroes and explorers and the best thing to happen to the island—her parents saw it as rebellion. 

And JJ was always in the middle of it.

But with the fear of her parents sending her away—somewhere far away where he couldn’t ever reach her again—they had to play it smart. With the months ticking away until Kiara’s eighteenth birthday, they had to just bite their tongues and keep her parents in the dark until they couldn’t act on their threats anymore. 

Kiara never cared about her inheritance or a trust fund or anything else they could blackmail her with. Nothing mattered more to her than her freedom, and in a few months, that would be all hers too. 

It just really fucking sucked that it meant they had to play this part, had to play into this stupid act. It sucked that they couldn’t even risk telling their friends or anyone else they trusted. It sucked that he had to pretend every day that he had moved on—that he was moving on. 

It really fucking sucked that after years of pining and wanting and yearning, it would be the last few months that really tipped JJ Maybank over the edge. It was like his own personal form of torture to stay away, to keep away when he had gotten a taste of Kiara Carrera before she was ripped away from him again. 

“I know,” Kiara sighed, the words sounding heavier than they ever should from someone as young as her.

“It would make it a lot easier if you warned me about lil’ numbers like these,” he commented after a few seconds, something inside him desperate to see her smile again. 

Kiara snorted and he felt himself grinning at the sound. She pulled back, glancing down at her dress before looking at him with an innocent expression. “What ever could you mean?” She teased, playful and sounding a little more like the Kiara he loved before treasure hunts and meddling parents ruined them. “You can’t tell me this is getting you all hot and bothered, Maybank?”

“You could wear a trash bag and I would be on my knees, Kiara,” he retorted, the words earnest and sincere and her name just sounding like the end of a promise.

Her cheeks flushed but she didn’t look away. “Really know how to make a girl swoon, Jay.”

“Not a girl,” he shook his head, his hands gripping her waist like she would disappear. “Just you, baby.”

“Jay,” she breathed out, finding herself rendered speechless at the hands of JJ Maybank once again. 

It had been far too long since he held her in his arms, since he was able to shamelessly say every thought that came to his head instead of having to hide behind the facade of broken exes. It had been far too long since he was able to tell her, since he was able to see her cheeks flush all pretty and pink and know he was the reason behind it.

His eyes dropped to her painted lips. “We should probably head back to the gala before somebody notices we are missing.” 

She nodded dumbly. “Yeah, probably.”

“We can’t blow our cover, Kie,” he continued, his body moving on autopilot to follow her as she took one step back and then another.

“Of course,” she answered, walking back step by step until her back hit the wall. 

“We don’t have much time,” he whispered, something stronger than desire burning in the pit of his stomach as her tongue darted out to lick her lips. 

“We needed much time,” she retorted, and JJ couldn’t bring himself to care about the voice in the back of his head screaming that it was a bad idea. 

He could go back to moping in his yearning and bubbling feelings later, he could break the facade for just a little while. 

The sound of her moan was muffled the second his lips pressed against hers, his hands engulfing her face like she was his lifeline. In so many ways, she honestly was. 

It didn’t matter that somebody could wander down this random hallway and see them. It didn’t matter that everyone they had been hiding their secret from were only a few walls away. It didn’t matter that it was risky and stupid and an unnecessary danger to their plan. 

It wasn’t a logical decision at all but, then again, he didn’t have much use for logic when it came to Kiara.

“You’re gorgeous,” he breathed against her lips between kisses, his heart thundering in his chest when she let out a delighted noise. His head dropped to her neck, his lips touching every inch of skin he could to cover them with hopeful kisses. “You are fucking breath-taking, Kiara.”

“Jay,” she said, the tone in her voice was some twisted mix of a warning and a plea that thrilled him.

“I meant what I said,” he continued as his hands fisted the material of her silk dress between his fingers as it bunched at her hips. “You could wear anything, baby, anything and it would get me on my knees.”

Her lips parted in surprise as she watched him slowly descend down her body, nosing at her dress until his knees hit the carpeted ground. She pressed herself against the wall like it would help, like it would ground her enough when he lifted his head, his cheeks flushed and his hair dropping in front of his eyes as he looked up at her like a goddamn greek tragedy. 

“Please, baby,” he whispered, breathless and absolutely at her mercy as his hands wrapped around her calves. “I need it, Kie. I need it so fucking bad.” 

She didn’t even realise she had been nodding until he let out a groan, pulling one of her legs over his shoulder as his lips pressed against the bare skin of her thighs.

His hands squeezed the fat of her thighs, basking in the feel of her soft skin under his touch as he pressed one, two, three kisses along her inner thigh. He pushed the skirt of her dress up until it pooled at her waist, until he was able to slot himself between his legs like he had dreamed about pathetically for the last few weeks.

“Shit, baby,” he groaned as his fingers brushed against the waistband of her panties, if they could even be called as much. They were black and lacy and barely made of any fabric, and fuck, it made his head spin.

“Didn’t want it to ruin the dress,” she simply said, a teasing grin on her lips that he just wanted to kiss off her face. 

“You’re a fuckin’ tease,” he groaned, his forehead pressed against her hip but he couldn’t help but smile as she laughed. 

She pushed her fingers through his hair, pulling his head back so she could see the heated look in his eyes. “They are a part of a set.”

His lips parted in surprise. “Kiara.”

“I’ll wear it for you sometime,” she added, blood roaring in her ears as she spoke.

He cocked a brow. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” she nodded, swallowing thickly. “Unless you get us caught.”

His eyes darkened and something mischievous washed over his expression as he grinned up at her. “Better keep quiet then, baby.”

It was fucking sinful to have JJ Maybank on his knees for her. To have him dressed up in a sleek suit that cost more than either of them cared to admit, to have him groaning and panting and pawing at her like he was a starved man who craved her. To have his head buried between her legs, one hand keeping her pushed open and the other pushing the fabric of her panties to the side.

Her head fell back as she slapped her hand over her mouth, a noise whiny and pathetic quickly muffled as she felt his tongue pressing slow, deliberate circles against her clit. Her eyes fluttered shut as he pulled her closer, as she let him because it felt like every cell in her body sacrificed itself to JJ Maybank the second he got his hands on her.

“Shit, Jay, please.” The words slurred together as she felt the coil in her stomach twist, as she felt an overwhelming urge to squeeze her thighs around his head.

“I got you, baby,” he groaned, his nails digging into her skin like she would be ripped away from him, like somebody would take away the taste of heaven away from his lips. His nose brushed against her clit as he glanced up at her, as he watched her chest heave with soft pants. “Atta girl, Kiara.” 

His hands gripped her thighs as she shook under his touch, as her body shuddered with every lick against her pussy. He groaned as she engulfed him completely with her taste and her smell and her moans and everything herherher.

His eyes fluttered shut as her thighs pushed against his ear, as her hands gripped his hair, as her heel dug into his back. His groans vibrated against her shuddering body as she came, as she let herself mutter his name on a loop like a broken record. His whole body burned for this to be forever, for the rest of the world to disappear and leave just the two of them to stay exactly where they were for the rest of their lives.

“Fuck,” Kiara breathed out, her head hitting the wall behind her with a low thump before she huffed out a laugh. “We are stupid.”

“Maybe,” he hummed as he pressed a kiss onto her shaky thighs, and then one more for good measure because he couldn’t bring himself to pull away from her just yet. “But stupid things have—”

“—good outcomes all the time,” she finished with a grin on her face. 

“And this was the best goddamn outcome ever,” he murmured as his hands glided up and down her thighs, like it physically pained him to pull his touch away from her. Maybe because it did. 

“Yeah,” she murmured, a soft expression on her face as she reached down, as her fingertips brushed over his face. “We just gotta ride out this stupid plan for a few months.”

He turned his head, catching her wrist as he pressed a light kiss on the palm of her hand. “Soon, baby. Some outcomes are so good that we just have to wait a little for them.”

“Soon,” she repeated like a mantra, like both of them had been doing every single day. 

Soon. Soon. Soon.

Just not yet.

-Roxy (SW3)

[spitefulwriters]

TWO WRITERS ?!?!1

and counting ✨

-B & R

[spitefulwriters]

JJ Maybank x Kiara Carrera (1.4K) JJ and Kiara living their next life (or, snapshots after El Dorado, a series)

They hadn’t talked about anything that happened at Kitty Hawk. It wasn’t like him and Kiara to say the things anyway. But then again, it was.

Apologies through glassy eyes and shiny smiles. Hands sliding to faces and shoulders, whispered words of wanting. Words he was finally ready to hear, words he could finally say back. 

They hadn’t said it again though, not in the light of day. JJ thinks he could right now, gazing at sunset streaking through curls of bronze and gold. Kiara’s knees drawn up, palms dug in the sand as she leans back and stares at the ocean with a smile, despite the crashing tides they both know are ahead.

She edges closer like she heard it in the silence, sand dusting over their hands as she covers his with hers. She’s always beat for beat with him, often a beat ahead of him. Even when they were just gangly limbs and unruly hair racing on the playground, when they were the last two left to burn down a joint. When he’d hurled beer cans and insults and she said, I love you. 

She floats a grin his way, lays her head on his shoulder. And it’s something, he thinks. Something to tell him it was all real. That she’d pressed her lips to his, that he’d sighed into her hair. That those words were whispered in the woods.

But then, everything else was real too. It all happened – all of it – and nothing’s quite the same now. Tattered loose ends and darkened corners. Lurking ghosts and faceless fathers, bruised arms and locked cabins. No matter the glittering gold that followed them from El Dorado. 

It’s only been a couple weeks, deep wounds and open cuts. Some that festered, that had been there all along. And some torn open, brand new. Some in a good way. 

“You gettin’ in?”

JJ shrugs, rests his head on top of hers. “Only if you are.”

They might as well still be on the far edge of that playground, wordlessly finding a space in the sand as the rest of the Pogues bob up and down in white capped waves. It feels the same for a moment, John B’s wild laughter lifting through the breeze, Sarah’s shriek as she falls off his shoulders. Cleo with arms outstretched, challenging the massive wave rolling through, Pope right by her side with a grin. It’s hard to feel like they’ve lost when it feels like this too.  

They’d found stolen moments like these, legs pressed together on the plane back to the Banks, hands tangled under the table, lips brushing in the hallway. 

It isn’t as if the other Pogues don’t know something’s going on, probably had known for a while now. But JJ doesn’t mind it, having something just for them. He so rarely has anything for himself. 

“John B seems a little better. Sarah too,” Kiara says absently to the wind, like she’s seeing what he’s seeing. The light scattering across the water, even with the dark depths below.

Her eyes flit to the sand, watching the bubbly water edge at their feet. She stares at their reflection and he sees it. The one who’s not really any better. 

It cracks him open in places he thought he’d gone numb, parents deceiving, disappointing, disappearing. But this isn’t him now, this is Kiara. He can’t afford to fall apart – never could, did it anyway – and he slips his hand from hers only to pull her closer with an arm around her shoulders.  

“It’ll all work out.” He couldn’t believe it the last time he heard those words, abandoned and fatherless on a dock – no it’s not…but maybe in the next life. Well, the next life’s here now, and he has to believe it for them.

It’s how she looks at him that terrifies him. Like she believes him too. 

He kisses her, just ‘cause he can, ‘cause he’s spent half his life wanting to. Because he wants to get better at this whole in the daylight thing. Even if kissing it better isn’t the answer. Or maybe it’s exactly the answer they need. 

The Pogues are all but blurs in the distance, but someone focuses in on them anyhow, a wolf whistle echoing across the water. 

Kiara chuckles against his lips, whispers, “I think the jig is up.”

“Whaddya mean,” he murmurs between kisses. “They totally buy we’re friends.”

“Sure.” She laughs, rifling a hand through his hair. “Friends kiss sometimes.”

“Friends totally kiss,” he quips, “just ask JB or Pope.”

“Hey, now–” She shoves at his shoulder, but he catches her arm, drawing her to his chest with a laugh.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” he breathes out, whispers in her hair as he tightens his arms around her, “C’mere. 

She sighs, saltwater hair tickling his cheek as she buries her face in his neck. “You’re not my friend, y’know.”

“Damn, Kie. Only known ya since grade school and all.” 

She pulls back to meet his eyes, a smile quirking on her lips. “I mean you are, of course. But you’re just…” Running a thumb over his cheekbone, she tucks a lock of blond behind his ear. “Y’know?

He hums. Nods. Thinks about how it’s been that way for a long time now, at least for him. “Yeah. You too.”

*

Kiara wasn’t really one to mess with ghosts. Spirits were meant to stay where they belonged. Invisible, hidden. 

Kiara. I need to know you’re okay.

It wasn’t the first message, and it wouldn’t be the last. No hiding from this one. Proof of life, it’s what her mom wants. Probably wants much more but knows better than to ask. 

Sunlight muddles through the kitchen at Sarah’s condo, the condo that they’d said was temporary. Haunted by those ghosts that should remain invisible, stay buried in South America instead of living in vaulted ceilings and subway tile. She knows she and JJ feel the same way, but she doesn’t know if that means they’ll be on their own. They haven’t gotten that far, and yet, she’s gone a lot further with him than anyone else. Thinks, maybe he has too with her, in a way. 

You too, he’d said. And it’s all she needs. JJ, when he’s all tangled bed head, dragging into the kitchen. When he’s gnawing the crust off his toast, crumbles speckling beneath him. When he swoops to the fridge to get a drink, presses his hand to the small of her back. Brushes his face against her hair, if just for a moment. 

It’s the way her back warms from his touch, the way her hair flutters from his sigh. How she wants to hold him and touch him and kiss him, how she knows this hollow feeling won’t be there forever. Proof of life.

She’s known this feeling before, this loneliness. And JJ was there, even when he wasn’t. Maybe it was the same thing that year at the Kook academy that it is now, just the thought of him that sparks her to life. 

It happens sometimes, maybe because she’s seen him unconscious more times than she’d like. An uncontrollable urge to watch him breathe or hold a palm to the thrumming in his chest. Feel his warmth and his life. Sometimes in odd hours of the night, sometimes in the middle of breakfast. She thought she’d made it so she didn’t need anyone. 

“God, I love the burned pieces,” he mumbles through a mouthful of toast, pouring his juice. He’s barely put the drained glass down when she’s got her hand on his cheek, crowding his space. He’s caught off guard, but he’s quick. Snakes an arm across her back, fists her curls in his hand. When his lips find hers, she reminds herself that whatever they have, whatever they are, it’s hers. She chose it, when her world had been nothing but pre-made plans.

He looks at her like he does, and she thinks about that lonely year again, when she thought she’d never get this look back. Thought they’d had their last night in the hammock together, buzzed and flushed and clumsily pressed together. How he never left her, even when they weren’t talking, when she was sure he hated her. 

She doesn’t owe her parents. She doesn’t hate them either, hate isn’t the word. Later, her thumbs hover over her phone’s keyboard, mentally listing off her lasts with them. 

I’m okay, is what she types, finally. It’s partially true. 

-Reese (SW#2)

[spitefulwriters]

Your writing was amazing! Keep the jiara fics coming!!!

thank you! 🥰

-bellamy

[spitefulwriters]

Please write a part two to your Jiara fic. Let them kiss!!

soon, maybe!

-bellamy

[spitefulwriters]

JJ Maybank x Kiara Carrera (2.6K) all the times they could have kissed, but didn’t. (a series, maybe)

JJ slept like the dead, usually.

Normally half dressed, when he could be bothered, stripped down to jeans, sometimes less when it got too hot. Most of the time he didn’t make it under the sheets, bone tired from surfing, from fighting waves or fighting his father, passed out on the mattress at a weird angle to avoid that one broken spring.

Face down on a pillow, salt still in his hair, an old fan aimed at his naked back, a silly amount of lukewarm air blowing onto his sunburnt skin.

He’d sleep through the TV, the angry blare of it, the smash of an empty beer bottle, all too used to the sounds that became a fucked up kind of lullaby. Alarms didn’t budge him, not really, not anymore. He would have never made it to school if it weren’t for his dad’s foot against the door, an offbeat drum, angry and shattering.

So JJ had absolutely no idea how the tiny rocks against his window pane stirred him from sleep.

One hit, two hit, three; the sound almost like the beginning of a rain shower and then it stopped. JJ groaned, nose rubbing at the pillowcase, brow wrinkling.

Something told him to get up.

Fists found the mattress, another groan, a stifled yawn and then he was pushing himself off of the bed, sheets tangled around his knees and he tripped on one abandoned boot before he made it to the window. Eyes half closed, heavy with sleep, he cracked it open, looking out into the dark, the marshes still alive, buzzing under the moon. He couldn’t see anything, not at first, not when the sky bled into the water and the greenery became inky black, shadows on shadows with nothing in between.

Then, from the treeline, a girl appeared. Just ten feet away, too scared to get too close, wary of the glow from the television bleeding from the living room blinds, slants of blue light between broken slats. JJ thought he might’ve been dreaming.

Maybe he was.

Kiara.

Half dressed in pyjama shorts and an old sweatshirt that had some kind of fishing logo on the front. It was too dark to see, but the boy thought it might’ve been his, maybe once.

JJ blinked and dragged a hand through his hair, wincing when his fingers got caught in the ends, salt and sand falling onto his shoulders and he stared at the girl in her unlaced sneakers, no car, no bike, no nothing around her.

“What’re you doing?” He hissed, voice rough with sleep, cracking with anticipation. He could hear the western movie that was playing from the other room, but he couldn’t hear his dad snoring. Not yet. “What the fuck, Kie?”

Kiara edged forward, eyes wary, stare flickering from JJ’s face and back to the front door of the trailer. When nothing moved, when no one appeared, she walked through the grown grass and curled her fingers around the window edge. She was close enough now that JJ could see the heaviness on her face, the tired looking bruises under her lash line, the weight on her shoulders.

Kie’s chin jumped the sill and her fingers were so close to the boy’s, close enough that her pinky almost grazed his thumb and it wasn’t cold outside, not in the slightest, but the boy seemed to hold the sun under his skin and Kiara wanted to run to it.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she whispered, her voice too awake, too alert for two in the morning.

JJ waited, knowing there was more. He could see it in her face, the bitten skin at her bottom lip, the pulled out curl that fell into her eyes, the one that held more frizz than the rest.

“Parents are fighting again,” Kie continued, staring past JJ, into his room, gaze studying the posters and photos on his wall as if she could hide her feelings amongst them all. “It’s stupid. I just— I wanted to get out of the house.”

Maybe before - years ago, maybe only months ago - JJ would’ve teased her. Made some kind of comment, something less than sensitive, something crude about seeking him out in the middle of the night, something destructive about not choosing John B or Pope over him.

But now— now?

JJ pressed his lips together and nodded. His thumb shifted, just once, grazing the back of Kie’s hand before pulling away and searching his floor for a shirt. He yanked one on, buttoned up his jeans, grabbed a cap to cover his bed mussed hair, shoved bare feet into shoes and ushered her backwards without looking at his bedroom door or thinking about what lay behind it. Kie moved, watching as the boy slid open the window a little wider, throwing one leg out before the other and dropping almost silently to the ground, like he’d done it before.

Of course he had. He’d done it plenty of times.

Just not for her.

They didn’t speak as JJ straightened up, boots crunching in the grass. Eyes locked, the boy lifted a finger to his lips and offered Kiara his other hand. She took it like she always did, with no hesitation at all, and JJ led her across the marshes, through the buzz of the insects, away from the man in the living room. They walked until overgrown grass and reeds turned into a dirt path, forged by night time walks just like this.

Neither thought to take JJ’s bike, neither thought about a car, or the Twinkie. They just walked, heading out of the marshes until the fisherman shacks were left behind, until they couldn’t hear the drone of cicadas as loudly, until they were crossing the road that took them out of The Cut and under streetlights.

They walked until tarmac turned to sand and the empty beach lay before them and like it had already been agreed, they both stopped to toe off their shoes, digging the soles of their feet into the sand just to see if it had kept any of the afternoon heat. Kiara walked and JJ followed, not speaking, not yet, not until he knew the time was right.

He’d once been a stupid kid, a teenage boy without much common sense when it came to girls and feelings - and shit, maybe he still was - but JJ Maybank was a grade A student when it came to Kiara Carrera. So he watched and he waited, following the girl in the sand, his footprints covering up her much smaller ones as she led them to the shoreline, where the waves lapped at the beach and created the best kind of white noise. A rush of water, the most pretty kind of itch that scratched at his brain and he thought Kie felt the same, because when she stopped and he chanced a look at her profile, her eyes were closed, the corners of her mouths lifting every time the ocean caught her toes.

“It was too loud,” Kie finally said as a way of explanation. The water rushed, a shell hit a rock and silence fell over them again. “They’d been arguing all night, all through dinner. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Doesn’t sound fun,” JJ agreed. He kept his eyes on the water, searching the horizon like he was trying to find something to focus on other than the warmth of the girl standing beside him. “What’re they yellin’ ‘bout now?”

Kiara’s sneakers hit the sand with a wet smack. She sighed before sitting, knees tucked to her chest and JJ wondered once more if the sweater was his before it had become hers, maybe John B’s for a week or two, maybe Pope’s. He joined her, feet planted half in the sea and his arms on his knees, waiting for her reply, even if he knew what was coming.

“Everything,” Kiara stated flatly. She let out a huff of laughter, no humour to the sound. “Me, mostly.”

JJ smiled at her bluntness and touched the brim of his hat, for lack of something to do. He was itching to reach out, to brush away the grains of wet sand that stuck to her shins. “Doesn’t sound like anythin’ new.”

Kiara shrugged. “Not really, s’all a broken record now though. Sick of the same shit every day. All they do is act like I’m some sort of broken kid, like they have to fix me.”

JJ wanted to nod and say he understood, that he knew the feeling. He’d been treated like a problem his whole life, like he’d been born less than perfect, like he was the root cause of all his fathers shortcomings. But he didn’t know what it was like to have someone care enough to wanna try and solve it. To maybe try and put his broken pieces back together. So he just pressed his lips together and stared at the sand, waiting for the moment the ocean would brush back over his bare feet again, soaking at the hem of his jeans.

“Ever wanna do something stupid? Just ‘cause?”

JJ snorted at the question, chin turning up and eyes searching for Kiara’s. She was already looking at him, more start curls escaping her hair tie, a smile on her face that JJ thought could maybe fix some of his problems, at least.

“You realise who you’re talkin’ to, right?” He replied, grinning right back. The sun that was left of his cheeks stung when he did it, nose wrinkled and a little too red because he never listened when Kiara and Pope told him he needed more sunblock. “What kinda stupid are we talkin’ about?”

Kie shrugged, stretched out her legs and let the sand coat the back of them, wet, golden grains against dark bronzed skin and JJ wondered if she’d take them to bed with her, if she’d manage to wash them off and hide the evidence of their night from her parents before she got back home. The boy wondered if she cared.

“I don’t know,” kie let her head tilt to the side, pondering. She held up one hand and started counting on each finger. “We’ve already covered running away, robbery—”

JJ snorted. “Don’t forget grand theft auto.”

“—does grand larceny count?” Kie smiled.

The boy smirked. “Gold was always ours, Kie, don’t forget it.”

Silence fell over them again, smiles never fading. If they waited long enough, they’d see the stars turn to sunlight and the sky change to cotton candy pink, creeping over the edge of the ocean.

Kie didn’t want to wait that long.

She let her head fall back, her neck on its hinge, staring up above, lights winking down at her, telling her she should be asleep.

“Maybe we’ve been going too big.” She blew out a breath, let her eyes close. “Maybe we need to start from the beginning, throw a rager, get drunk. Like kids are supposed to. That kind of stupid.”

JJ hummed, nodding even though Kiara could see. Her hands were in the sand, fingertips buried in the grains. If he moved a little closer, their pinkies could touch.

“Sounds lame in comparison,” the boy teased lightly. “Where’s the fun if we don’t got no guns?”

Kie didn’t laugh but JJ watched her smile, head shaking, eyes opening so she could flick her gaze over to him, mirth dancing in them. She looked like she was unsure of what to say next, if she should say anything at all but then she sat up a little straighter, turning so her body was facing him.

“What about something stupid like—” Kiara picked at a broken shell, a barely there piece of pearl. “—like kissing someone you’re not supposed to.”

It was like the air had been sucked off of the island, like it had up and left, leaving them with only the sound of the sea. Whilst everyone else on Kildare slept, JJ felt like his heart had exploded. Surely the sonic boom could be heard across the beach, reaching Charleston and further, surely Kiara heard it too.

But the girl was just watching him, waiting, wary and quiet.

JJ felt like he’d swallowed his tongue, but still he moved, shifted in the sand until his knee knocked Kiara’s bare one and he felt the entire night swallow him whole. He didn’t know where to look, didn’t know how to act. ‘Causal’ wasn’t in JJ Maybank’s vocabulary. He stared at the shell in the girls hand, watched the pink and green oil slick shine glint in the moonlight.

“Like— like Gary at the restaurant? Or—?”

Kie wrinkled her nose at the mention of the older boy who worked for her parents. Twenty-something and harbouring a habit from cheap whisky and younger girls, he wasn’t Kiara’s favourite person.

“What?” Kie pulled a face. “Ew, no. No— like a friend.” She swallowed a little too harshly, her fingers suddenly clumsy and dropping her shell. “Someone who people would get mad about.”

A friend a friend a friend.

JJ felt his cheeks flush, a rosy warmth across his nose that he could only hope the darkness would hide. It felt like the middle of the day, a heatwave creeping in, a tropical storm with the name of a girl, making the air too hot, ready to sweep him up and rattle him from the inside out.

He licked his lips, tried to stay neutral, hoped his voice wouldn’t crack, prayed he didn’t act a fool. “Who’d get mad at you for something like that?”

When JJ finally looked up, waiting for the girl’s answer with a breath held in his chest, he realised Kiara was already looking at him. Her lashes lowered, gaze trained in his lips, watching the way his mouth parted ever so slightly when he sucked in a burning breath.

“Everyone,” Kie whispered.

The world would have fell into the ocean then, houses and cliffs crumbling, JJ wouldn’t have noticed. Not at all.

“Because it would be a mistake?” His voice cracked, too husky. He didn’t care, not one bit. “Or ‘cause you’d regret it…?”

Kie was still watching him, eyes flicking from his mouth as he spoke, to the slant of his cheek bones, the blue of his eyes. He felt so exposed under her gaze, laid bare, even in the middle of the night, sitting on the beach in the dark. JJ marvelled over the realisation that he didn’t really mind. He’d sit like this for days on end for Kiara, if it meant getting her attention in this way.

Kie shrugged, gave a sad sort of smile and found her broken shell again, tapping her nail against the side. “Not necessarily,” was all she said.

He could’ve kissed her then, JJ was almost sure of it. He could’ve leant in, tested the waters, watched to see if her eyes followed his mouth even when it moved to her own, if she’d let him put his hand on her knee, if she’d let him pull her in by the back of her neck like he was used to doing with the girls he met at parties.

But JJ didn’t have that kind of confidence, not then. Not with Kiara Carrera. He thought about what she’d said, about the people who’d be mad at her— at them. He wondered if Kie was even talking about him in the first place.

She couldn’t be. Of course not, right?

Right?

So JJ waited until the surf was dragged back out and Kie brushed the sand off her calves. He stood, tugged off his cap to drag a hand through his hair before shoving it back on, pulling the brim down to hide his eyes, the disappointment in them. Then, the boy held a hand out to the girl and he tried to keep his heart inside his chest when she took it.

Dragging Kie up from the sand, he smiled at her, just like he normally would. “Lemme walk you home,” was all he had to say.

-Bellamy (SW#1)

[spitefulwriters]

an obx blog. writers of the spiteful kind, mdni.

AO3

bellamy writes: body talks careful eyes reese writes: are there still beautiful things? are there still beautiful things? II

roxy writes: soon, baby, soon lydia writes: let the light in