──────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────────────

𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗶𝗳𝘁𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲: 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲

──────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────────────

Once Cassie has showered and borrowed some clothes Kiara had left for her, which had been some jean shorts and a blue spaghetti strap top, she spent the whole day relaxing by either sitting by the dock or lying on John B's couch.

She didn't want to risk leaving just in case her mother had been looking for her. And she also felt safe being at the Château, which had basically become all the Pogues' unofficial home at this point.

She waited all day for her friends to come back and when they did, it seemed like there had been a recent development in the search for The Cross of Santo Domingo.

"Guys, this is from Denmark's diary," Pope began as they sat out on the porch. "'August 15th, set sail from Port-au-Prince on calm seas,'" he read aloud. "'Came upon the Spanish ship San Jose on fire. The entire deck was aflame. And we could hear the screams of men trapped below. The Spanish captain cared about only one thing, his valuable cargo...the Cross of Santo Domingo and countless bars of gold. Once the cargo was on board, we went to help the crew, but Captain Limbrey ordered us to pull bayonets and not to let any of the Spanish crew on board. He robbed them and left them to die.'"

"So it didn't go down off Bermuda," JJ realized as he lay on the couch, clicking open his lighter. Cassie couldn't help herself from staring at the boy, seeing the way his finger had clicked the light on and off...

Get it together.

"And it was a Limbrey...stealing shit again," Kiara pointed out in annoyed tone.

"This diary proves that both the gold and the Cross of Santo Domingo were on the Royal Merchant," Pope detailed.

"Why didn't we find it in the well then?" JJ quizzed before he propped himself up, causing Cassie to look away from him so she wasn't caught. "I mean, if Denmark was able to get this, like, bedazzled cross off of the Merchant to shore, why didn't he just hide it with the gold?"

"Because it was too big," John B answered.

"You're right. He had to hide it someplace else," Pope confirmed.

"But where?" Kiara asked as she looked at the diary entry.

"Limbrey said that right before he was hung, Denmark said he'd buried the treasure at the foot of the angel," Cassie recalled from their meeting with Limbrey and Pope pointed at her, nodding.

"Wait, I thought this was about the key," JJ spoke in confusion.

"Right. So what's the connection?" Kiara added.

Pope sat down, looking at the key in his hands. "'The path to the tomb begins in the Island Room.'"

"But what is the Island Room?" Kiara rolled her eyes.

"You know what helps me figure shit out?" JJ stood up.

"Oh, boy. Here we go," John B commented as he picked up the beer can sword they made with tape and beer cans.

"Smoking beers and drinking weed," JJ said and they all shared a glance with one another at the way he worded that sentence.

"Thought that's how you deal with your sad feels," Cassie pointed out with an arched brow.

He pointed at her. "That, too. But the ideas just pour out of me. If we just sit here and try to figure this out, we're gonna get nowhere. But if we get creative and go to this bonfire tonight, maybe we get somewhere."

"Bonfire? Oh, I'm down. I'm, so, so, so down," Cassie nodded her head, wanting to have excuse to drink her heart out after the events that went down recently.

"Guys, I think she's down," John B piped up with mocking wide eyes and she stuck her tongue out at him.

"Well, I just got disowned by my parents, and I'm an official member of the I-have-nothing-to-lose club," Kiara forced a smile.

"Pope?"

Pope held the paper out. "We're so close."

"Look, look," JJ began as he sat down in front of the boy, and Kiara and Cassie leaned in with smiles, "think about how much you could think if you just gave your brain a rest."

John B pointed the beer can sword at Pope and twiddled his fingers over it just as Pope let up, "Okay, fine."

"Okay, great!" Kiara cheered as she and Cassie both high-fived.

"Okay, wait! We gotta shotgun before we go."

John B pulled the Twinkie up to the Bonfire, which was already lit with teens drinking and dancing around them. Cassie had already been buzzed from the pregame as she stepped out of the car, now wearing jeans instead of shorts but she kept the same top.

On the way to the Bonfire, John B just kept going on and on about how Sarah practically broke up with him and Cassie had enough of it at this point so she found herself wandering away from him and JJ since they kept on talking about it.

Cassie ended up with two beers in hand, taking swigs of both right after the other. She wished she could be taking shots, but the beers would just have to do.

As she walked around, she spotted JJ talking to some girl at the fire and she felt a pit in her stomach. The girl had been laughing at whatever the hell he just said and she felt her lip curl in envy.

Because of her drunk state, she was about to storm on down there but someone had called out her name.

"Hey, Cassie Blake!" A random guy shouted out and she looked over her shoulder, seeing him and a group of some others around him. "Wanna shotgun? Heard you're pretty good."

A smile made its way up to her face because of the perfect distraction. "Pretty good? Oh, I'm great," she smirked as she went over, grabbing the new beer can and tossing the two she had away despite them still having beer left in them.

Once her and the guy cut open the beer on the side, someone else had shouted, "Ready? Three, two, one, go!"

Cassie tilted the can up to her mouth and opened it up to start shotgunning, downing the beer in seconds. "Whoo!" She whooped once she had finished before the guy, throwing the can onto the floor. The others and cheered around her as she soaked up the spotlight.

"Damn, Blake," the guy complimented once he was done.

"Told ya. I'm great," she shrugged as she wiped at her mouth since some beer had dribbled down her chin.

She went to go walk away before the guy grabbed her wrist, stopping her. "Hey, why don't you stay and talk? Haven't spoken to you in a while."

She laughed. "I'm sorry, I'm like kinda drunk right now. Remind me of your name again?"

He chuckled at her. "Matt. Matt Clark."

"Oh! Oh, right! Matt!"

She had no idea who he was.

"Yeah, yeah. We had math together."

"Right. With, uh, with-with...Who was it with?"

"Mrs. Evans?"

"Right! Mrs. Evans. Of course!" She pretended to remember that class she had with him. It was most likely during her freshman year, aka the worst year of her life, which is why she didn't remember.

"Yeah," Matt nodded. "So, how'd you learn how to shotgun like that?"

"I mean, when you're basically almost an alcoholic, how can you not shotgun like that?" She joked even though it really wasn't funny.

Matt tilted his head at her. "O-Oh, okay," he replied, wanting to skip past whatever that meant. "Honestly, Cassie, I've been meaning to talk to you."

She gave him a look. "You have?"

"Remember that day in Mrs. Evans class when you taught me how to do that math problem but it ended up being so wrong anyway?" He recalled.

"Um, yeah, sure," she lied with a grin.

"I only asked you for help because I liked you," he confessed.

She blinked at him. "Oh."

"Yeah. And, like, it's been a while but I'd really like to get to know you better. Like, right now," he said with a laugh at the end.

Cassie thought back to JJ. She thought back to his blue eyes and blonde hair that always looked the best in the sun. She thought back to way his dimple had appeared when he smiled and how he always wore that shark tooth necklace.

And then she thought back to the kiss she shared with him in the hot tub. The kiss she couldn't stop thinking about no matter how hard she had tried.

Which made her realize, she didn't want to be talking to any other guys. The only guy on her mind had been JJ, who she was actively pushing away because she was scared about how she felt about him.

She also realized the last time she saw the boy, he was talking to another girl and he was probably hooking up with her by now.

A jealous fury began to bubble up inside her.

"You know, I'll get back to you on that, but I-I need to check on my friend," she told him as she began to back away.

"Oh, okay. I'll be here!"

"Yeah," she said before she spun around, shaking her head at whatever just happened. She made her to way to where she had seen JJ talking to that random girl, picking up another beer in a cooler as she did so and downing it before she made it up to him.

Once she had, she saw he had still been there. Cassie straightened up and walked over, flipping her hair over her shoulder rather dramatically since she had kept it down for this event. "Hey, guys," she butt in, causing the girl to look over at her as if she just cockblocked them.

JJ looked over, feeling his heart skip a beat at the sight of the blonde. "Cassie," he greeted with a smile before he glanced over at the girl, mentally cursing at himself for stupidly talking to her.

He had only been doing it to try to get Cassie out of his mind since it was clear they weren't going to be talking any time soon, but it was no use. Right when he stopped thinking about her for a second, she popped right back up again. Right in front of him, actually.

"Hey, JJ," she grinned, booping him on the nose which seemed to be something she did whenever she was drunk. JJ blinked at that, not knowing what to say.

"You know her?" The girl asked JJ, unimpressed.

Cassie scoffed at her. "Of course he knows me. I mean, do you know who I am?"

"No," the girl answered before she started laughing.

"Okay, well, do you wanna find out?" Cassie challenged as she took a menacing step forward, making the girl's eyes widen before JJ stood in front of her. "Hey!"

"Okay, you're cut off," JJ said as he forced the beer out of her hand and tossed it away.

"What? No, you're no fun," Cassie whined before JJ started pulling her away from the girl. Cassie sent her the middle finger over his shoulder before JJ spun her around, causing her to groan.

"What are you doing?" He asked once he had taken her to a secluded area of the Bonfire where no one had really been at.

"What do you mean? I'm just trying to make friends," she replied innocently, holding a hand up to her heart.

"Friends? That didn't look too friendly," JJ arched a brow at her and Cassie just shrugged and hummed at that. "Are you sure you weren't...jealous?"

Cassie let out a laugh of disbelief. "Jealous? Me jealous? No. No, I wasn't jealous." JJ tilted his head at her, giving her a look that showed he didn't believe her. "But, like, why were you talking to her?" She added after a second.

JJ let out a low laugh. "See, this is why I don't understand you."

"What?"

"Okay, you say you don't want to talk about the other night and for all I know, you wanna forget about it. Especially since you seemed to shut down the Cat's Ass idea before," he began and Cassie pursed her lips. "But now, you're out here actin' jealous that I'm talking to another girl. Like, which one do you want? To forget about the other night or talk about it? Because I know which one I want. I mean, I already told you that I...that I liked you."

Cassie stayed silent since she had gotten sober and serious once JJ had started talking about the other night again. At this point, there was no denying her feelings for him. He was all she thought about and yet...she was still so terrified to share those feelings.

JJ sighed once she hadn't answered right away. "Look, I'm always the one that hooks up with a girl and never speaks to her again. It's never the other way around. And now when it is, I can't handle it. And it's because...you're different, Cassie. You're different from the others."

"Oh, I'm not like other girls?" She teased to try to make a joke out of it, to make herself feel a bit better. But internally, she was freaking out at what he was saying to her.

"Cass, come on," he said and her teasing grin fell. "But, I-I mean, yeah, kinda. You're the only girl that I've felt this way around. Every time I'm around you, I feel one hundred and one different things because at one point, you're pissing me off and then at another, you're making me laugh, and then at another, you're calming me down. I just — I don't know what to do whenever I'm around you."

Cassie's heart pounded in her chest at his words. He had basically been professing his love — although not that far yet — to her at this point. And yet, she was still trying so hard to deny how she felt about him despite feeling the same as he just described.

"I don't know what to do either," she said barely above a whisper, looking down at her shoes.

JJ took a step forward. "What?"

She looked back up at him. "I mean, I-I don't get it. How can we go from hating each other from the start of the summer to-to this? It doesn't make sense to me."

"That's why I've been trying to talk to you about it and you've been shutting me down. That's why I'm confused if you like me back or not and if that kiss was just a kiss and nothing more," he told her.

She stared at him, not being able to say the words out loud: I like you. Because she did, but saying it out loud just made it ten times more real.

She turned away from him. "I'm sorry, JJ," she said with her back turned to him. "It's just...I've never done this before."

"Done what?"

She turned back to him. "This," she gestured between the two of them. "With a guy."

"But—"

"I know, I know. I hooked up with Rafe. And I hooked up with other guys too, but...but they were meaningless. I did it because I wanted to fit in. Because everyone else was doing it. I never actually liked them," she admitted. "It's just...romance has never been my thing. I've never been able to-to open up. Friends and platonic relationships are what I want, but the romance part is where it gets tough for me. I've never had a boyfriend and every time I tried, I've always just scared them away because of my stupid anger issues. I just...I've never been good at feelings. I mean, that's probably why I'm always angry. I can't help it. Like, every time I've cried in front of you I wanted to kill myself because it felt like I was showing you who I truly was. And I hated that."

"It's-it's okay, Cassie. I feel the same way sometimes. But, you see, we helped each other in those moments. When you cried, I helped you. And when I...when I was having that panic attack, you helped me," he pointed out softly. "Would we do that for each other if we didn't like each other?"

Cassie sucked in her lip before she said, "We're supposed to hate each other, though. I'm supposed to hate you."

JJ took another step forward, making them just a few inches apart. "Do you hate me still?" He inquired quietly. "Because I know I don't hate you."

She swallowed hard, staring into his ocean eyes that made her just want to break down and share every little secret she had. How did they have such a big effect on her?

"I don't," she revealed. "But I wish I did. I wish I hated you," she added quietly since what she had been feeling was torture.

JJ slowly shook his head. "No, you don't. You don't wish that."

He was unfortunately right.

He looked down at her, seeing the way she looked so conflicted. "Look, you don't have to give me an answer right away. I just...I just wanted to talk you at least. Clear the air on some things. But now you know how I feel, so..."

Cassie stared up at him, a bit surprised at his gentle tone and understanding approach to her about this. The other day he had been pissed, but maybe after what she had just shared with him put some things into perspective.

And it had also put some things into perspective for her.

She liked JJ Maybank and no matter how much she tried to deny it, she did.

But now, she wasn't sure if she wanted to deny it anymore.

Not when he had just stood in front of her, professing how much he had really liked her. No guy had ever said such a thing to her and the fact that JJ Maybank had been doing it, the once certified fuckboy of the Outer Banks, she knew his words had to be true.

Once she hadn't answered, JJ went to go walk off before she grabbed his wrist and turned him back toward her. "Cass?"

"JJ..." She began, working up the courage to say it out loud. "I do like you."

JJ blinked rapidly. "You-you do?"

"I was just too scared to say it before. Like I said, I've-I've never done this before. Especially with someone I thought I would never like in a million years," she admitted. "But I've been thinking about you for-for a while and yeah, I like you. A lot. God, that sounds so cringey. See, I'm not good at this."

JJ smiled, releasing a shocked laugh at her confession. It had been what he was waiting to hear for days now and now that he finally got it, he wasn't going to waste a second.

He walked closer to her, making it so they were only inches apart. "It's okay because...I've been thinking about you a lot, too," he said and she blushed a bit. "Especially...especially what we did in the hot tub," he began and she could feel her cheeks redden even more at the thought.

He suddenly snaked his arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him and she gasped a bit. "How we played shotgun. How we kissed. How I was about to take your top off..." He listed as he looked between her eyes and lips.

"JJ..." She breathed out, feeling a chill run down her spine at his touch.

"What was that nickname you used for me at the police department?" He suddenly asked, glancing away from her as he thought.

She furrowed her brows for moment before she recalled, "Jay? I don't know, it kinda just slipped out."

He smirked a bit, looking back down at her. "I like that better, though," he told her. "Call me that instead."

"When do you want me to call you that?"

"I think you know when."

She felt her stomach flutter at his words and her body heat up at the thought since she had already dreamed about that prior to this moment.

He then glanced at her lips and right before he was about to press his lips onto her's, they had heard loud shouts coming from back at the Bonfire.

They instantly broke apart, giving each other puzzled glances before they jogged back toward the Bonfire to see John B and Topper fighting on the ground. "Oh, shit," JJ cursed before the two of them immediately sprung into action.

They ran through the crowd, seeing more Pogues and Kooks start going at it due to Topper and John B's actions. She then caught eye of a Pogue girl push Sarah down onto the ground, making her eyes widen and start to go over to them.

"Move, bitch! What's your problem?!" She heard Kiara say to the girl that pushed Sarah once she made it up to them.

"Hey, what the hell?"

"You all right?" Kiara called down to Sarah.

"Whose side are you on?!" The Pogue girl questioned as she tried to step toward Kiara, but Cassie came in just in time to push her away.

"She's our friend, bitch!" Cassie yelled at her, shoving her back to make her fall onto people who caught her before she could crash to the ground.

"Kiara, you belong with us, not these Kooks!" The girl shouted.

Cassie went to step forward angrily before Kiara grabbed her wrist, stopping her. "Cece, it's not worth it. We have to help John B."

Cassie cursed before she looked over at Topper on top of John B, making the two of them rush over. "Boys let's go! Stop doing this!" Kiara tried, but the boys just kept on fighting.

"Guys!" Cassie tried before someone was shoved into her back, making the two of them turn around at the same time. "Kelce," she scoffed once she realized who it was.

"Oh, look who it is. Little Miss Pogue Lover," Kelce drawled and she rolled her eyes at him. "You slutting it up with them yet?"

Cassie beared her teeth and before she knew it, she was reeling her hand back and punching Kelce right near his left eye. Kelce let a groan before she brought her fist up, cradling it in her hand since that hurt like a bitch and her skin definitely just ripped. She was used to slapping people, not punching them.

He held a hand right under his eye, seeing red. "Oh, you're not gonna get away with that, slut."

However, before he could make it closer to her, JJ slid in front of him and pushed him back. "Enough, Kelce! What? You're gonna hit a girl? Get outta here!" He demanded as he shoved Kelce back again.

Kelce snarled before he looked past JJ and at Cassie. "You got lucky this time, slut."

"Hey! Shut the fuck up and leave, Kook!" JJ seethed before he turned around, making his way toward the Blake girl. "You good?"

"Fine. Kelce's just an asshole."

"I know he's an asshole, don't listen to what he says. But I'm talking about your hand."

"Oh. Yeah. Definitely needs some ice."

They then looked over to see Pope pull Topper away from John B and for the Routledge boy to get up and start punching him despite Kiara's protests. "Come on!" JJ urged as he went toward them, forcing John B away from Topper and tapping him on the chest. "You good? You good? Let's get outta here!"

The Pogues all ran away from the crowd, getting back toward the Twinkie. They all got inside apart from JJ, who was trying to find another beer to drink. John B had been pressing a beer can up to his head while Cassie pressed one up to her knuckles, which had been bleeding a bit and were definitely going to be bruised.

Once JJ had found a beer can lying around, he chugged it and burped, making Cassie shake her head and laugh a little. "Well, that was a little unexpected," he commented as he landed against the car.

Kiara made a face. "Was it?"

JJ looked at John B, seeing the way he had been dissociating. "Hey, maybe she'll come around."

"It's like everything that happened to us didn't matter."

authors note!
yes guys they finally talked hehe
sorry for the wait i like the angst
too much it's a problem LMFAO