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𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗲𝗻: 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗹𝗮𝗺𝗲

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The next day, the four of them were in Heyward's Seafood to help Heyward out with the amount of customers that had coming rolling in. JJ and Pope had explained to Cassie and Kiara that Rafe and Topper beat Pope up, making them sink Topper's boat, which is why the Kooks came after them at the OBX Summer Series.

Kiara was appalled, but Cassie was honestly impressed. If she had been there when Pope was beaten up, she would have done the same exact thing...maybe even worse. Especially because Rafe was involved. All she wanted to do was slap that stupid little smirk off his annoyingly hot face. She didn't understand why he deserved to be so good looking when he was a complete prick. It pissed her off to no end, just like JJ.

Ugh, what, no...no, JJ...he's not hot. What am I saying? She thought to herself, shaking her head at herself before she realized she was getting lost in her thoughts in the middle of the store.

"Don't let it get in your head, brother. There was three of them and two of us. That's some typical Kook shit right there," JJ assured the Heyward boy, but this time, he hadn't made a pass at Cassie for being a Kook like he usually had done in the past. Cassie noticed it since it been a common occurrence for the Maybank boy to do just that and she furrowed her brows a bit.

"Hell, yeah," Kiara agreed.

"What was your thought process, with using your head?" JJ asked Pope.

"You head-butted Topper?" Cassie gaped and JJ nodded, proud of the boy. "Damn, Pope, nice."

Pope's face burned at the compliment, not used to it. "I don't know, man. I just kind of acted off instinct, all right? I was a cornered animal," Pope explained.

"Hey, Pope," Heyward called out. "Someone here to see you." He pointed behind him at the same time Shoupe had walked into the store. Cassie tensed up, looking at Kiara who looked as tense as she was.

Pope's eyes widened. "Evening, Officer."

"I have an arrest warrant for felony destruction of property," Shoupe began, making Pope look back at JJ for help.

"What?" Heyward said as JJ shook his head at the boy, mouthing something to him.

"Keep your hands on the counter where I can see 'em," Shoupe instructed. "Young lady, out of my way," he said as Kiara took a step back, holding her hands up.

"Calm down," Cassie said to Shoupe in defense of Kiara, and Shoupe sent her a look.

"You wanna talk about being calm?" Shoupe shot back and Cassie pursed her lips furiously. It hadn't been known to many about the rampage she had went on right after finding out about her father's death, destroying glasses and vases all over the house that spent her mom hours to clean up all the shards of glass.

Shoupe had been there to witness it all since he delivered the news to the them about her father's death and the fact he was holding it against her know...she was seething.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Shoupe, what'd he do?" Heyward questioned. "Huh?"

"Take a look at the warrant, Heyward," Shoupe answered as he placed Pope's hands behind his back.

"I'm sorry, you're arresting him?" Kiara spoke up.

"You're just arresting my boy?" Heyward pressed.

"What's the proof?" JJ demanded, stepping forward.

"Be careful!" Kiara chastised since Shoupe had been holding onto Pope's wrists tightly.

"Shoupe, are you listening?" Heyward continued as Shoupe started to read out Pope's rights to him, cuffing his wrists.

"Shoupe, what the fuck?!" Cassie raged, holding her hands out.

"How much did they pay you, man?" JJ inquired. "How much did they pay you?"

Should began to walk Pope out of the door, the others following them right out demanding for him to be let go. JJ stepped up to Shoupe, but he had pushed him away before he could do anything. Heyward held him back as Cassie and Kiara continued to follow Pope and Shoupe, yelling at him.

"Shoupe, you can't do this!" Cassie bellowed from behind him.

"The hell I can't," Shoupe responded.

"Shoupe, please!" Kiara pleaded as Shoupe opened the back door of the police truck to forced Pope inside.

But, before he could, JJ shouted, "It wasn't him!" They all turned around to look at the boy. "It was me," he pointed to himself before he started to walk towards them slowly.

"JJ, what are you doing?" Cassie immediately asked, blinking in shock.

"Shut up, Cassie, let me do this. Let me tell the truth," he replied, meeting her eyes meaningfully. That's when she realized that he was taking the full blame for Pope. "He tried to talk me out of it, but I was mad because he'd just been beaten up. And I was so sick of those assholes on Figure Eight that I lost my shit."

JJ stopped right next to Pope and Shoupe, looking in between to two of them before his eyes stopped on Pope. "I can't let you take the blame for somethin' I did. You've got too much to lose," JJ told Pope.

"JJ, what are you doing?" Pope questioned the same thing that Cassie had a moment ago, not wanting his friend to do this for him. It was going too far.

"Like I said, I'm tellin' the truth." He then looked at the older cop. "For once in my goddamn life, I'm gonna tell the truth," JJ, ironically, lied to Shoupe, who glanced at Pope suspiciously. "I took his old man's boat, too."

"What the hell?" Heyward said, tilting his head at him.

"JJ, come on," Pope tried.

"Just shut up, Pope!" JJ yelled in his face. "Just shut up." JJ held his eye contact with his best friend before he looked back over at Shoupe. "He's a good kid. You know where I'm from."

Shoupe nodded, glancing down. "Yeah."

JJ nodded, looking back at Pope. "This was all me."

Cassie had felt Kiara's hand grip her's and she squeezed it tightly, watching the whole thing unfold in front of her. Cassie knew JJ had been a loyal friend to the Pogues, but the fact he was willing to take the fall for something he actually didn't do this time...She couldn't believe he was being this selfless. Was I wrong about him this whole time? She thought to herself, not wanting to believe it.

"That's the whole truth?" Shoupe asked Pope after a moment.

"Whole truth, swear to God," JJ answered for him.

"I know what you think, damn it, I'm asking Pope, here," Shoupe told him.

JJ and Pope made eye contact, JJ subtly nodding at Pope as he pursed his lips. "Yeah, that about covers it," Pope told him after a moment, looking down and shutting his eyes.

Shoupe then took the handcuffs off of Pope, and started to put them on JJ. The blonde glanced back at the Kiara and Cassie, meeting eyes with the both of them. Kiara's face had distraught written all over it while Cassie's was pure shock.

She watched as Shoupe cuffed JJ and put him in the back of the cop car, driving off. Pope placed his hands on top of his head before he ripped his cap off, throwing it on the ground. "Shit!"

"Pope? Pope?" Heyward tried to calm him down, but he had stormed off angrily. "Pope!" He called out, picking up his cap from the ground as he watched his boy walk away.

Kiara turned to Cassie, letting go of her hand. "What do we do?" She questioned her friend, her lips pouting into a frown.

"We have to bail him out, right?" Cassie immediately thought of since Kiara had recently had to bail John B out of jail, and it had worked.

"My dad is not gonna bail him out when he already did for John B," Kiara shook her head, placing her hands on her hips as she tried to think of something else.

Cassie poked her tongue into the side of her cheek before she thought of something. "I could ask my mom."

Kiara gave her a bewildered look. "What?"

"I could ask my mom to bail him out. I mean, it's not like she doesn't have the money," Cassie clarified, knowing that they had more than enough money from her father's death and because of Ward.

"Why? I thought you hated him," Kiara pointed out, not knowing why Cassie would try to get her mother to bail out a guy she didn't even like.

"Is that an important question right now?" Cassie asked in a high voice.

"Well, yeah! I mean, you complain about him to your mom, don't you? I've been there before when you have. Why would she bail him out if you hate him?" Kiara reasoned.

Cassie let out a sigh, knowing that had been true. "Okay, look, hate's a strong word.." She trailed off, not even knowing why she had been even saying that. A week ago, she would've raved in her hate for JJ and now she was trying to say that was too strong of an emotion? Who even was she? Kiara's eyebrows had raised at her, beginning to think she had been cloned. "Look, just because I don't really like him doesn't mean I want him in jail. Especially for something he didn't even do. And when those pricks deserved what was coming to them."

Kiara stared at her friend in disbelief, not sure of what to make of it. All she wanted was for her all her friends to get along and now that it seemed like Cassie and JJ were finally showing some progress, she didn't know how to react.

"Okay, okay, go ask your mom," Kiara finally said with a nod. "If it doesn't work then...then I don't know."

"I don't know either," Cassie admitted. "I'll see you later, Kiki."

"See you, Cece."

Cassie took her car back home, pulling into the driveway as she prepared something to say to her mother. If this had been Kiara, it would be a different story. Savannah had loved Kiara since she seemed to save her from the turmoil her daughter was going through earlier in the year, so convincing her for bail money would be no problem.

But this was JJ. And Savannah knew all too well what her daughter had thought of the boy, which was why she was so rattled to see him show up at the house the other day alone.

Cassie stepped inside her house, seeing her mother sitting at the kitchen table on her phone as she drank some water. She sucked in a breath before clearing her throat, "Hey, Mom."

Savannah turned around, a smile making its way up to her face when she saw her daughter. "Hey, Cassie. Back already from...Heyward's?" She asked, hesitating before saying the man's name.

Ever since her husband had died, she had been obsessed with keeping her reputation up in the Outer Banks, knowing it would be hard without having a wealthy man by her side. So the fact that her daughter had been running around with Pogues lately hadn't been something she was ecstatic about, but she turned a blind eye to it for now since Cassie seemed happy.

"Yeah, uh, something happened. It's actually what I wanted to talk to you about," Cassie started off with, going into the kitchen to stand across the island from her mother.

Savannah placed her phone down onto the table, a bit concerned with how timid her daughter seemed since she usually wasn't like that whatsoever. "What happened?"

"So, you know JJ, right?"

Savannah's eyebrow arched a bit. "Yes, I know JJ. You complain about him 24/7."

Cassie released a breath, giving her a mom a look of disbelief. "Pshhh. What? No, I wouldn't say 24/7. No, that can't be right."

Savannah gave her daughter a look. "No, no, it is. In fact, every time you've come home from hanging out with Kiara, you've always have something bad to say about him."

The younger Blake girl pursed her lips at that, knowing her mother had been right. "Okay, okay...yeah, maybe."

"Cassandra, where are you going with this?" Savannah questioned, wanting her daughter to get to the point.

Cassie released a sigh. "Okay, so...he may have been arrested just before," she told her casually.

"Arrested?" Savannah repeated in shock. "Arrested for what, exactly?"

Cassie shut her eyes, clicking her tongue. "Felony destruction of property," she answered, slowly opening her eyes back up.

Savannah blinked. "Who's property?"

"Topper Thornton's boat," she swallowed hard.

Savannah released a shocked laugh. "The Thornton's boat? The Malibu?" Cassie nodded in confirmation. "You're kidding, right? Did you have anything to do with it?"

Cassie squinted her eyes. "No, Mom, I didn't have anything to do it. Why would you even think that?"

"Because you've been hanging out with these Pogues a lot lately. God, I should've known they were a lot more trouble than I expected," Savannah shook her head.

Cassie winced at that, knowing that it was going to be a lot harder to convince her mom to bail him out after she said that. "No, look, it's complicated, okay? Rafe and Topper beat my friend, Pope Heyward, up and him and JJ thought they could get even by sinking Topper's boat."

"Rafe Cameron? You do understand that you're talking about Ward's son, right? The man that has been helping us ever since your father..." Savannah trailed off, inhaling sharply. "Ever since that day."

"This doesn't have anything to do with Ward, I'm just trying to explain what happened. What really happened. Because I'm sure they're going off telling a whole different story to everyone right now," Cassie told her mother.

"And why are you telling me this? The boy's in jail either way, no matter the story. He still destroyed someone's property," Savannah stated. Cassie licked her lips, glancing away from her mother as she tried to think of how to word this. "Cassandra?" She asked impatiently.

"I just need you to bail him out, okay?" Cassie blurted out, making her mother give her an incredulous look. "Please?" Savannah blinked at her daughter before she began to laugh, making Cassie furrow her brows. She continued laughing as Cassie just stood there, her eyes wide. "Mom?"

Savannah immediately stopped to laughter, narrowing her eyes. "You can't be serious right now, Cassandra."

"Mom..."

"Cassandra, you want me to bail out a boy, who you've expressed your hatred toward a million times, for something that he should rightfully be in jail for?" She questioned her daughter. "He's not even your friend. And he's a Pogue. This was bound to happen. Especially because of that father of his," she added dismissively.

Cassie sucked in an angry breath. "Look, he may not be my friend, but he's Kiara's. And just because his father isn't a good man, doesn't mean he's the same way. I mean, you don't even know him."

"And you do?" Savannah countered. "What if you made one wrong move and all of a sudden he's coming here, destroying our property? Clearly he's unstable."

"Mom, you're talking about him like he should be in a psych ward or something," Cassie shook her head, getting fed up.

"Not a psych ward, but definitely in jail. Where he is right now. And where he belongs. End of discussion," Savannah said, getting up to leave.

"Mom, please!" Cassie pleaded, going to follow her. "Please, come on, I've never asked for you this much before."

"I don't care, Cassie." Savannah turned back around. "You've barely been home at all this week because of him and his friends. How do I know that you haven't done anything illegal with them and you just haven't been caught?" Cassie paused, her stomach sinking at that since they had, in fact, doing many illegal things. "And now that we're on the subject, what have you been doing this week with them?"

"Nothing," Cassie shook her head, turning away to head upstairs.

"Oh, now you don't want to talk?" Savannah pressed further. "Cassie, what have you been doing with these boys?"

"Nothing, okay?! We've just been hanging out!" Cassie exclaimed as she reached the steps, stomping her way upstairs to leave Savannah to seethe angrily.

Cassie went into her room, slamming the door behind her as she groaned. How the fuck am I gonna fix this? She thought to herself, shaking her head. JJ was probably just sitting in a cell right now, waiting for his friends to do something to help him. There had to be some way to tell him that they were trying.

That's when she got an idea. She pulled out her phone, going to her contacts to pull up Shoupe's number. She had totally forgotten she had it, but he had given it to her and her mother after helping with their father's case just in case anything had happened and he could do something to help them.

Talk about the system working in their favor.

She quickly pressed on his number, holding the phone up to ear and praying he would pick up. After the third ring, he did. "Hello?"

"Officer Shoupe. It's-it's Cassandra Blake," she introduced.

She could hear Shoupe audibly sigh. "Cassandra? What are you doing calling my number?"

"I need to speak with JJ Maybank."

"Cassandra, come on, you can't—"

"Shoupe, please," Cassandra cut him off before she thought of something utterly insane to persuade him. She would have never done this in a million years, but the boy had to know they weren't leaving him behind.

Because she knew she wouldn't want to feel left behind.

She started to sniffle loudly so Shoupe could hear it over the phone. "Look, Shoupe, um...not a lot of people know this, but JJ and I...we've gotten really close. And, um, he just asked me to be, like, his girlfriend or whatever. I don't know, it's still up in the air, you know how guys are these days. I just...I just want to make sure he's okay. Please."

She could hear Shoupe sigh again over the phone as she held her breath, waiting for a response. "Fine. But make it quick," he let up and Cassie smirked. She could hear Shoupe's footsteps before she heard the metal of the cell open. "Hey, Maybank. I got your girlfriend, or whatever she is, on the phone."

Cassie's face blanched. "Oh. Oh, shit," she whispered to herself, her eyes widening.

Shoupe must have transferred to phone over to JJ because the blonde's voice came through utterly confused, "Hello...girlfriend?"

Cassie let out an awkward laugh, "JJ."

JJ's expression turned to one of disbelief when he heard the blonde's voice over the phone, not expecting it to be her whatsoever. He would have thought it was Pope or John B joking around. "...Cassie?"

"Yeah, it's me. Um, he can't hear me, right? Shoupe?" Cassie questioned quickly.

JJ glanced over at Shoupe in his cell, and the man leaning his back against the wall and his attention on something else. "No..."

"Okay, so I might have pretended to start crying and then I told him we were together, but also not really, to make him feel bad and give you the phone so that we could talk," Cassie rambled.

JJ let out a breathless laugh at the girl. "There's no way in hell you actually said you were dating me, Cassandra Blake. Even as a lie, there's no way," he whispered into the phone so Shoupe couldn't hear.

"Well, I did. So, yeah."

"Oh, I am never letting you live this down," the boy teased over the phone, and Cassie could practically hear the smirk form on his face.

"JJ!" Cassie exclaimed in annoyance before she cleared her throat, remembering why she wanted to speak with him. "Look, I'm calling you to tell you that we were trying to think of ways to bail you out but we came up empty. Kie's dad already bailed out John B and I even tried to ask my mom, but she said no."

JJ blinked in confusion. "Wait, you asked your mom to bail me out?"

"Yeah. Why?"

JJ leaned back against the wall. "Didn't think you would actually care I was here."

Cassie tensed up a bit as she slowly sat down on her bed, nonchalantly looking at her finger nails even though he couldn't even see her. "Oh, I don't. It's just, my mom was the last option, you know?"

JJ nodded, running his tongue over his top teeth suspiciously. "Uh-huh. Yeah."

"Yeah," Cassie repeated with a nod.

"Look, Cassandra, if you're worried about me, you can just say that. It's just us two over the phone," he told her teasingly.

Cassie let out a frustrated sigh. "I'm not worried about you, JJ. Give me a break."

He raised his brows, clicking his tongue. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah, of course not," she played it off.

"Then why'd you call?"

Cassie blinked at that. Why did I call? She questioned herself. What's happening to me lately? Am I going soft? She shuddered at the thought. "I'm the only one that has Shoupe's number. Plus I have Wi-Fi," she reasoned.

"Oh, right, yeah. Forgot you're a Kook."

She arched a brow. "You forgot? After months of saying I'll always be a Kook, you forgot all of a sudden?"

"It's kinda hard to imagine a Kook holding a gun, don't you think?" He joked, referring back to last night when she took the gun out, and Cassie quickly shushed him over the phone. "What?" He laughed.

"Shoupe could hear you."

"Trust me, Cassie, if you have his number in your phone, he ain't gonna arrest you," he assured her and she had to agree with him on that. "Look, uh, my dad is probably gonna bail me out. They said they would call him, so...it's fine."

At the mention of his dad, Cassie paused. She thought back to what he was saying at the impound lot, about his dad threatening to hit him again. She didn't know if the story was true, but if it was...

"Are you sure it's fine?" She asked after a moment.

JJ furrowed his brows, looking down. "Why wouldn't it be fine?"

"Just, you know, um...what you said back at the impound yard—"

"I made it up, Cassie," he immediately cut her off, but she could hear the way his tone changed to one more serious.

"I mean, are you sure? Because—"

"Cassie, just drop it," he interrupted angrily and she pursed her lips. JJ began to tap his foot on the ground anxiously, shaking his head. "Shoupe's telling me to give him the phone back," he lied after the moment seeing as though Shoupe was still leaning against the wall. "I'll see you whenever...blondie."

"JJ, hey—!" The phone hung up. "What the hell?" She breathed out, lying back onto her bed as she just stared up at the ceiling as she thought about why she even decided to call him in the first place.

authors note!
this chapter is long as hell but
hopefully y'all liked it bc it
furthered cassie and jj's
relationship heheh next
chapter in the midsummers
chapter mwahaha. dont know
if i'll be splitting it up into
two chapters, we'll see