CHAPTER III:

( keg on )

      IF POGUES KNEW HOW TO DO ANYTHING IN LIFE—IT WAS MOST CERTAINLY HOW TO THROW A KEGGER. The Boneyard was a reserved spot especially when a pogue or two wanted to throw a party with their friends and strangers from all over the Outer Banks, no matter what was going on in the world.

      Everyone went. Like, everyone.

      The Kooks; the richest rich people to exist and cry that they didn't get a Prada jacket instead of Louis Vuitton for their birthday. Their sole purpose in life was to spend as much money as possible, create their own company with their name in big shiny letters, and make their own pack of little rodents to continue the cycle. ( Residential placement for the Cameron family to subside. )

      The Pogues; the ones most likely to commit tax evasion, knowing or unknowing. Worker bees of the Outer Banks ecosystem, occasionally turning on their queen but staying in line for the benefit of the royals. Think less stuck up and more biker gang from Teen Beach Movie. ( JJ's landing strip. )

      The Tourists; sort of irrelevant beyond the summertime but relevant enough to be involved in the occasional bonfire or kegger.

      And the "Grey Area"; neither Kook nor Pogue—the middle class. Contrary to popular island belief, they were people who swam just below drowning in oceans of riches and just above a puddle of pennies. There were so few that put themselves between the Kooks and the Pogues that it was as if they were nearly nonexistent if it hadn't been for those two-story, four-bedroom, three-bathroom houses, topped with a decent-sized yard.

That is where Aroha stood.

      Messy flyaway's now tamed into a braided ponytail that reached just above her middle back, sea green t-shirt that accentuated her long torso and star bellybutton piercing, jean shorts, sandals, and red Solo cup in hand as she watched JJ challenge different girls to see who could chug their drinks the fastest from a few feet away.

      Aroha laughed at his slacked jaw and wide eyes at the first girl beating him in his challenge, yet his eyes only went to her grin.

JJ had made the Māori promise that she would be more social with people on the beach. It wasn't that she was anti-social or had social anxiety, she did just fine speaking to people, but she rarely made the first move to talk to someone. She would be content with herself by just staying to herself for hours on end if she could.

      Cut to an hour after they arrived, the once golden rays in the sky had dimmed into a cooling warmth in a way that Aroha's usually warm and chestnut-colored skin had taken a cooled hue to give her features blueish undertones rather than the natural honey color, Aroha had made a friend.

She wasn't one to discriminate between Kook or Pogue ( mostly because her eyes didn't care to acknowledge a Rolex watch on a wrist or a pair of holey shoes worn out from being used so much ) so when she didn't notice the glare JJ had set on his features at the Kook in front of her, he hadn't noticed himself becoming slightly more reckless with who he was drinking with and exactly how much he was drinking.

      "I mean, I personally think Conrad is the perfect guy for Belly," the girl had been heard defending herself to the new boy in front of her. He was tall, with silky brown hair tied into a half-up style, hooded eyelids with dark irises beneath them, palish skin, and a few freckles here and there.

      He gasped feigning betrayal at her remark, "Cam Cameron was the obvious better choice!" he said in a duh tone.

      They had met that day before their friendly debate had begun. He complimented her saying that she had pretty eyes, she smiled in that knee-buckling way she always did, then she noticed the beaded bracelet on his right wrist with the acronym of t.s.i.t.p with pastel-colored beads surrounding the letters. JJ had made an attempt to call her over to his favorite Pogues but was met with her saying she would be over in a minute. That was thirty minutes ago.

"You're literally only saying that because that's your name," Ro reasoned.

Cameron laughed, "And?" Then she laughed with him. JJ chugged.

      Aroha Toki was painfully, disastrously, irrevocably oblivious.

In the thirty minutes, Cameron and Aroha had been talking, he had sat so close to her on a bulked branch that their knees were touching, when she laughed, his eyes glanced down to her lips, and their hands were atoms away from touching. For the blond boy across the branch, the intoxication of alcohol was easier to bare than the intoxication of how uncomfortable Cameron and Aroha were making him.

      Ro laughing, hitting the boy on the arm, and leaning towards him was the tip of the iceberg that the June heat had simply melted JJ off the edge of.

He clutched his alcoholic drink in his hand tightly while turning away from the duo, jaw lightly clenched then released when he whistled and found John B.

"Have you read all the books?" Aroha asked Cameron, bonfire glow lighting up her bronze skin perfectly.

He shook his head, "No, I'm in the middle of the second one, my sister's the one who read them all." He watched her with glimmering eyes as her mouth opened into a round shape of shock.

      "Maybe I should be talking to her instead of you?" the girl teased hopping off of the branch, "where do you think I'll find her?" She put her hands at her brow bone as if she were narrowly searching the Boneyard for a girl she knew nothing about.

      Cameron chuckled at her efforts and also hopped off of the wood. His hands reached for her and snaked around her wrists to bring them down. Smoothly, his hands trailed down her wrists and into her hands while watching her closely.

      The Māori's grin faltered when her eyes followed to what exactly was captivating her hands. Oh. He brushed his thumbs over the skin of the backs of her hands, her head snapped up to meet his eyes, those eyes had the flames of the fire deep within them and a helpless spark flickered behind Aroha's sternum that she hadn't exactly been able to register.

"Dirty Pogues!" Saved by the bell.

Ro's head turned in a direction further towards the shore, attention just barely missing the glance Cameron had made at her hibiscus lips. And then her hands were out of his and she was walking towards the familiar shout of JJ Maybank.

      She weaved through the quickly forming crowd of people, their closeness slowly closing her in and pushing her tall frame around. The sight before her was nothing short of what she could have expected. John B. was getting kicked into the icy waters of the sea by Topper Thornton ( definition of Kook ).

      "Hey, John B, don't make me drown you like your old man," Topper threatened above the boy in the water.

      "Topper, are you kidding me?" Aroha incredulously questioned, now at JJ's side.

See, this was that distinction between Kook and Pogue that Aroha could understand. She hadn't fully understood that wedge between the classes, no matter how long she had lived in the Outer Banks, they always found a way to make the concept make sense.

Rich kid with everything he could ever ask for; car, watch, bedroom, king-sized bed, gorgeous girlfriend, now beating up and threatening the lower class kid who had parents out of the picture and an astute case of Foster Care nearly knocking at his doorstep.

But hey, what's a kegger without a fight or two here and there?