"I MEAN, IT'S OBVIOUS. RIGHT?" JOHN B QUESTIONED. They were all packed in the van, Bree beside JJ as Pope examined the compass. "A family heirloom. What better place to hide a message? He had to know it was gonna get back to me, right?"

Glancing at her friends in the back nervously before giving the Routledge boy a pitying look, Kie answered, "Yeah. It's possible."

"It could also be possible that you're concocting wild theories to help, you know, deal with you sad feels," Pope offered, and the two girls in the car shot him a glare.

"Bro, you know how I deal with my sad feels," JJ spoke up, oblivious to everything going on as always. "Dank nugs and the stickiest of ickies, that's how I do it."

As Bree just rolled her eyes and shot the blonde boy a smile, John B exclaimed, "I'm not concocting, okay? My dad's trying to give me a message."

"If it helps you believe, John B," the Carrera girl told him.

"Look, I-I don't need a therapy session, okay?" the brunette boy informed them with an upset voice. "Look, I'm not tripping out."

JJ shrugged, "It's okay to trip, bro, but—"

"Look, my — my dad is missing, okay?" John B yelled, cutting JJ off along with a smack on the shoulder from the Callaway girl. "Missing. You don't know what it's like to have the person closest to you vanish and then have no idea what happened. Just wake up every morning wondering."

"It's almost been a year," Kie sighed as if he didn't already know that. After her father disappeared, Bree remembered counting the days since he had left until she gave up hope that he was ever coming back. She was sure John B was doing the same thing.

Trying to cheer his best friend up while lightening the mood, the Maybank boy suggested, "Hey, he could have been kidnapped. That's definitely a possibility."

"Yeah, he could be in a Soviet sub getting interrogated by the KGB somewhere," Pope agreed.

JJ added, "Absolutely...Uh, or Atlantis."

"Pope, can I see the compass?" the brunette girl questioned, talking over them as the Heyward boy nodded and passed the chain over to her so that she could examine it.

"JJ," Kie warned the boy before turning back to John B in question. "Look, what do you think the message is?"

As they drove past the sign for Redfield Lighthouse, the Routledge boy responded, "Redfield. Redfield Lighthouse. That's my dad's favorite place."

They arrived outside the lighthouse, and the entire group climbed out of the Twinkie and stared up at the very tall tower. Not for very long, though, because John B faced them, pointing a finger at JJ and the Callaway girl as he explained, "Right. Here's what's gonna happen. So, you two are gonna post up and look out for bogeys, okay?"

"Wait, why me?" questioned the blonde boy, as he and Bree looked around with a confused expression.

Pope looked at him like it was obvious. "Because you're not coming."

"Why?" he exclaimed, feeling kind of betrayed that he didn't get to go on the adventure with all of his friends. The brunette girl was confused as well, but not about him — about her.

"Look, JJ, there are independent variables and dependent variable," Pope informed him with a sigh. "And you're an independent variable. We don't know what you'll do."

The Maybank boy yelled over him when he realized what he was about to say. "Shut up! Shut up! Just shut up!"

"Okay, I kind of guessed that JJ would stay behind, but why do I have to stay here with him?" Bree asked, glancing betweeen Kie and John B.

The raven-haired girl looked apologetic when she breathed out, "We need someone to babysit JJ, and we decided on you."

"When did we decide on me?" 

"Just now," the Routledge boy told here before moving on to more important things. "Listen to me. Pope, you stand look out with Bree and JJ, okay? If we get split up, we meet back at JJ's house."

"Great," Kie responded, and her and John B made their way toward the lighthouse without giving the other three any time to respond as they stared after them incredulously.

Pope began walking away while JJ whipped out his hacky sack and began playing with it. "I'm gonna work on my merit scholarship essay, and I'm trying to keep felonies to a minimum."

"All right, would you just shut up already?" the blonde boy said.

Bree hit him on the shoulder, causing him to miss the sack with his foot, and it landed on the ground in front of him. "Don't be mean."

"How much you wanna bet they're going up there to make out?" the Maybank boy asked her once Pope was sat down at a picnic table nearby, a pen in hand as he brainstormed.

She raised her eyebrows back at him. "Is someone jealous?"

"Of John B? No way. If my boy wants to get some, then I am in full support," he muttered back, focusing on his feet and kicking the hacky sack.

"You jealous of Kie?" she quizzed, a smirk appearing on her face when he stopped moving and gave her a look that said 'really?'. She giggled slightly, looking down at her feet. "It's just a question."

After that, he hopped on top of the Twinkie and helped her climb up as well. They sat there in comfortable silence as she watched him throw the hacky sack up in the air and catch it.

Finally, she broke the silence. "What's your favorite color?"

"What?" he asked as if he didn't hear her, but he was actually just confused as to why she asked such a random question.

"I'm trying to make conversation," the brunette girl explained to him, and when he still didn't say anything, she repeated, "So, what's your favorite color?"

He shrugged and hesitated for a moment before he replied, "I don't know. Probably green."

"Why?" she questioned curiously.

He paused, catching the hacky sack for a final time and looking at her as if she was absolutely crazy. "What the hell kind of question is that?"

"A normal one. Why is green your favorite color?" she responded, and she clarified the question for him as if he didn't understand the question. 

"Because trees are green, and they give us air — I don't fucking know," he exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air and causing Pope to glare at him for interrupting his brain time. Once he quieted down, he turned to her. "What's your favorite color?"

She answered quickly. "Yellow."

"Why is yellow your favorite color?" he repeated her question, trying to see what type of answer she was expecting when she asked it to him.

She grinned, putting her sunglasses that were on top of her head on and looking up at the yellow sun. "Because it's pretty?"

"Really?" he quizzed with a somewhat shocked look on his face.

She shot him a confused expression, wondering what he was so upset about. "What?"

"Nothing," he replied, going back to playing with his hacky sack. "I just thought you were gonna say something more meaningful than that."

"It's my favorite color for fuck's sake. It's not that deep," she laughed out.

He scoffed at her in amazement. "You made me feel like I had to come up with some stupid poetic reason for liking the color green."

Bree was about to say something when they heard police sirens in the distance, getting closer. The flashing lights appeared at the end of the road, and Pope jumped up from the table.

"Oh, shit," he muttered as they all jumped in the van, JJ driving, Pope in the passenger seat, and the Callaway girl in the back. They pulled out of the grass and started down a side road so that they didn't run into the police cars.

Bree leaned back against the door, praying that John B and Kie got out all right.

《❀》

"HE DID WHAT?" THE BRUNETTE GIRL EXCLAIMED, LEANING AGAINST THE COUNTER OF THE WRECK. She and Kie were at work after the whole lighthouse fiasco, helping out with some of the repairs and cleaning of the restaurant.

The Carrera girl had just finished telling her the story of what happened once her and John B got out of the tower. She repeated, "He kissed me!"

"And?" the brunette girl asked, waiting for what the girl's response was to one of her best friends kissing her. She honestly wasn't surprised that he did since Kie had kind of been giving off some interested vibes.

Kie looked at her with a confused expression, wondering what she was talking about. "And what?"

"Did you kiss him back?" Bree questioned as if it were obvious what she was asking, and it kind of was.

"No, of course not," the raven-haired girl responded with a shake of her head as she began wiping down the bar in front of her with a dirty, wet t-shirt that used to belong to her dad. "I pushed him away as soon as it happened."

The other girl's eyes widened, and she contemplated throwing one of the small red potatoes in the sink at her friend. "What the hell would you do that for?"

"We have this no pogue-on-pogue macking rule, you know? It keeps everything from getting awkward and falling apart," Kie explained with a sigh, sitting down on one of the bar stools and propping her head up on her elbow.

Bree stared at her in disbelief before telling her with authority, "Fuck the rule."

"There will be no fucking of the rule," the Carrera girl responded, pointing a finger at her friend who was about to start cutting the clean potatoes for the low-country boil at dinner.

"Kiara!" Mr. Carrera scolded from the doorway of the kitchen. He appeared to have just walked in because he didn't hear what Bree had said before. "This is a work place. No cursing."

He disappeared once again, and the Callaway girl turned back to her friend. "Yeah, Kie. No cursing in the work place."

"Shut up," she mumbled.

"Hey, it's completely fine if you don't like in. Just...don't blame it all the rule," the brunette told her, and she took a minute to think about it and went silent. "Hey, um, does this rule apply to me?"

Kie furrowed her eyebrows at her. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, if we started making out right now, and the guys walked in, we got caught, would either of us get in trouble?" Bree questioned, knowing that that was one of the weirdest sentences she had ever said.

The raven-haired girl stared back at her with a smile. "If we were making out and the boys walked in, we wouldn't get in trouble because they would all pass out."

"True," the brunette shrugged before lifting the red potatoes out of the sink and grabbing a knife.

Kie smirked as if she had just realized something, and she gazed up at the girl smugly, throwing the t-shirt over her shoulder. "Any other reason for you asking that?"

"What other reason would there be?" the Callaway girl asked with her eyebrows raised, but her eyes still refused to meet the Carrera girl's.

"I don't know," she replied, tilting her head to the side. "If there was any of the boys you wanted to mack on..."

Bree scoffed, "Oh, yeah? Like who?"

"Maybe a certain blonde boy," Kie suggested, and a grin appeared on her face when she saw a blush creep onto the brunette's cheeks as she looked down at her feet.

"JJ?" she exclaimed, lifting her head back up when she was sure that her face was back to its normal color. "Are you kidding?"

The other girl informed her, the smug smile still plastered onto her face as she got back to work, "I honestly don't think he would be too opposed to the idea if you wanted to."

"Kie, I have a boyfriend in case you don't remember," Bree reminded her.

"Excuses, excuses."