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THIS IS WHY YOU'RE THE
LOVE OF MY LIFE, KIE.
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Despite the chateau being the ultimate comfort home that was irreplaceable, it sure did get humid in the summertime. Scratch that— whenever it was warm, really.

It probably didn't help that John B didn't even have an air conditioner on; usually, there were a few that'd be stuck in the home's windows for the hotter months. But no— not a thing. Because of the sole fact that it was John B, he probably just let it slip his mind, not thinking anything of it.

Baby hairs nastily clung to her forehead as Wren woke up, the thin blanket that had been draped over her the night before now on the floor, at the foot of the bed. Groaning as she stretched in her sprawled out position, the girl flipped over her pillow, only for it to be just as warm as the side she currently had been using. With a hot pillow (on both sides!), Wren wasn't going to sleep all too soundly, for certain. Nevertheless, she brutally attempted to return to her peaceful slumber, her instincts telling her it was too early for the day to begin.

"Mornin', shithead," the all-too-familiar voice soon made itself known, making her suppress yet another groan.

After a solid ten seconds of determining whether or not to give in, the teenager allowed her eyes to slowly open, to the image of her most favorite cousin peeking his head into her old room she was sleeping in with a detestable grin on his face. "Morning, asshat," Lauren practically moved in slow-motion, words raspy from just waking up. Instinctively, she reached to the left, where her phone had been plugged in and charging.

"Don't even bother."

"Why not?"

"Cut's been graced with no service— and power," John B provided an explanation, "Hurricane wasn't a joke."

She pulled her tangled hair into a high bun as she stood up, curious as to the damage done. Severe storm warnings were an often occurrence on the island, but deciding if they were serious or just a false alarm was a real luck of the draw. Losing power and service was shitty, but that didn't mean a shit ton. Hell, there were times there wasn't even rain, and the lights flickered and sometimes turned off.

Making their way out of the hall, John B flicked the living/kitchen area switch yet again, just for shits and giggles. "Yo, JJ, you been outside?" he questioned while slapping the boy's back, although the answer was blatantly obvious.

"The drool smothered on the pillow isn't an answer for ya?" Wren pointed out; she had no doubt that that pillow case could've used a wash months ago.

"I have polio, I can't walk," JJ muttered out in return, not even moving in the slightest from his position on the pull-out couch.

Coming into the porch, the wrath of Agatha soon displayed itself, all around for Wren and John B to take in. And boy, was it a lot.

Most notably, one of the trees that had been there for decades was carelessly uprooted from the ground— how the hell were they gonna take care of that one?

They weren't, more than likely.

They'd be too busy fixing up the minor damages on Figure 8, undoubtedly. All of those troubles were minuscule in retrospect to the damage on the Cut, but nonetheless, they were just so urgent. Kooks probably threw fits when a pot of flowers got knocked over by the ruthless winds, but there the Routledge's were, with a hundred-foot-tall (or so) tree completely toppled over.

"Oh, man," the boy said, yawning, as he ran a hand tiredly through his long hair, "That's no good."

"We're lucky it didn't go the other way," Lauren reassured him, to which he pressed his lips together. After all, she was correct, "Coulda killed us."

"Mighta' preferred if it did. Man, I don't feel like cleaning this up," John B pessimistically countered, a sour look painted across his features as they ambled through the yard. Branches littered around everywhere, and it was nothing but a damn pain.

Work. Just what they all needed!

It was summer. Rich kids got to enjoy their summers in bliss, without a worry in the world, so why didn't they get that same opportunity?

"Booker..." she tsk'ed, reprimanding him as she hopped up onto the boat, throwing tree limbs to the side— they could be handled later; the HMS was the priority.

"Agatha did some work, huh?" JJ's voice, finally awake now, inquired from the steps, chugging down a can of beer.

Grimacing at a holly leaf that she had stepped on, Wren's head shook, "You ain't kidding." Rain still drizzling the tiniest bit, she tossed off the final branch sitting inside their beloved boat. As long as that was fine, the Pogues were alright.

"Whatcha thinkin?"

John B's gaze fixated to the marsh, thoughts racing through his mind, inevitably. Truth was, he never was the best at hiding ideas or emotions. Good or bad. "I'm thinkin' the storm surge pushed all the crabs out on the marsh maze. All those drum are gonna chase the crab."

Eyes scrunched because he hadn't fully woken up yet, the Maybank boy expressed his concern, "What about the DCS? Wasn't that today?"

Hopping over the side of the boat, Wren stifled a chuckle, "That's cute."

"What's cute, runaway?" he nicknamed her yet again, causing her to heave an exaggerated exhale. What was it with him and being obsessed with the fact she left the OBX? Sure, it was a great mistake, but what did JJ have against her? He didn't know the first thing about her getaway, and here he was, blabbering his mouth to absolutely no end.

"DCS isn't gettin' on a ferry," her cousin chimed in, stating what seemed to be the obvious, but flew over the blonde's head like no big deal, "Come on, think about it. It's God tellin' us to fish!"

"Hell yeah," Lauren agreed, before rushing into the chateau to find something to wear. Imaginably, not everything would be where she had left it before ditching the island— she wasn't going to be necessarily surprised when a few pieces were missing from her closet.

But weirdly, her expectations had been proven false.

Most things in the drawers and closet of her room hadn't been moved, seemingly. All of her bathing suits still folded perfectly, it was almost as if the dressers had been restricted, and nobody was allowed to even open them.

Putting on a lavender bikini, Lauren grabbed a tank top and flowy shorts to go over it. Peering into the dirty mirror slanted in the corner of the room, she rubbed her eyes and sneered at the exhausted-looking figure staring back at her. She'd wake up after a few beers or so, she decided, and then grabbed her things to head on out.

———

"Good mornin!" the boys threw out a generous hand, taking their time through the marsh as they ventured to pick up the other group members. Clouds were still faintly spread thinly through the sky, like a fog, as a result of the night prior. Lauren sat at the end of the HMS, ankles crossed, wearing her bathing suit and shorts over top.

"Sure hope Guffy's boat didn't sink. He doesn't have insurance," JJ crossed his arms, eyeing the results that little Ms. Agatha had on the coast line.

"That's not uncommon, under our circumstances," Wren chirped— their circumstances, meaning being a Pogue, (duh),"We barely got enough money as it is, and we gotta pay more, just so we can protect our boat if it sinks? With this baby, I, for one, like our chances," she patted the metal side of the boat lovingly.

JJ's face had a hint of agreement written within it, but instead he plastered a disgusted expression, "She's a real beaut, alright."

"Hi Ms. Amy!" John B kindly called out, to which the blonde's eyes lit up at the name, "You guys get through it?"

Returning the smile, she waved, trash bag in her other hand to collect the waste, "Still here."

A brief moment passed. Lauren knew what was coming in a second or two—

"—She totally looked at me."

"I saw it."

Wren couldn't help but roll her eyes. Some things really hadn't changed, and JJ's attraction to any relatively-attractive girl with a set of tits happened to be one of those things. Call it shallow, but that was a sixteen-year-old boy for ya. Ms. Amy, in particular, was a running joke between the two horny boys for as long as she could humanely remember, "You're still down bad, Maybank."

"Old habits die hard, Routledge," he informed with a wag of the finger, causing her to prop herself up on her elbows.

"Yo, look at this place," Booker noted as JJ whistled.

Trash littered absolutely everywhere, the girl of the current trio couldn't help but grimace. The Cut, as a whole, looked like a literal junkyard, the way everything was thrown. It didn't matter how much preparation was done for the storm— it seemed as though they had all gone to sleep that night with absolutely zero knowledge on what was to come. There weren't any Kooks helping them out, that was a fact.

"Agatha, what did you do?" the blonde clicked his tongue in distaste, solely because it meant they'd be busting their asses to clean it up for weeks.

"She is a cra-zy lady," Wren acknowledged, looking over the side of the Pogue, at all the small particles of plastic bobbing around. Knowing the animals that lived in those waters, having to deal with all of that, was disappointing for her to say the least.

"Hard-core dude, hurricane surge."

"Mhm. Yeah."

"We'll be cleaning this all summer," JJ voiced his pain, and Lauren could hear the agitation lacing his tone— she couldn't blame him, after all. It was, most definitely, going to be nothing but a royal pain-in-the-ass, and she'd be one of the first to admit it. "Might pull a Wren and ditch this place, now."

Ah, there it was. By this point, it was getting redundant, so the jabs were flying off of the teen's shoulders as if they weren't even meant for her in the first place. "Eat shit, blondie."

"That is my nightmare," John B sighed through his nose, soon approaching the Heyward's property. And, sure enough, there was their target, right at the end of the dock, as if waiting for them! "Well, look who we have here. We have a safety meeting, attendance mandatory," the boy pretended to be speaking into a radio.

"I can't. My pop's got me on lockdown," Pope replied, rather chagrin with his response to them.

"Come on, man," Maybank expressed his heartache, when it came to the idea of their golden boy not being able to attend, "Your dad's a pussy, over."

"JJ!" Wren rose to her feet, "That is not how you get Heyward on our side."

"Oh, I heard that, you little bastard," the man, holding a mop, hollered out to him, "Back in town, I see, Routledge. A fuckin' miracle, ain't that?"

Squinting his eyes because of the sun that was finally making its presence, the Routledge boy tilted his chin up, "We need your son!"

"We're his personal chauffeur!" Wren added on, "Don't tell us we came all this way for it to be a bust!"

Holding his hands out to the side, JJ nodded in compliance, "Yeah, what she said! And, island rules— day after a hurricane's a free day."

Wiggling his eyebrows, Heyward scowled at the pests, as well as their callow antics. Pests, meaning John B, Wren, and JJ, of course. He couldn't fathom how his son ended up with such a crowd, and it wasn't like he ever seemed on cloud nine when Pope went off to slum with them, doing god-knows-what. "Who the hell made that up?"

"Pentagon, I think. We have security clearance, I have a card."

"Pentagon? Ya'll think I'm stupid—"

"I'll do it tomorrow. I promise I'll do it tomorrow," Pope stammered, trying to earn his father's approval, although the man wasn't necessarily budging on the matter.

"No, no. No. Hell no. You're doin' it right now," Heyward argued, not in the mood for Pope to test his patience.

"Get in the boat."

"—Make a run for it."

"Boy, if you get in that boat—" Heyward was cut off, his boy scrambling rapidly, spontaneously making the (better) choice of hopping inside. Quickly tapping his hand as a sign to get a move on, the three others snickered. "Bring your ass back up here!"

Apologizing a countless abundance of times, Pope responded, "I promise I'll do it tomorrow, Dad."

"When you get back, you're gonna clean shrimp, you're gonna clean fish—"

"Love ya, Pops."

"—You'll clean your dirty-ass room!" he persisted.

"We'll bring him back in one piece. I promise!" John B shouted from the increasing gap of space, as they slowly drifted away.

"And I don't like your friends!" the man added his final hoorah, which didn't phase any members of the group— it was a known fact, that Heyward wanted better for his son. Wren believed he wasn't a shitty person for it, but at the same time— being a Pogue and hanging out with people that aren't at the bottom of the food chain is a near-impossible task. It wasn't as though Kooks would welcome him from the Southside with open arms.

Once they reached a certain distance, Pope's dad made the executive decision to quit trying, being as it wouldn't do anything, whatsoever.

Next stop, Kie's.

Seeing the houses go from clustered and disheveled, to almost spotless was a small fuck you sent to the poor's way, but all four of them collectively chose to ignore it. Was it surprising? No, definitely not. It was a shitty sight; a complete wonder how the trash seemed to telepathically know to stay away from Figure 8, as if it'd be a sin for any litter to seesaw and float around aimlessly in those waters.

"I hope she gives me a bagel," Lauren pondered in thought— the Carrera's tended to have an actual family breakfast, and a long time ago, it became routine that Kiara would give the Routledge a simple bagel with cream cheese.

"She brought you one the morning you left," JJ recollected on months before, a snappiness in his tone at the girl's previous comment, "She ended up feedin' it to the birds, if I remember correct?"

"JJ—"

"Oh!" John B let out in an indistinguishable accent, leaving no more time for rockiness to occur amongst the group. Walking down the dock was their dearest Kie, a cooler in hand, and a napkin with something wrapped up inside of it in the other. "Top of the morning to ya!"

"Good morning boys— and my lovely Wren," she perkily responded, taking her sweet ol' time, "Brought you a present!"

"Whatcha got?"

"You got some juice boxes?" they proceeded to tease. Juice boxes, being code for their cherished beer, of course. Real shocker there.

Brushing a bouncy curl away from her eyes, the lightness in the Carrera girl's tone remained, "Oh, you know— just some yogurt, some carrot sticks."

"What about my kind of juice box?" JJ wondered out loud, although he knew damn well she never ceased to supply them well. While helping her into the boat out of courtesy, Kiara mouthed a small yeah.

Settling into her spot, the brunette revealed something for Lauren, who was sitting criss cross applesauce beside her, "And... a bagel for the lady. Don't think I happened to forget."

Accepting the gift graciously, she placed a hand on top of her best friend's, glaring into her deep brown eyes, that seemed a few shades lighter with the brightness of the outdoors. "This is why you're the love of my life," Wren boasted, taking a bite of the still slightly-warm bagel; it was always toasted the perfect amount, and she contentedly sighed.

JJ stifled a fake gag, opening the lid to the cooler and passing out beers to those who'd drink them (pretty much everyone, minus Pope), "Get a room, you two," lip curling to a fake repulsion, he gently tossed the two girls their preferred beverages of choice.

"Salud," everyone unanimously let out, as John drove the HMS through the marshes' waters. With everyone bouncing jokes off of one another, Lauren couldn't help but have a smile permanently glued to her face— she missed this, more than she could believe. For a long-ass time, the girl had been forced to be an adult (it was her own doing, but still), and being on the boat, with the people she enjoyed the company of the most, Wren felt like a regular teenager again.

"How'd the storm hit you?" Wren inquired curiously, elbows propping her up as she was sprawled out, soaking up the sun so she could get her glorious tan.

"What do you think?" she rolled her eyes— if anyone knew how pretentious the Kooks were, it was Kiara, even though she was born as one, "Kelce's mom was pissed cause the umbrella to her patio set was tipped over."

"Seriously?" Pope groaned, shaking his head as if that'd make it seem more realistic to him.

"Yeah, totally," Kie confirmed, amusement written all over her face in just recollecting on the topic, "My bedroom window was open this morning, and all I hear is 'Fuckin storm, this is absurd'— yada, yada, yada," the girl retold the story in the tone of Kelce's mom, waving her hands around dramatically as the group got a kick out of what she was saying, "Un-real."

"Hey— be more considerate. Maybe the umbrella's post was bent from Agatha, and she'll never be able to find another one like it again," Lauren's placed a delicate hand on her chest, feigning sympathy for the rich woman.

Playing along, Kiara sadly smiled, "You're right— it's a real pity."

"Enough of the sob story, before I shed a tear. That is truly, truly devastating for them," the blonde interjected, "I have something ya'll will like— bet you can't do this. Let me show ya'll a party trick." He stepped up onto the bow of the Pogue, playfully swirling around his bottle of beer, "Hey Pope, can you go a little faster?"

With that, a chorus of gripes followed. "Oh, here we go. I'm movin'," JB took a seat, adjusting the sunglasses resting on his nose.

"We've tried this like 6,000 times."

"I got this, it's gonna work," JJ stood on the very tip of the boat as he tried to convince his friends, while Pope heightened the speed they had been cruising. Tipping his head back, the alcohol started to fly out. Mind you, the goal was for him to catch it in his mouth, but Wren was convinced that she had gotten more on her face than he had actually caught all-together.

"Oh my god, you're getting beer in my hair!" Kiara shrieked, flinching with each droplet that made contact with her.

Whistling, Wren ran her tongue over her teeth, "Damn Maybank! I bet this trick is a hit with the ladies!" With his free hand that was loosely hanging on his side, JJ threw up a middle finger while remaining concentrated. Pope continued to try and coax him to stop, but the boy was determined to get it down.

Before they all knew it, their lightheartedness was put on hold. For some reason, the boat made an insanely-abrupt jolt, far worse than anything Wren had ever encountered, and everyone received a bitter taste of it. The blonde was sent soaring into a front flip into the water, and the Routledge girl, who was sitting on the port, awkwardly did a smaller backflip into the marsh from the side.

Salty water invading her nostrils from being upside down and dripping into the back of her throat, Lauren was sent into a small coughing fit as she rubbed her eyes.

"Jesus, Pope!"

Looking over to JJ, who just emerged from the water and was bobbing up and down in the water while letting out an uncomfortable moan, Wren heaved herself up over the side.

"You okay, guys?" Pope inquired, scanning everyone's state. Thankfully, nobody had been terribly injured, from what they could see.

Choking out the words, JJ muttered, "I think my heels touched the back of my head. Pope, what did you do?"

"Sandbar. The channel changed."

"No shit," the Maybank boy swam back.

Sighing loudly, John B stared out to the waters ahead of them, "Ugh, this is probably mess this whole place up."

With a sudden shift in his voice, JJ held up his bottle, somehow, "Hey, saved the beer though."

"Congrats, JJ," Wren suddenly exhaled over-dramatically, "Shit— mine's gone." Looking over towards their golden boy, Lauren noticed how he seemed engrossed in something, "What is it, Heyward?"

"Guys.... I think there's a boat down there."

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