❝UNLIMITED DATA PLANS❞

third person

"well that was exciting." jj said as sage rolled her eyes.

"except for the part where you almost got us caught and arrested?" the blonde asked, jj rolling his eyes.

"the cops took everything like it was a crime scene." john b interrupted, sage rolling her eyes.

"did you guys find anything?" pope asked, jj shaking his head and sage shrugging, the two exchanging glances and smiling.

"did we find anything, hm, no, i don't think we did..." jj trailed off as sage pulled the cash out of her shorts and he pulled the gun out of his pocket, his smile widening as he did. "oh, yeah, we totally did!"

"sage, what the actual hell?" john b asked. "how did i not see you take that?"

"blind bitch." sage muttered, tossing a stack to john b and the other to jj. "merry christmas, mother-effers."

"why would you guys take that from a crime scene?" pope whisper-shouted, sage rolling her eyes.

"yes, leave our fingerprints at the crime scene, that would've been smart. a semi-automatic pistol covered in his prints would've looked absolutely flawless on jj's record." sage replied, her voice filled with sarcasm.

"are you supposed to be smart?" kiara asked pope, who shook his head in disbelief.

"i'm gonna lose my merit scholarship." he breathed, jj walking up to him and putting the gun under his chin, shushing him as he did so.

"at least you have us, right?" he asked, sage pulling jj's hand away from pope.

"do you even know if that things loaded?"

"i'm living the nightmare." pope exclaimed, sitting down next to sage on the bow as john b looked at the blonde, who smiled back.

"i'm not a blind bitch." he said as he tossed the stack of cash back to her, sage laughing as he did so.

"whatever helps you sleep at night."

"what the hell?" sage asked as the sheriff pulled up to the crab hut where the pogues were hanging out. a blonde girl and a redhead were flipping the sign on a snowcone shop next door, sage recognizing the redhead from a few boneyard parties.

"come on." she told the pogues, walking across to the snowcone shack where the two girls were sitting at a picnic table.

"did you guys hear?" the redhead asked, sage and the others looking to where the sheriff was talking to the old owner of the crab hut.

"we were about to ask you the same question." jj said, the kids all looking to where a person was being lifted onto a stretcher. sage looked over as a middle-aged woman ran down the docks toward the stretcher, sobbing uncontrollably as she looked at the body.

"who's that?" john b asked.

"it's scooter grubbs." the blonde said. "he was out during the storm."

"didn't you get a picture when they first pulled up?" the redhead asked the blonde, who pulled out her phone to show the group of pogues.

"dead body." she dragged out, john b raising his eyebrows.

"holy shit." the brunette muttered as jj looked at the redhead.

"what kind of boat did he have?" the blonde asked, the redhead scoffing.

"somehow that dirtbag copped a brand new grady-white. literally the whole island's looking for it." she said, looking at sage. "how do i know you?"

"do we know each other?" sage asked, the redhead nodding.

"i'm morgan holcomb, i'm rafe cameron's girlfriend." she said, the group of pogues all raising their eyebrows.

"you're the one who's dragging that little bitch around the boneyeard at parties." jj said, and morgan nodded.

"jj!" sage scolded, slapping his bicep as he pointed at morgan.

"she's the one who nodded!" he said, morgan laughing as the other pogues rolled their eyes.

"we should hang out sometime." morgan told sage, who nodded as she stood up, the rest of the pogues already walking back to the twinkie. "you guys seem better than what i normally hang around."

"we're probably not." sage deadpanned. "my brother and jj are terrible influences."

"is jj your boyfriend?" morgan asked, sage shaking her head.

"hell would have to freeze over for jj to think of me as anything more than a friend." sage explained, morgan shaking her head.

"well then it must be pretty icy right now." morgan said, winking at sage as she walked back to her snowcone shack, leaving the routledge girl in complete disbelief.

"sagebrush!" john b yelled, honking the horn repeatedly, sage rolling her eyes as she turned and walked back to the van, climbing into the passenger seat as jj leaned back against her seat.

"what was that about?" he asked, sage shaking her head as she looked around at him.

"nothing." she said quietly, looking at john b. "clearly we have shit to discuss, let's go."

"okay, guys? if anyone asks, we didn't see anything, we don't know anything." pope said as he walked onto the porch, stress clear in his voice. "we have to have total and complete amnesia."

"actually, pope's right. for once." jj added quietly. "deny, deny, deny."

"guys, we can't keep that money." kiara interjected, sage rolling her eyes.

"not all of us can afford unlimited data plans, kiara." jj replied, kiara grimacing at the blonde boy.

"we have to pass it off to lana grubbs, otherwise, it's bad karma." she said while raising her hands up, pope speaking up from behind sage.

"bad karma to be implicated in a felony too." he pointed out. "we gotta go dark."

"if that means we get to keep the money, then i agree." jj said, sage nodding in agreement. john b, however, patted both of them on the shoulders.

"i don't agree." he said quietly, sages eyes widening.

"dude, that money could totally turn shit around for us, what reason do you have to not agree?" sage said angrily, john b turning around with his hands up to quiet the blonde girl, who rolled her eyes disgustedly at her younger twin.

"just, think about it, lil. this is scooter grubbs. the same guy who's buying individual cigarettes at the porthole. shit, we've seen him begging in the save-a-lot parking begging for change cause he needed gas." john b said exasperatedly. "we're talking about a dirtbag marina-rat who's never had more than fourty bucks in his pocket, and all of a sudden he has thousands of dollars in cash and a grady-white?"

"i'm just saying." john b said flatly, sage sighing heavily.

"think about it, pope, how does a marina rat get a grady-white?" john b asked, pope inhaling sharply as he casted the line on his fishing pole out.

"prostitution." he said quickly, john b rolling his eyes as sage buried her face is jj's arm to hide her laugher.

"flying under the radar, arial surveillance, they don't do that stuff during a hurricane!" john b said, sage rolling her eyes.

"maybe they were smugglers!" she said impatiently, john b pointing at sage and nodding as he looked back at pope.

"smuggling!" he said logically. "and i guarantee there's a serious amount of contraband on that wreck."

"hell yeah." jj muttered as a fish quickly yanked on his line.

"fish on!" sage said in a falsely enthusiastic voice as she pumped her fist in the air, jj rolling his eyes at the blonde on his left.

"for the record, if that is a smuggling ship used to carry illegal contraband, it probably belongs to someone else-" pope started, kiara shrugging as sage plucked the strings on the guitar laid on john b's bed.

"minor details." the curly-haired kook said, pope looking at her.

"they could come looking for it." pope finished. "taking it would be... catastrophically stupid." he said pointedly, waving around one of sage's cash stacks to and emphasis to what he was saying. jj snatched the cash and fanned it out, shrugging as he did.

"yeah, well..." he said as he leans toward pope, holding the fan of cash in front of his face. "stupid things have good outcomes all the time."

"until john b and i get implemented in a felony and get shipped to the mainland." sage adds, and pope nods.

"we gotta be incognito, act casual." he says.

"how do we do that?" john b asks, and a grin spreads across sage's face.

"kegger?"

kens speaks 🪐

this took a lot longer to write than it should've