KILBY GIRL. - J. MAYBANK

❛ EPISODE EIGHT, PART ONE. ❜

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❛ THE RUNWAY ❜
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S 01 E 08

I woke up late the next morning, the curtains and windows letting in the breeze and sunlight, a hazy glow spilling across my bedroom. I shifted a little to get comfortable, which only resulted in the boy beneath me's arms wrapping tighter around me with a groan.

"Good morning to you too." I laughed quietly, my eyes opening to look at his peaceful face. I could very easily get used to waking up next to him. "Sleepyhead."

"Shut up, it's too early." He mumbled, burying his face in the pillow and pulling me with. "Sleep."

"I already slept, we have a lot of shit to do today." I sighed, remembering the chaos that would resume in a few hours. "We have gold to be getting."

"We always have shit to do. Let's just not do it."

"You don't want to be 100 million dollars richer today?"

"Are you going to stop talking and go back to sleep, or do I need to shut you up." One of his eyes finally opened, glaring at me with a raised eyebrow. A grin stretched on my lips as I prepared to make a snide comment. "Actually, don't. You're going to say some stupid shit."

"Oh, so now you keep it in your pants. You can't do it any other goddamn time—"

He put one of his hands on my face, pushing the back of my head into the pillow behind my head as I snorted, my shoulder shaking with my laughter. "I swear to god, I'm going to kill you. Shut up!"

"If you kill me, who else will listen to all of your bullshit?" I grabbed his wrist, pulling it away from my face. "Now, rise and shine, we've got shit to do."

"Technically I don't need to get up until John B and everyone else gets here. They don't even know where I am anyway," His arms slid around me once more, a yawn tumbling from his lips. "So you are staying here, and I am going back to bed."

"We can stay for a bit, but you're not sleeping." I sighed, running my hand through the front of my hair. "We have to talk a little bit, at least."

"But—"

"Don't. We need to talk while you're completely sober and in a clear enough mindset to talk." I huffed as he let go and rolled over onto his back, strands of his blonde hair flopping against the white fabric of my pillow. "How much do you remember from last night?"

"I remember bits and pieces of the afternoon, but I remember from when we started arguing again." His hand trailed down his face. "And then you yelled that you might be in love with me, and I froze. Then we came back here, you fixed me up like always, then I asked to talk. You didn't want to, but then I kinda just said everything in my head."

"Good. You weren't as drunk as I thought." A dry laugh slipped from my lips. "What else?"

"Then we went back to normal-ish? I gave you the necklace, which I was going to wait until later in the summer for, but then just felt right."

"It did. it was the right time." I sighed, smiling before going serious once more. "But we can't keep having these fights about me and the job, JJ. I need you to understand that I'm not going to leave, whether you like it or not."

I rolled over onto my side, so I could look at him, while he looked up at the ceiling, blankly. "I know, and I'm sorry I keep bringing it up. I just want the best for you, and I know you can do better than this shithole. I do think I would go crazy without you, though."

"And you've got me. This is my home, J. I was born here, we grew up here, I'm staying here."

He was next to face me. "But there's a whole wide world out there. The world isn't just the OBX."

"But we're sixteen, and I don't need to go and get into the world yet. I'm perfectly fine here, right now, in this moment. I am experiencing this moment, and you are too, and that's all that's on my mind right now."

"What are you doing to me, Chayse?." he breathed out, his eyes latched onto mine as his forehead pressed against mine. "You are—"

"Impossibly hot? The coolest person ever? God Almighty? King of the world? You've got a lot of options."

"Incredible. That's what I was going to say." He laughed, his hand moving to rest on the side of my neck. His thumb rubbed across my jawline, goosebumps rising on my skin. "The first one isn't entirely a lie, though."

"You act like I didn't know that already." I raised an eyebrow at him, only for him to lean in and kiss me. It stole my breath away and lit my chest on fire, yet I begrudgingly pulled away. "Back on topic— we need to communicate. That's our problem. We're normal, then we fight, then we make up. We need to actually talk. And I'm not talking like once a week. I'm talking regularly."

"I know. I'm trying to get better at it. I just don't want to distract anyone with my shit when there's all the gold madness going on."

"You're just as important as this gold hunt, JJ." I sighed, my heart breaking at the fact that he thought he was being a burden. "More important, actually. Fuck the gold. I want to help you before anything else."

"I think you help by just... being around. And weed. If you get me weed, I am all good."

"Then I will get you weed. Easy." I laughed. "We'll figure out the rest later."

"Sounds good to me." He grinned before pulling me back into a kiss, the arm that was underneath me pulling me closer, the hand that was on my neck slipping around the front of my neck in order to guide my jaw with our motions. The smooth confidence of every purposeful touch or movement had me melting in his grasp, warmth rolling across every inch of my skin.

The air around us began to thicken and touches began to wander, one of my hands trailing across the lean edge of his torso, my nails dragging lightly across the parts of his skin that weren't marred with bruises. The fingers of his hand that was around me slipped beneath the edge of my shirt, gripping against the soft skin of my waist. I shifted closer to him in an attempt to get a better angle, my outermost leg moving slightly to get rid of unnecessary gaps between our bodies.

The blonde echoed this notion, his thigh edging between my legs, the solid warmth between my thighs coaxing a soft whimper from my lips. He smirked against the edge of my jaw, a rumble of a chuckle racking through his body, which sent a wave of warm friction to my core.

"Please tell me we have time," I whispered, breath growing heavy. "Please."

"I'll make time." He replied, using what seemed like very little effort to turn us over, my back now flush against the mattress. The hand that was resting on my throat remained in place as he lowered himself far enough to kiss down the column of my throat, kissing over the fading marks from the other day.

Instead of lingering, he continued downward, leaving new marks as he went. My fingers tangled in his hair as he finally hit the top edge of my shorts, anticipation spiraling within me—

BANG!

I practically jumped, JJ's forehead moving to rest on my stomach, a groan rumbling against my skin.

"Chayse! Why the hell is there a hot tub out back?" Pope bellowed through the window while Kie laughed, walking around to the back door.

I whined quietly. "I'm going to kill them. Why does this keep happening?"

"I hate our friends." He pressed a final kiss to my stomach before sitting up, kneeling on the bed, between my legs. "And here comes Kiara."

"Well, I see you found JJ." She huffed, standing on my side of the bed, I glared at her. "Nice of you to grace us with your presence, JJ. Care to explain the hot tub? And string lights? And floating champagne glasses?"

"Not when you two keep barging in on us." He huffed as I sat up, my hand running through my hair.

"Maybe if Chayse locked her door you wouldn't have this problem. Just get dressed, both of you? We wanna test out the pulley system." Pope sighed, walking into the bedroom. "Please keep the PDA to a minimum?"

"Why did both of you need to walk in here? I got the message the first time."

"It wasn't PDA until you guys got here anyway."

"Whatever."

———ˋˏ ∵- ✿ - ∴ ˎˊ———

One freezing cold outdoor shower and half an hour of glowering at my friends later, we reconvened behind the Château. the bitter and stale taste of the beer in my hand slithered down my parched throat as I leaned against the outside of the hot tub, watching Kiara, who was currently perched inside of a bucket. Said bucket was hooked up to our 'state-of-the-art' pulley system, which was on one of the biggest trees behind the house.

"How's it feeling?" The brunette boy at her side said, leaning back against his dad's truck.

"Feels good." She responded, her hands gripping the rope above her.

"Alright, I'm taking you down."

"'Kay."

"John B's pullin' a Houdini," JJ said from his spot on the edge of the hot tub beside me, putting down his own beer.

"Yeah, where is he?" Pope asked, looking back at me. I only shrugged.

"No clue. Haven't seen him since he dropped me off." I stated, setting my beer on the ground. "Probably doing that fishing thing with Ward."

"Well, I've got my scholarship interview tomorrow, we've gotta get this done." The brunette stated as some leaves behind Kie rustled, revealing an uncharacteristically silent John B.

"Speak of the devil. Hey!" The blonde at my side called out, turning in his spot at the top of the hot tub. "Dude, I set up the entire winch to pull up the gold and everything."

"No, he did not." Pope and I stated as Kie was safely lowered to the ground. "We did that."

"Hey." The other girl stated. "John B."

"Hey!"

"Okay, that's it?" JJ asked at my side, looking at me with a confused expression.

"Yo! JB! What's the problem?" J shouted as the tallest of the group barged into the house, his head down and not a sound leaving his lips. "The hell is that all about?"

Pope and Kiara walked up to JJ and me as I was getting ready to get up and the blonde was taking his legs out of the water. "I was about to ask you the exact same thing."

All of us walked into the Château, where our eerily silent friend was rustling and clattering things about, presumably in search of something.

"You alright man? What's up?" The brunette boy that was at my side was first to break the silence, treading lightly so that some kind of verbal fight didn't break out, god forbid.

"What are you looking for?" The girl beside him asked, having to raise her voice over the noise.

"Bro, what's going on?" JJ added on as the tallest of the group lifted the corner of the pullout, the infamous gun in his hand.

"John B, no." I rushed over first, both Kiara and JJ following suit. "What the hell do you need the gun for?"

I got to him first, but I was promptly shoved into the couch. That got JJ upset, which caused him to be shoved away next.

"Talk to us!"

"John B! Chill! What are you doing?"

"What are you, JJ now?" Pope asked, his body nearly knocking into mine as he was pushed aside.

"Watch it, Pope," I warned, jumping back up to help him from the table. "Are you alright?"

"John B, what the hell are you doing?"

We followed him out of the house, catching him just as he was mounting JJ's dirtbike. He revved the engine angrily, his hair flopping all across his face.

"John Booker Routledge! What the hell is going on?" I shouted, walking past the cars to where he was.

"Ward knows about the gold. He killed my dad." His voice cracked, and my heart fell through my stomach, onto the floor. My body went numb, down to the marrow lining my bones.

Ward knows, and he killed Big John.

If he killed Big John, who knew about the gold, then what the hell was he going to do to my dad, who's apparently alive and working in the Bahamas?

What do we do now?

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Kilby Girl ⋆ JJ Maybank
S 01 E 08

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