ONLY ANGEL | JJ MAYBANK

FIFTEEN... the short straw

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
warning: this chapter includes topics relating to drug addiction

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JJ Maybank is pretty sure that Collins Jacobson is the girl of his dreams.

He knows how presumptuous a statement like that is, he'd be the first to admit it that he sounded absolutely insane. How could he know such a thing? He'd never searched for this girl to know what qualities checked all the boxes for him. He had no clue what it was that made him feel like she was somehow made for him- that is, until he met Collins and realized she was everything that he wanted and more.

Out of the many times he'd been called selfish by his friends, JJ had never been so egocentric to think that there were things on this earth that had been specially curated for him and him alone. But the existence of this girl who had entered his life at such an unexpected time had seemed to change his whole perspective on the universe. No one could be this perfect unless they had been carefully crafted, specially hand-selected, and meticulously calculated to fulfill his every desire. JJ didn't even care how repetitive it was at this point, he would keep saying it ten times over, again and again: Collins Jacobson is an angel on earth.

He thought that he liked the kind of girl who sought to spend her days on an adrenaline high, the ones who made provocative remarks about what goes on under the sheets and whose only motivations in life was their own selfish objectives. These girls were easy to come by, he'd come across many at their infamous keggers, and he'd become well acquainted with this personality type. Those were the kind of girls he'd come home with, so that had to mean that he liked them, right?

Basically, JJ thought he'd fall in love with someone like him. Collins was pretty much anything but. The only thing that somehow made them make sense was the fact that everything that made them different, didn't work against them, it became a part of each other that they loved. JJ was boisterous and rough around the edges, and Collins was reserved and delicate. He was the hammer and she was the china teacup; they would never make sense together in any world of logic.

Except in the dimension in which JJ didn't have to destroy everything he touched. Perhaps they could be living in a world where he could be the kind of hammer that fixed things instead of broke them. Only then would he and Collins make perfect sense.

JJ thinks all of this as he's looking at Collins from where he sits on the railing attached to John B's dock. They retreated back to the home base after discovering the well where the lost gold of the Royal Merchant had to be held in. They were going to start making their plan to extract the gold, given that it wouldn't be easy since it was under the home of a rumored serial killer. A lot of thought and careful planning was in order for this scheme of theirs. Now, they were just left waiting on John B to get back from whatever vague excuse of his he'd given them on his way out, they all had to busy themselves or else they were too antsy with anticipation. How could they not be? They were about to become millionaires.

Clearly, JJ had decided to quell his boredom by admiring Collins, the one thing that could probably distract him from anything on earth. Not knowing if she ever thinks of him the same way that he's currently thinking of her is pretty much the only thing that keeps him from feeling like becoming rich will bring him immense happiness.

She was stretched out on the deck, lying on her stomach with her eyes trained down on her notebook filled with lines upon lines of writing etched across the paper. She had topics and ideas over what she wanted to write her college essays about, organized into bullet points for her to remember and choose from the best. Her brows were knit in deep thought and there were teeth marks on the end of her pencil where the eraser was.