ONLY ANGEL | JJ MAYBANK

TWENTY-NINE... collins and the pogues

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

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It almost felt like Kie had purposely tired Collins out, judging from the fact that Collins felt like she was about to collapse into her bed and then pass out until the next morning. But maybe that just meant that she'd had a good day.

Once Kie had finally pulled her car over to a stop in front of Collins's house, the birthday girl turned over in her seat to face her. "Wanna have dinner? Charlie's probably just gonna roast hot dogs over a fire, but it could be fun?"

"How could I say no to that?" Kie scoffed, twisting her key out of the ignition before the two were opening their doors and jumping out of the car. Collins actively ignored the inkling of a feeling that Kie might've just wanted to stay because she thought Charlie was hot, since she wanted Kie to be there and maybe her schoolgirl crush amused her.

Collins was holding her bag full of the clothes they'd thrifted as she walked up to her front door. She pushed the screen divider with her foot to keep it from closing, and twisted the doorknob all the way, using her shoulder to shove the main door open.

She only took one step inside before she was frozen in place at the rainbow of colors that welcomed her inside, all of which were unfamiliar to the home she had left earlier that day. There were streamers hung sporadically on the walls, balloons lying sparingly around the floors and table tops, and three boys holding their arms out while cheering at the top of their lungs, "Happy birthday!"

Collins clutched her face with both hands and gasped in pure shock. Charlie, Pope, and JJ had somehow managed to put together a whole surprise party just for her. There's always a first for everything, isn't there?

"How the hell did you guys pull this off?" Looking to each of them, Collins turned to face Kie, who shrugged her shoulders in a smug sort of way that Collins should've known all along that she was in on it. "They made you the distraction? Again?"

"Hey, at this point, its become my strong suit. I couldn't say no to this one." Kie admitted in her defense.

"So were you surprised?" Charlie asked her, coming over to give her a side hug, which she happily allowed him to pull her into. "The two knuckleheads over there did most of the work here if you couldn't tell. Seeing as it was JJ's whole idea I wasn't sure if his plan had somehow been spoiled since he's such a good keeper of secrets."

"You know, I was gonna give you some of the credit, bro." JJ piped up from behind Charlie. "You could've been in on this." JJ held a ballsy middle finger up at Charlie, to which the curly haired brunet caught with a mocking smile on his face before tucking in his back pocket like a blown kiss.

"Now, now, kids. You guys totally took me by surprise." As Charlie moved out of the way, JJ quickly swooped in to replace him, attacking Collins with a hug that swept her off her feet. She squealed as he spun her around. "I can't believe you guys did all this."

"I hate to say it, but I gotta give it to JJ on this one." Kie said in subtle praise. "He came up with the whole idea."

"This has been one of his few plans that have actually worked out flawlessly." Pope added, to which JJ scowled at him deeply.

"Those don't sound like the words, 'good job, JJ, you goddamn genius' to me, you guys."

Before they could get into a fit of bickering back and forth with each other, Charlie stepped in and shifted the subject in a different direction. "Okay, I think we've established that JJ did a good job setting this whole thing up and the birthday girl looks happy so that's all that matters."