Anchor // JJ Maybank

11.

JJ rubbed small circles and patterns onto the palm of Cassidy's hand which sent a chill running through the girl. Cassidy was seated next to JJ as he reenacted the day's earlier events dramatically. Luckily, he had skipped over the conversation they had on the ride there, but for the rest of the story, he spared no detail or embellishment. Cassidy's hand was suddenly dropped onto the couch as JJ jumped up excitedly from the couch and into the space between the couches for his reenactment. 

"And we were right outside like this," JJ starts, crouching down next to the wall, "And all we hear is just Bam! Bam! Bam! Knocking paint of the wall. From the inside! And I'm just looking at them like... Wait, first, look at this shit!" JJ says, getting distracted and ruffling his hair, showing Pope the flecks of paint that were falling from his blond head. 

"That's dandruff. Disgusting," Kiara comments, looking disgusted at the boy in front of her. 

"Ok, thank you," Pope says, desperately trying to get the boy and his dandruff away from him.

"Look at all that. That's paint. At that point, I was just like, I'm waiting for death," JJ says dramatically. Cassidy rolled her eyes at the boy as he sat down next to her. 

"I can confirm that assessment. I'm pretty sure you peed your pants. For all the shit you talk, you were whimpering like a baby," Cassidy responds playfully as JJ playfully pushes her shoulder in response. 

"Ok. So you saw the guys who shot at us, right?" Pope asks, switching the topic and earning a nod from Cassidy and John B. "Did you get a good description of them? What did they look like? Anything we can bring to a police report?"

"Burly," JJ says, looking seriously at Pope.

"Burly?" Pope asks exasperated and Cassidy couldn't help but chuckle at the poor boy's frustration. 

"That's not very helpful," Kiara muttered in annoyance. 

"Okay, well, no, like the type of guys who work at my dad's garage. I mean, you know he made cargo hides for drug smugglers. I can tell you with full confidence, these guys, these killers, they're square groupers," JJ reasoned as he quickly lights a cigarette and dangles it from his mouth. 

"While that's a pretty big leap, I get what you mean. And I don't know... It almost felt like there was something familiar about one of them. Like I've seen him around before," Cassidy told him as she plucked the cigarette from JJ's mouth and took a puff before handing it back to the boy. 

"You guys, not everything is a kingpin movie," Kiara tried to reason with the couple.

"Okay, so what does a square grouper look like?" Pope asked, returning to JJ's earlier statement. 

"Burly," Cassidy muttered under her breath, laughing to herself.

"Look, dude, you weren't there! I wasn't taking little mental polaroids the whole time! I was under duress, okay?" JJ defended, getting more and more agitated with the questions. "But I can tell you... I can tell you from the way that Ms. Lana was screaming that these guys are serious hombres man. It's a heavy vibe right now okay? I'm not liking this very much," he continued as Cassidy rolled her eyes at the overdramatic boy. 

"Alright, well why would they want the compass?" Kiara questioned, looking to the piece of metal that John B was holding.

"Yeah, it's a piece of shit. You couldn't pawn it off for five bucks if you wanted to. No offense, John B." Pope says bashfully, realizing his mistake after Cassidy threw a pillow at the insensitive boy. 

"The office." John B muttered, rushing off of the porch and into the chateau.

"Uh, yeah John B we know it's a good show. I don't understand what that has to do with anything right now, though." Cassidy retorted as she followed John B and the rest of the group into the cluttered home.