The Strays ⎈John B Routledge⎈

The Catalyst

Chapter 14: The Catalyst

The gif is once again the work of the wonderful  AFTERGLOWLUKE // WILDFLOWERLUKE ❤❤❤ love you babes

{If you saw that I forgot to name this, no you didn't}

~SiriusCatBennett

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"Technically, I won. You said another month, I said two. It's been over a month. Pony up, sunny."

"No, no. It was closer to a month than two months. So, I win. Twenty dollars, please. Oh, and does that come with interest? This has been like a four-year-long bet, there's gotta be interest."

"Shove it, JJ. This wasn't even a fair bet. You've known them longer."

"Fair, shmair. You accepted the bet, you accept the consequences, compadre."

"Oh, my god! What are you doing here?!"

Stirred from her sleep, CJ hurriedly sat up, pulling the blanket up to her chest while a still groggy John B instinctively covered her up with his arm. With his free hand, he quickly found his shirt and gave it to her to slip on.

Now dressed in more than underwear, CJ's head swung up to look back at those that had woken her up in a panic. Her brother had a small, mischievous smirk on his face that read he was highly amused by her little freak out. A freshly lit joint sat between his lips from where he was perched on the dock, right knee bent while the other laid flat. A twenty-dollar bill was being tucked in his hat, something that fueled Pope's pouting face. The younger boy was leaning on the dock railing opposite the Maybank boy.

"'Sup."

"Did- did you just 'sup me?" CJ cried, looking at her brother incredulously as she tugged her shorts up under the blankets. "That's not even- were you two betting on us?"

JJ's best answer was to simply shrug with a mock innocent expression. At CJ's angered visage, he leaned forward, offering the joint as a peace offering. "You rolled it."

With one last glare, that was all CJ needed to hear to grab the thing out of his fingers. Cheeks burning in embarrassment, her face turned down to hide it as she hit the joint. From beside her - now also covered properly from the waist down - John B rubbed her back with a sheepish expression. He couldn't quite look JJ in the eyes.

"So..." JJ started off, his accent twisting into that of a southerner. Anyone could hear the amusement in his tone. "What do we have here?"

A groan fell from CJ's lips as she focused all of her attention on the water below them and the joint in her mouth. Her mind was all over the place, as was her heart. On one end, she was freaking out that something had happened between her and John B the night prior, and on the other, she was extremely excited about it. His fingertips trailing her back sent shivers through her body and remembering the words he'd said to her made her heart flutter. Throw in the mortification of her brother and one of their closest friends finding them the day after and she was a mess.

"Nothing." She grumbled, her voice barely more than a whisper as she handed the smoking J over to the boy beside her.

"Nothin'?" JJ questioned, his accent getting more and more country by the second. "Well, I'll be. Sure looks like somethin'. Care to explain?"

Obviously, the boy understood what had gone down, at least to a point. His only goal was to embarrass and fluster them, and it was working.

"I saw 'em last night. I think you took their room away, JJ."