MONEY, MONEY, MONEY! jj maybank

004. fishing trip

COLA KNEW SHE FUCKED UP. One, she wasn't even that drunk at the Boneyard, yet she chose to make our with her best friend to make some random Touron jealous (who, by the way, wasn't even that attractive when words started coming out of his mouth. Kind of like a Rafe 2.0). Two, her blow at Topper caused her to be called a slut in front of a bunch of teenagers. Three, she woke up with no recollection of the events that happened after the Boneyard fight— no idea how she came home, no idea how she ended up in her bed fast asleep. She was still wearing the clothes from the other night, but there was a towel soaked in water at her bedside, which alerted her of how her face and arms felt weirdly clean.

But she had no time to dwell on her mistakes (or her wins, she had no fucking idea) since John B came knocking to her door fifteen minutes after she woke up, telling her that they needed to have a group meeting urgently.

Now here Nicola was, forty minutes and a bath later, she sat silently with her friends. At this point, her head wasn't pounding anymore, so the soft beats coming out of the bongos Kiara was messing with sounded quite nice. JJ was throwing with rocks, Pope was reading, and Cola was busy trying to remember what had happened after the Boneyard— did the Touron take her home?

"Hey, what happened after the Boneyard last night?" Cola questions, growing tired of the curiosity and asking the question instead. "Who took me home? I couldn't remember."

Pope looked up from the book. "Yeah, actually—"

"Kie took you home." JJ interrupted Pope, throwing another rock into the field. His head was tilted sideways, as if he was purposely avoiding her glance.

Cola, who didn't think too much of it, glanced at Kie who had her eyebrows scrunched together. "Thanks, Kie."

After a few beats of silence, John B finally spoke up. "I'm calling it off. All right? Peterkin said if I stay out of the marsh she'll help me with DCS."

"You believed her?" JJ huffed.

"Yes, I believe her, JJ."

Nicola couldn't comprehend what she was hearing. "Cops are pigs, John B. They lie. All the time. They're the last people you should be believing. "

"All I gotta do is stay out of the marsh, and she'll help me out," John B explained, hoping that his friends would understand him just this once. He turns around and faces JJ, growing a bit frustrated. "It doesn't help that his ass was the one shooting the gun."

Cola understood his frustration. A small part of her mind thought that yeah, maybe the gun was a bit too much.

"You know what I should have done?" JJ threw a rock in frustration, bitterness dripping his tone. "Just let Topper drown your ass."

"Don't say that, JJ." Cola mumbled, remembering the whole reason why the fight started in the first place— those words Topper threw at her.

"Topper was gonna drown me?"

"Sure looked like it. Have you looked in a mirror?"

Hearing this, Nicola's eyes glance over towards the large bruise that was forming on his eye. It looked bad.

"Tell me some more. Come on." John B was egging JJ on, encouraging his friend with sarcasm laced in his tone.

"They always win, don't they, man? Kooks versus Pogues. They always, always win!" JJ exclaimed, before punching the pot that was hanging from the roof of the porch out of rage. "Goddamn!"

Cola adjusted herself on the porch, taking in every single thing JJ was saying. They always win. They did always win.

"Look, it's okay!"