Denial || An OBX Story

Chapter Five

Pope eventually moved away from Maddie's side, taking the wheel from John B so that he could also drink with his friends.

"Aye, let me and Mads show you a party trick." JJ smiles confidently, stepping past Kiara and moving up to the bow of the boat. He held his hand out for Maddie to take as he helps her to her feet.

"Terrifying."

"Hey, Pope." Maddie looks back, taking her hand from JJ so she could tuck some of her hair behind her ear and then fix the side of her floral bikini bottoms. "Let's get some speed, yeah?"

John B moves to the back of the boat and Kiara moves to the side, both knowing what was coming from the two creative teens on the front.

"Hey, calm down." Maddie says, "It's gonna work, we got this." She smirks.

Her and JJ cheers their beer bottles together before tilting it in front of them in the air, letting the wind push the beer into their faces. Their mouths were wide open, but only a very small amount of the fluid actually made it in.

"Oh my god." Kiara whines as the three other teens turned their heads away from the mess. "You're getting beer in my hair."

Pope puts his hand up to block his face, "Alright, alright, alright you're done. Stop." He complains with his face scrunched up.

Suddenly, the gears of the boat begin to start clanking and the motor shuts off making the boat come to a sudden stop.

"Oh shit!" Maddie screams as she flips through the air. Her and JJ landed in the water with two large splashes. But, out of panic, she quickly kicks her strong legs to push her back to the surface. She looks to her right to see JJ slowly float back up, groaning in pain.

"I think my heels touched the back of my head." He says, catching a breath of fresh air. "Pope, what did you do."

"Sandbar." Pope replies, still recovering from his impact with the wheel. "The channel changed."

"No shit." Maddie says in annoyance, shaking some of the water from her eyes. "You need to be more careful. Are you alright, JJ?"

"Yeah."

"That's probably gonna mess this whole place up."

"Hey." JJ chuckles, beginning to swim towards the boat, "I saved the beer though."

"Congrats, JJ." John B replies with a strong tone of sarcasm.

"Lucky you." Maddie sighs, swimming behind JJ. "I didn't. That's a tea wasted." She says, looking up at Pope who was looking down at the water below him. "And I lost my sunglasses. I actually paid for those." She whines with a frown on her face.

"Why don't I believe you?" JJ asks.

"Because it's not true." Maddie smiles, earning a smile back from JJ.

"Guys." Pope says with an unsure voice. His brows were furrowed and his lips were drawn into a line. "I think there's a boat down there."

Maddie scoffs but looks at Pope and realizes he isn't joking in any way. He was dead serious.

"Shut up." John B says in disbelief with a slight roll of his eyes. He wasn't really down for joking about missing boats or boats lost at sea considering what happened to his father.

"No way."

JJ looks at Maddie who shares the same confused look as him. They both shrug their shoulders as they tried to understand if Pope was being serious.

"No, no, guys. I'm serious." He says, not a single thing about his tone was a joke. "There's, there's like a boat down there." He says, pointing his finger to the water behind JJ and Maddie. "There's a boat!"