3: The Milwaukee Beverage

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[mention of drug addictions]

AURORA DIDN'T see the point in love. A part of that belief stems from her father and mother- who were never close. Aurora didn't remember her mom, she had bipolar disorder and ran away constantly in her manic episodes. Of course, they couldn't afford medicine to help it- so they only got worse and worse. And one day, their mom never returned.

Their father, Luke, was already addicted to drinking. But when their mom left, he got himself into all sorts of drugs and gangs. For this was one of the reasons why Aurora found cocaine on the kitchen table at the age of 13.
Of course, that didn't end well.

Rory was doing, what seemed like, every drug on the planet: cocaine, weed, meth, oxycodone, and using drug needles. Luckily, she got herself clean before she could've killed herself. JJ used to think it was his fault she ended up like that, but none of it was his fault.
He was the reason she got clean. Rory couldn't leave her brother with their dad, all alone. She thought she was selfish.

Aurora was clean for 306. A very painful 306 days.

"Who's that?" John B asked a ginger girl, who was sat on the deck on her phone. They watched as a dead man came through on a bed- his wife was crying over him.

"It's Scooter Grubbs." The girl replied, "He was out during the storm. Check out this pic I got."

"Holy shit." Aurora grimaced at the picture of the dead man on her phone.

JJ questioned, "What kind of boat did he have?"

"Somehow, that dirtbag copped a brand new Grady-White." The girl explained, "Everyone's out looking for it."

The Pogue's went back to the Château, and none of them had spoken a word to each other. The Grady-White they found, belonged to a dead man? Dramatic shit was about to happen, Aurora could sense it lurking.

"Okay, we didn't see anything. We don't know anything. We need to have total and complete amnesia." Pope panicked.

"Actually, Pope's right, for once." JJ nodded, "Deny, deny, deny."

Kiara sighed, "Guys, we can't keep that money."

"Not all of us can afford unlimited data plans, Kiara." JJ retorted.

"We have to pass that off to Lana Grubbs." Kiara explained, "Otherwise it's bad karma."

"Bad karma to be implicated in a felony, too." Pope added, "We gotta go dark."

"If that means we keep the money, then I agree." JJ replied.

"I don't agree." John B said, "Just think about it. This is Scooter Grubbs we're talking about. Same dude that's buying individual cigarettes at the Porthole. One time I saw this dude begging for change in the Save-A-Lot parking lot because he needed gas. We're talking about a dirt bag marina rat who's never had more than 40 bucks in his pocket, and all of a sudden he's got a Grady-White? Just saying."

Aurora agreed, "How does a Marina rat get a Grady-White? Square Groupers. Okay, flying under the radar, no aerial surveillance. They don't do that stuff during a hurricane. What does that mean? They were smuggling."

"And I guarantee there's a serious amount of contraband in that wreck." John B added.

"For the record, if that is a smuggling ship with illegal contraband in the inside of it... it probably belongs to someone else." Pope explained, "They could come looking for it. Taking it would be catastrophically stupid."

"Well, stupid things have good outcomes all the time." JJ persuaded, fiddling with money right in front of Pope.

"For now, we just have to lay low." John B added, "Act clueless."

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