ONLY ANGEL | JJ MAYBANK

TWENTY-TWO... man-made retribution

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

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The next morning, there was still a tingle on Collins's lips from where JJ's had touched her.

She brought her hand up to touch them with a ghost of a smile on her face as reality began to fully set in. Flashbacks of a tender kiss shared at four in the morning flew around her mind, one moment they're wrapped in darkness then the next, the sun is stretching its limbs out as it wakes the island up with its light. Right about now, crew-mates were probably getting ready to pull in traps from the night before and prepare their haul for market sale and shipment to the mainland. Every other human was probably still in bed trying to get a few more hours of rest. Mother birds took flight to start foraging breakfast for their babies, the grass soaked up the last of the dew drops from the cool night air, and two teenagers lose all sense of time while nature takes its course. It all seems so extraordinary, but it's just Earth. It does what it's done since the beginning of time, and it remains more beautiful than any man-made spectacle.

Long after, Collins is fast asleep, tucked under JJ's arm and hugging his body like a koala clinging to a tree. They'd decided to sleep on the hammock outside, thinking that sleeping under the stars, while fading in the sun, with the flora and fauna sounded like a good way to fall asleep. After all, they'd had their first kiss beneath the moonlight and wanted to make the moment last. The Earth had bear witness to their first and most intimate memory, so with the Earth is where it felt best to finish it off with. Usually Collins's nights were filled with fantastical dreams of moments beyond her world's capacity of actually happening, but it was like the inner workings of her brain had even known that the events that had taken place prior to sleep, were too incredible to top with just mere fantasy.

She'd had her first kiss. And it wasn't at all like how she'd imagined it happening, but that was what made it so spectacular. It was still magical in every right on its own, and there wasn't even so much as a molecule in her that would take it back, unless she were to relive it again which would be the only exception. Even though it hadn't been her intention to be the one to kiss JJ, it was better that it hadn't gone down so planned. It made it feel all the more natural, like it was always meant to happen that way, just like JJ had proposed that they were. Collins figured, why should their first kiss fall under different rules? Kie wasn't going to believe her when she told her that she made the first move.

The hammock gently swayed as a breeze pushed them like it was trying to rock them back to bed for just a little while longer. But the sunlight peeked through the gaps between the canopy of tree leaves hanging over them and shined into Collins's eyes, blinding her so that she was squinting in the light. Perhaps that was just further reason to keep her eyes closed and not wake up.

She stirred in the position she and JJ were in which made it impossible to get up without waking the other person. Every time she attempted to wriggle out of JJ's hold, she felt him move like she was disturbing his rest. To be completely honest, this was becoming one of Collins's favorite dilemmas; having to choose between wasting a day in bed with the blond surfer boy she'd been crushing on, or rip herself away because it was the responsible thing to do, even though she wanted nothing more than to stay.

But a hammock was no bed, and Collins was pretty sure she was scoring netting marks onto her skin, which weren't going to be a flattering look if she wanted to wear shorts for the rest of the summer.

She managed to swing one leg over the side and plant her foot on the ground to push herself up, though not quite as steadily as she would've liked to avoid JJ from waking up at the movement.