This is Me Trying ⭑ Rafe Cameron

thirty six

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
[36]
song: left with a gun by skinshape

There was a heavy weight on Cassie's shoulders for many reasons. She couldn't sleep. Not only because John B's couch was too small to act as a bed, but because of the idea that Big John was in danger because of her.

They'd told her that all they knew was that Singh and his guys showed up one night, and took off with him. That he's somewhere in South America.

They told her this, all while John B wrapped his bloody knuckles up with gauze, and JJ used an expired bag of frozen peas as an ice-pack. And while the thought of being here to help her friends was nice, seeing them now, in this state, worried her that she'd made the wrong choice.

They'd discuss it more in the morning. They were all tired, and more importantly, Cassie really didn't want to talk to either of them after the night they'd had.

She was the first up. The frogs outside of The Chateau too loud to bare any further, and it wasn't like she was sleeping anyway. Cassie helped herself to breakfast in the kitchen, opening up the fridge and gagging at the smell.

Plugging her nose, she pulled out the carton of milk, checked the date, and let out a frustrated sigh. "Jesus." She muttered in disgust, as she poured the expired contents down the sink, and tossed the carton.

She squirmed at the sight of old dishes, of piling up trash and muddy floors. She could hear John B snoring in his room, and JJ sleeping peacefully outside on the porch hammock, his baseball cap over his head.

Everything was pissing her off right now. She purposefully slammed the fridge door shut, hard enough for the empty cereal boxes on top of it to topple off.

This immediately woke JJ up, sending him into an immediate panic where he scrambled out of the hammock, got tangled, and ended up on the floor with a thud.

And that thud woke John B. Quickly, she realized she preferred it when they were both asleep.

"It's something about the dude's face." John B had said, going back and forth across his porch on a penny-board. "Like the whole, 'no-hard-feelings, bro'."

Cassie was inside, ignoring her sixth call from Rafe in the past ten hours, and the fourth this morning. She was cleaning up John B's mess for her own sanity. And even though she was upset with him, she knew very well John B didn't have the time to worry if his house was clean or not.

"No hard feelings. It's kinda hard not to have feelings about that." JJ responds, on the couch, outside with John B.

"It's just that look. That Kook look, you know?"

"It was clear provocation." JJ says, pronouncing it wrong.

"Provocation." John B corrects.

"Provocation. You did what you had to do. No choice."

"Thank you, no choice." John B agrees. "Have you talked to Cassie?"

"I can hear you." Cassie says, putting a dish away in the cabinet above her.

"She can hear you." JJ says. "No, we haven't talked about why Rafe Cameron and my sister were holdings hands at Kiara's party." JJ says, speaking unnecessarily loud on purpose.