A LITTLE LUXURY // Outer Banks // JJ

Ticking Time Bomb

"She never made sense

but neither does love"

-Perry Poetry

----

Suddenly I felt a bit sobered up as JJ's absence sucked the happiness out of my drunken state.

Before our little fight I hadn't minded being alone with a group of people I didn't really know, but now that he had come and gone I felt his absence like an emptiness, in the same way you didn't miss the sun before you'd felt it on your skin. There are many things you didn't miss until they have come and gone, because ignorance is bliss. 

Suddenly I felt very cold. I didn't want to fight with him and no matter how unpredictable or unreasonable he acted, he would always be one of my best friends.

It was just, JJ.

"You ok?" Cam nudged me playfully, bringing me back to the present. "Your friend doesn't seem to like me very much".

"Like I said, it's not you". I smiled half-heartedly, "I'm gonna go find my friends".

"Oh, come on hang out a little, Athena", Josh drawled loudly. "Leaving so soon?". A kook I didn't recognize threw the arm that wasn't wrapped around his girlfriend up in the air almost mockingly.

Cam shot me an apologetic look. "I can help you find them, if you'd like?", he offered.

"Don't worry about it". I spun around in the sand, walking away from their little group, hoping to find my friends. "Too good for us, I guess" I heard the kooks laugh.

When had I lost Kie? Luckily for me, the party had stayed mostly segregated, as pogues and kooks naturally had gravitated towards their own kind, with tourists mixed in on both sides. It didn't take me long to see the familiar tall blond mop and the faded salmon snapback at his side by the water, unmistakable in the sea of random heads.

It didn't take me long to see that they were in the middle of a commotion, either.

I couldn't hear what they were saying but the group seemed agitated, and the tension in the air was so palpable I could feel it from where I was as I made my way towards them more and more urgently.

My feet took me to them, weaving between people as fast as I could to get there. As I got closer I could see Kiara and Pope, anxiously watching on. And Topper, the culprit of JJ's anger. 

The boy had already been in a largely irritable mood, judging from how we'd ended our previous encounter. Whatever Topper had said it wouldn't have taken much to set him off, and it wouldn't take much more to escalate. When JJ was like that he was a ticking time bomb. 

Tick, tick.

Sarah, who was next to Topper, threw a drink in JJ's face.

Tick.

He reacted, shooting a look of irritation at Sarah before pushing Topper. John B held him back, trying to mediate as much as he could.

Tick.

I'd seen this happen before, and it wasn't going to end well. "JJ!" I was close enough that he could hear me now, and John B had turned around, relieved to see me. JJ and I had always had a silent understanding, and the group knew sometimes I was the only one who could talk him down.

"JJ, calm down" I put my hand on his shoulder, coming up from behind him. He clenched his jaw, but didn't say anything, looking at Topper and the kooks behind him, unmoving but tense. "JJ", gently I pulled him away from the group and he let himself be turned back to face towards me, where Pope put an arm around his back too to guide him away a bit.