016 !! DENY

"This is stupid", JJ kicks at the dirt following Kiara and Pope to the community garden with Georgie lazily trudging alongside him.

"It's a change of scenery", Georgie murmurs wrapping her arms around herself.

The sight of so many Kooks gathered in one place annoys her and despite the fact that her whole body yells at her to make a run for it, her brain pulls her on.

Annual Summer Movie Nights have been a sort of a tradition here at Outer Banks.

It is a time when all Pogues and Kooks gather in the community garden right off the houses at Figure Eight for a movie on a summer night.

It's a whole 'nother thing that only a few Pogues - usually local business owners and people belonging to a little well-to-do families - show up.

Whereas, almost the entire population of Figure Eight attends the event every single year.

JJ and Georgie have made rare appearances there in the past years but today since they had nothing better to do and in a bid to elevate their moods which went significantly sour once they discovered that the Royal Merchant's ship wreck was empty just that morning, Kiara suggested they go to this year's together.

John B, disheartened walked away and though Georgie wanted to follow, she didn't.

Let's just say that she's still a teeny tiny bit mad at two of her friends.

So, it's been seven hours and with no sign of John B or any replies to Georgie's millions of texts, the four of them walk right into the garden with faces like that of a group of toddlers being forced into eating broccoli.

Georgie and Kiara lead the boys over to four empty seats right in the middle row and plop down sighing as they do so.

"Welcome back to OBX life. Aren't you glad I made you come?", Kiara turns to the blonde with a smile.

Georgie huffs rolling her eyes.

"My couch was pretty comfy, I'll be honest", she grumbles back.

Kiara pouts shaking her head and getting up to go buy drinks for the group.

Georgie, slumped in her seat, glances to her right directly at Pope and JJ talking in rather . . . . loud hushed tones.

"Dude, tranquillo, okay?", JJ whisper yells.

"We're in the middle of Kooklandia", Pope matches his tone.

Their words earn an eyebrow raise from Georgie.

"This is the last place I want to be!".

JJ rolls his eyes, "Shut up, Pope".

Right then, his sister pokes Pope's shoulder making him turn to her with an anxious fake smile.

"Yeah?".

"Uh, what's going on?".

"Erm, nothing. Nothing, everything's chill", Pope nods which sounds more like he's trying to convince himself.

Georgie scoffs leaning over to whack a distracted JJ on the side of his head.

"Ow! The fuck, Georgie?", he rubs his head scowling at her.

"What the hell are you two so worked up about? The truth, JJ".

JJ only shrugs, "Nothing that concerns you".

"If it involves you going to jail, then yes it does concern me. Now, spill", she roughly pushes his shoulder eliciting another groan from him.

"I'm not going to jail, relax".

"You are if you don't tell me what's up. Maybe I can help", she innocently bats her eyelashes at him but it only makes him swat her away.

"Quit doing that. I'm not ten anymore, fuck off".

"Please, brother mine", she pouts leaning over Pope to look him in the eye.

To her disadvantage, he tightly shuts his eyes leaning back on his chair.

Defeated, she settles back just as Kie returns.

"Just saw Rafe and he said, and I quote 'tell your boy we know what he did'", Kiara perks a brow passing over the Pepsi cans when she sits back down.

Georgie's jaw drops and accusingly, she turns back to a very scared JJ and an out of this world terrified Pope.

"What is that?", she asks for both herself and Kie.

The two boys fumble with their words, "Where is he?", JJ sits up turning his head to look behind them.

"Right there", Pope gestures at the far back.

As if on reflex, Georgie's head turns that way.

She finds Topper, Kelce and Rafe standing side by side behind the last row, Rafe casually sipping from a paper cup.

His eyes lock with Georgie's and instead of looking away - more like turning back - she stares back.

He tilts the cup hiding half of his face and takes a huge gulp of the liquid inside with eyes still on hers.

His sharp and intent gaze has her biting her lip and forcing herself to look away.

When she turns back, all three of her friends are arguing with each other.

"Please tell me you did not bring a gun here", Kiara seethes at JJ just as Georgie settles back and those words alone are enough to snap her back to reality.

"What", her eyes grow wide, "is she talking about".

JJ rolls his eyes.

"JJ, there are kids here!", Georgie yells at his indifference.

"Georgie, I didn't bring the gun. Everything's fine, okay?", he tries to reassure her but it's a fucking waste of an attempt at reassurance because she does not trust his instincts.

At all.

"Wow, thank you. That's really convincing. I love that, JJ", the blonde glares.

"Founding principle, you guys. No secrets between Pogues. What is Rafe talking about?", Kiara leans forward on her knees gritting her teeth at the very sight of the two boys clearly keeping things from them.

"Kie, it might go down tonight", JJ places a hand on her shoulder.

She looks back, at a loss for words.

"What does that mean?", she shakes her head in disbelief.

" 'Might go down tonight', what did y'all do?", Georgie whines dragging a hand down her face.

"Deny, deny, deny", JJ shakes his head just as the organisers take up their spot in front of the rows of chairs and announce the commencement of the film.

"Oh my god", Kiara whispers under her breath, loud enough for Georgie to hear, as she sits back.

Georgie sighs glancing at her, Kiara's eyes find the blonde's and an unspoken agreement runs between them.

Protect these assholes.

⎯⎯  &&⎯⎯

Half-way through the movie and Georgie's barely paying attention to the 'child friendly' rom-com playing on the projector.

The dark of the evening surrounds the gathering, crickets quietly chirping in the background though tonight, the residents of Outer Banks seemed to be too caught up in Meg Ryan's smile to be the audience the little green insects were hoping to find.

Georgie fiddles with her hands chewing on her bottom lip - an anxiety tick - and hoping, praying that nothing goes down tonight.

She's not stupid, she knows the reputation Rafe Cameron holds throughout the island especially the one in the Southside.

But the casual banter and the occasional little smiles he'd pass her way feel so heartwarming to her.

She doesn't want her brother's stupid actions to make those little insignificant gestures go away.

She wanted them to last. As long as they could.

Did JJ really have to always go ahead and mess things up for her?

Really? Every single time?

Wasn't him picking up a fight with half the guys she dated enough that he had to go ahead and pull some shit with the only guy in whole of Outer Banks willing to give her his attention?

Even if it meant nothing?

Not that she's hoping that it meant something but . . . . you get it.

From the corner of her eye, she sees JJ and Pope hurrying away towards the back of the white screen with only one simple - disgusting more like - sentence being uttered to the blonde and the brunette scowling at them.

"Gotta take a piss!".

They simply huff letting them disappear behind the white screen which Georgie finds a little odd considering there's community bathroom stalls right at the back but one side glance at the back row answers all her questions.

Rafe, Kelce and Topper are still seated in the back row chairs.

She rubs her temple pursing her lips and trying to pay attention to Tom Hanks seemingly arguing with Meg Ryan.

Her attempt though, is cut short when Kiara pulls at her arm gesturing towards the trio previously seated at the back now shuffling over to the back of the white screen.

Where JJ and Pope are.

Cursing under her breath, she follows Kiara down the grassy path eventually walking behind the projector screen where all the five boys are involved in a scuffle.

"Pope!".

Both the girls rush forward in a bid to pull him out of a very vengeful Topper's grasp but virtually, nothing seems to work.

Kiara shouts at Topper to let Pope go and yet, the boy with the frosted tips ignores her pleading shouts.

"All you gotta do", Topper grunts tightening his arm around a struggling Pope's neck, "is accept personal responsibility".

Georgie tries to pry his arm away from Pope by practically scratching at his arm and kicking at his ankle.

Topper yells out in pain but the arm around Pope only tightens further.

Pope struggles to breath, Georgie's eyes growing wide as she lunges forward in a bid to throw Topper to the ground.

But the second her body could collide with Topper's, someone wraps their arms around her waist pulling her back from the fight.

She pulls at their arms screaming and trying to lodge her elbow into their rib but nothing works.

She hears his deep breaths as he tries to shush her.

"Georgie, stop", he manages to breathe out in between his strangled breathing.

"Oh, let go of me, Rafe!", she screams back clawing at his arms.

In an instant, he drops her to the ground.

"Stay out of this, Georgie!", he yells sharply.

Georgie groans rubbing the side of her head that was affected due to the sudden drop.

"Georgie, you okay?", JJ yells from his place, attempting to push Kelce away to go check on his sister.

She gives him a weak thumbs up from the ground momentarily turning her gaze to Rafe's, who is standing over her with every one of his breaths coming out in long, hard puffs.

Before she could say anything though, he's already back at Kelce's side, punching and throwing JJ to the ground.

Seeing her brother left all alone with Kiara trying to get Pope away from Topper, Georgie carefully sits up feeling a little lightheaded.

She rubs her head, groaning and getting back up on her feet to stalk over to the two boys mercilessly punching JJ.

Due to the dizziness, her steps are largely uncoordinated and before she could so much as get her hands on Kelce's shirt, the white screens erupts into burning flames.

"Guys! Fire!", Georgie gasps diverting all of their attention to the flames growing right beside them.

It only takes a few seconds for Rafe, Topper and Kelce to abandon the spot and run away.

Georgie runs to JJ helping him up and rushing away from the burning pit alongside Pope and Kiara.

"You're a freakin' idiot", JJ turns to Kie while running away with Georgie's support.

"I saved your ass! Now, come on", Kiara yells back pulling them away from the burning flames of the white screen that was only a few minutes ago donned with Meg Ryan's worried face.

***
atp writing for this book is the only thing distracting me from the fact that it's my first day of college next week 😻