Together

82. That's Not What I Meant

And I will hold
I'll hold onto you
No matter what this world'll throw
It won't shake me loose
I'll reach my hands out in the dark
And I'll wait for yours to interlock
I'll wait for you
I'll wait for you
-Andy Grammer

Kie and JJ exit the men's room of the Wreck, a little breathless and a little light on their feet. For one of them it's not just the afterglow that has them slightly clumsy on their feet.

"You going to talk to me about why you're drinking?" Kie asks, pulling her hair into a bun.

JJ tosses her a skeptical look, turning around to face her. "I'm not even drunk," he dismisses. Catching her eye and obvious doubt on that point he corrects himself. "Fine, I'm not that drunk."

"Shouldn't be drinking at all," she reminds, giving him a sad look that she's not quite sure he even catches. She starts flipping the chairs over the tables, really the last thing that needs to be done before they can leave. JJ ignores her statement completely and instead starts to help her.

"You can't be lifting things either," Kie says with exhaustion, coming over to take the chair from him.

"Wasn't what you said ten minutes ago," he smirks, reminding her of him holding her against the counter while they—

"Well I was distracted," she says, leveling a playful glare. "But I'm serious, Jay, please be careful."

She's not forceful in her request. In truth she was tired of that route. It never seemed to work, that's for sure. So she was going for much softer since seeing him in that hospital bed. Like Sarah said, he wouldn't be JJ if he didn't take risks. She was hoping that he would recognize how badly it scared her on his own and just think before he acted.

"I was just blowing off steam, Kie," he explains. "I ain't gonna go off the deep end, promise."

This has her ears perking. As much as she wants to gently scold him for his irresponsibility, she knows there was a reason for it. "You thinking about it a lot?"

"What, visitation?" he shrugs nonchalantly. "Yeah, it's been going through my mind a bit."

Just constantly.

As much fun as it was to bullshit with John B at the boneyard, he couldn't say the beer did anything significant to release his stress over it.

The more he thinks about it the more his head spun. The reality of being alone with Luke scares the shit out of him. The man was ruthless and there wasn't any scenario that JJ could come up with that didn't end with him not getting a blow to the face.

He'd made sure to break every fucking written in stone rule that Luke established since he was a child. Don't talk to cops and social workers. He lives with Shoupe. Keep your mouth shut. He gave a statement.

"It's just bullshit, right?"he asks. "Like, they made such a big deal in the ER about me not being safe or whatever and now it's like, who cares?"

It is bullshit. It rattled Kie's mind it seemed so tragic. He was right, why remove him to just allow him back into the same environment?

"Are you gonna talk to Shoupe about what you heard?"

JJ chuckles lowly. "Probably won't have to, honestly," he thinks out loud. "Can't see this being something that Shoupe holds in."

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"It doesn't make sense," JJ says, exasperated as he throws his hands forward and allows his body to fall into the big fluffy arm chair in Dani's office. "Why poke the fucking bear?"