Can't Stop Smiling • Pope Heyward

Four

The next morning the others went to go try and find the merchant. Heyward had called me into work so Pope told me he could update me when they got back.

The whole morning I was willed with excitement and worry. I see Pope walk into the store looking a little disappointed. "Not there. The gold wasn't there but the ship was." He says bummed out.

"What's the plan now?" I ask not knowing what we'll do next.

"I don't know, I guess we give up. Continue hanging out just pretending me never found a ship wreck." Pope say with zero excitement.

"We'll it was fun while it lasted." I say with a shrug.

"Yea and hey, you have a friend group." He say smiling trying to lighten the mood.

"Yea, yea I did." I say thankful that I met the boy and his friends.

"Great your both here now." Heyward says walking in handing us buckets of shrimp. "Go clean em."

We walk down the dock to the hose and start cleaning the shrimp. "What do you think the others are doing right now?" I ask Pope trying to make conversation.

"John B is probably at home trying to find ways to find the gold still. JJ is probably waxing his board and Kie is probably at work. We all just kinda went our own ways after we got back on shore." Pope explains not looking up from the shrimp once. "So, traveling huh?"

"Yea." I say with a small smile looking down at the shrimp. "I'm assuming you know about my dad sense your friends with JJ. I just wanna get the hell away from him, away from the kooks. Everyone." I say honestly my smile dripping thinking about my dad, sarah and topper.

"I mean the Kooks have done plenty to us but what they do to you?" Pope asks noticing how my mood shifted when I mentioned them.

"Sarah is always on my dick. I mean all the time. When she sees me she'll make some comment about me. About how apparently I fucked her boyfriend. I mean I did but they weren't together yet. And about how I'm poor. It's just all these little comments and it doenst stop. Like ever." I ramble as I open up to the boy infront of him.

"You had sex with Topper?" He questions in shock.

"Yea ok sue me." I say raising my hands up in surrender. "It was the biggest mistake of my life. I mean like, never again." I say laughing as Pope joins in. I look over at the road seeing a car. I look in the window to see Rafe and Topper looking right at us. "Speaking of the devil." I say rolling my eyes as Pope looks at them.

He quickly grabs my hand and drags me inside. "Ok short story the mark on my face is because Topper and Rafe beat the shit out of me with gold clubs so JJ told me to sink his boat and they know I sunk the boat." Pope explains as we start running to my house.

•

"JJ!" Pope yells as we walk up to him. He had on head phones and was shooting a teddy bear with his gun.

After multiple attempts JJ finally notices us. He takes off his head phones and before Pope gets a word out I shove JJ bavk.

"You idiot!" I yell at him as he looks at Pope confused. "Getting Pope to sink a boat! Pope can go places with his life and you might have just ruined that for him!"

"No-" Jj try's to argue but I cut him off again.

"And now! Now your shooting a gun outside! I mean what if dad came home and saw you shooting a damn bear with a gun. He would take that gun from you and shoot you!" I yell as I keep shoving him. "You are such a fucking idiot!" I yell as Jj grabs my arms to stop me from pushing his chest.