CHAPTER THREE.
THAT EVENING, HURRICANE Agatha came in, and she came in with a vengeance. Which meant JJ didn't sleep alone in John B's guest room, he slept on the pullout couch with Piper because it was a well known fact that, despite living on an island, Piper didn't do bad storms. They just freaked her out. And, just as predicted, Piper woke up with JJ sprawled horizontally on top of her, his head and shoulders thrown so far across the couch, they were hanging off the edge. Piper didn't care so much about not waking JJ up, but he was a good six inches taller than her and had a good deal more muscle mass than she did, so there was no budging to be done.
Piper wasn't annoyed at JJ, it was just a thing he did, and she was happy enough that she was at least some family he was comfortable around, but she was annoyed that all she could think about was the previous morning when she woke up in a similar-enough position but with Edith Abernathy clinging to Piper in her sleep. She couldn't articulate how odd it was. So, she occupied herself with trying to shove JJ off her, or at least roll him over onto his back so he would be sprawled across Piper's legs instead of her entire stomach, so she had a better chance of getting out from under him. In the midst of her struggle, John B walked into the kitchen across from Piper, rearranged the photograph of his mom and dad that had gotten knocked loose the previous night in the storm, and clinked the rim of an empty beer bottle on the glass of a photograph of his Uncle T. He did that everyday, and considering he had a meeting with this weasel-y looking lady from DCS yesterday, he needed all the cheers from his absent family members he could get.
"No service and no power, Pipe," John B said walking toward the door of The Château which was to the left of the couch. Upon hearing the news, Piper dropped her mission to roll JJ over and literally dropped her head back onto a pillow. John B slapped JJ's back as he walked past, "Either of you been outside, yet?"
"I have polio, bro. I can't walk," JJ groaned at the floor. John B shot Piper a look that said, fairly simply, 'good luck with that,' and went outside. Piper gave up. She grabbed a pillow from the other end of the couch and slid it on the floor underneath JJ's head, and shoved him off her and onto the floor. At least he had a pillow to break his fall. After a series of thuds, during which Piper hopped off the end of the pullout couch to pour lukewarm day-old coffee into a suspicious-looking mug, JJ groaned, this time at the ceiling. "Aren't you just piss and vinegar this morning, Piper. Hey, are you okay?"
Piper turned around, swirling the coffee in the mug in her hand so that the dregs might dissolve a bit more in the liquid before she gulped it down, good or not. JJ had moved so he looked more alive than he did before, and he looked at Piper the way he did when he knew she was hiding something from him—it was the look before that stupid puppy-dog pout he pulled to get her to spill. She kissed her teeth. "Yep, I'm fabulous."
She wasn't convincing, she was a really bad liar, but she wasn't carrying around bruises, so JJ held up his hand, "Could you help me up?"
"Yeah," Piper breathed out, wrapped her hand around his wrist while he did the same, and pulled him up to his feet. They walked out of The Château together, and leaned against the railing that protected the porch. The Routledges' fishing shack was always an interesting sight in the morning. John B flipping his brown hair around in the humid morning air, a bandana of some variation tied around his neck, and board shorts low on his hips. JJ in cargo shorts or cargo pants—he wasn't picky—and a shark tooth necklace around his neck that Piper made him when they were kids from a piece of seaglass that looked enough like a shark tooth to make it pass as one for a seven-year-old JJ, stale beer in hand. And Piper, the top half of her sun-bleached hair pulled away from her face in a bun, a t-shirt and cotton shorts on, gripping a questionable cup of coffee. It was an interesting picture even without the wreckage and debris from a hurricane spread out over the yard. Which, as it happened, was substantial. Like, there was a lot of shit in John B's yard.
A mature tree was uprooted and fell in the marsh,—not good, but at least the three of them weren't killed from being crunched by a tree—branches were everywhere, and there were, like, three miscellaneous flip-flops. One of which was the one Piper had lost at the construction site two days before, so she took that as a win.
"Agatha did some work, huh?" JJ asked downing the rest of his beer, which he promptly spit out because salt water had gotten into somehow.
"Yeah, she did," John B replied, pulling branches out of the HMS pogue—his small fishing boat painted dirty white and teal that was the Pogues' water version of the VW van. JJ crunched the empty beer can and left it on the railing next to Piper's untouched coffee. They stepped over branches and headed toward the boat to help John B empty it out. It was filled to the brim with twigs and leaves and other scraps.
JJ held out his hand for Piper to use as she stepped from on top of a large, fallen branch into the boat, and asked John B, "What ya' thinkin'?"
John B climbed onto the edge of the boat, too, looking out over the marsh as Piper sorted out some of the smaller branches to set aside to dry out for a bonfire in a couple of weeks.
"I'm thinkin'," John B said, "that storm surge pushed all the crabs out of the marsh maze. All those drum are gonna chase the crab."
JJ grabbed a branch Piper handed to him and dropped it on the grass next to him, "What about the DCS? Wasn't that today?"
"Nah, they're not gettin' on a ferry," John B grabbed a branch that was hanging off the side of the boat, "C'mon, think about it. It's God tellin' us to fish."
Piper shook her head and swiped at a spot on her forearm that a wrought branch had caught, "We'll need somethin' to eat tonight. Fish is good. And we can make a fire to cook it if there's no gas."
John B snapped his fingers and pointed them at Piper like then were guns, "Peter-Piper, always thinkin'."
"Peter-Piper," Piper said, sticking her hand back down into the mass of branches, "always keepin' y'all alive."
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THE THREE OF them worked for a while to empty out the HMS Pogue and put it back in the water, but she ran like a dream. The HMS was an extremely sentimental boat for all of them. Piper and JJ spent so much time at The Château, they spent nearly as much time with the boat as John B, so all three of them treated her with more care than a mentally sound individual probably would. So, soon enough, they were on the water—JJ and John B in their board shorts, hawaiian shirts, and tank tops; Piper in a cobalt blue bikini, charcoal grey athletic shorts, and JJ's red baseball cap from the other day sat backward on her head—to survey the damage around the Cut and to pick up—rescue—Pope and Kie.
"It's kind of a smuggler's boat," John B said, pointing one out as they passed the fishing charters on the Cut.
"John Hancock, the richest man in British North America, made most of his fortune smuggling," Piper said, then JJ threw a pair of sunglasses at her to get her to shut up as he waved good morning to the guy on the boat. Piper brought her voice down to a whisper and turned her head to look at John B instead of the boat, "I don't condone it, obviously, but there's a market."
"Y'know, I hope Guffy's boat didn't sink," JJ said as they passed Guffy's dock—the first one past the charters—with no boat tied down or in the hoist. "He doesn't have insurance."
Piper and John B mumbled something of agreement.
"Hi, Miss Amy!" John B yelled, waving at the prettiest blonde lady on the dock next to Guffy's. She was everyone's favorite on the Cut, bringing newcomers brownies—all that good neighbor-type stuff—and being super attractive. "You guys get through it?"
"Still here!" She replied.
Piper waved with her first and second fingers, "God bless."
Miss Amy smiled, "Indeed."
"She totally looked at me," JJ whispered as they moved past.
Piper threw the sunglasses back to her brother, "Nah, dude, she looked at me."
"I dunno JJ, I saw her look at Piper," John B said.
"Well, duh, she talked to her, she baited her with God talk, that's cheating."
Piper scoffed and settled into the bench on the stern of the boat, "You just wish you got the MILFs, little brother."
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EVENTUALLY, PIPER, JJ, and John B got around the island, picking up Pope and Kie on the way. Beer bottles were passed around and Piper's legs somehow ended up stretched across Kie's lap as Pope drove the HMS Pogue through the marshland. All sorts of things were on the surface that morning—dead fish, seaweed, the spare inner tube and occasional broken fishing rod—and Piper found it fascinating. She hated the storm, but the aftermath, Piper thought, was beautiful in its own twisted, sadistic way. The Cut's world had been left on its axis—but only barely, it was hanging on by a single, miniscule, gravitational thread—, but Piper saw it in a shattered-mosaic light.
Or she did until JJ stood on the stern trying to waterfall his beer and the HMS ran into the altered sandbar, and Piper went flying. She hadn't realized she had been jolted from her spot on the bow and into the side of the boat, her arm thrown over the edge, until the impact met her brain and a surge of familiar, stinging impact started sparking along her ribcage.
"Jesus fuck," Piper groaned at the still water. She could see the sand underneath the water, clear and aqua. JJ floated back up to the surface a few yards away from Piper, spitting marsh water out of his mouth and groaning at the sky like God had personally wronged him. "You alive, J?"
"I think my heels touched the back of my head," his voice was nasally, water had probably gone up his nose, too. Piper dipped her hand in the water and limply splashed some toward JJ. He lifted his head up and squinted at her challengingly. She snorted and splashed him again, so he raised one arm into the air, somehow still holding the beer bottle, and heaved a wave of water toward the boat, as he swam toward the edge, washing Piper's arm up to her shoulder.
Piper stood up and steadied herself to help pull JJ back up, but when he wrapped his hand around her wrist, he pulled Piper into the water headfirst. Piper reemerged and shoved JJ, "You absolute fucker."
"It was fun, though, right?"
"Abso-fucking-lutely it was not."
Piper pushed her hair off her face, grabbed the red baseball cap that was floating up to the surface, and threw it onto the boat. JJ swam up behind her and dunked her head under the water which, naturally, caused her to do the same to him, scrapping like dogs.
"Guys..." Pope said from the bow of the boat, where he, John B, and Kie had naturally congregated to make sure JJ was still, in fact, alive, "I think there's a boat down there."
"Shut up." John B sounded out of it. "What?"
"No way," Kie said, twisting around to shake off the effect of getting tossed around.
Piper and JJ stilled before swimming—racing, really—toward the HMS to get a better look, but all Piper could really see without ducking underneath the water was the glare from the sun. But Pope insisted, almost feverishly pointing at the rippling water, "No, no, guys. I'm serious. There's, like, a boat down there. For real."
Kie and John B stepped up to the edge, and JJ pointed at something white gleaming below the surface of the water, and Piper realized it was sunken metal, not the sun's glare. On the boat, John B and Pope were taking off their shirts, and Kie shucked her shorts, the three of them preparing to dive in the water and follow Piper and JJ who were swimming toward the wreck.
"You think there's a dead body down there?" Pope asked.
"Is that your wet dream or somethin'?" Piper returned, dunking into the water before Pope could respond. The water stung Piper's eyes slightly before they adjusted to the water. Beneath the surface, it was hazy, like she was stuck in a sort of half-reality. It wasn't the shattered-mosaic type of beauty Piper viewed the island with, it was certainly beautiful, but a smoky kind with a dream-like quality.
The boat, Piper thought with absolute certainty, was the newest Grady White model. No one on the Cut could afford one of those. Piper hooked her elbow around one of the beams holding up the top, and looked at JJ questioningly. JJ was looking straight at Piper with the same bewildered expression. Her lungs started to burn in her chest like she had been running for too long, so she kicked up off the side of the boat and swam to the surface, the others following suit.
"You guys saw that, right?" JJ asked when they all broke the surface. Piper let out an amazed laugh as she shook her hair out like a dog. Breathy murmurs of agreement and awed laughter went around the circle. "That's a Grady White. A new one of those is like 500 Gs, easy."
The five of them swam up to the HMS Pogue, rocking against the sandbar.
"That's a primo rig," JJ continued breathlessly as they hauled themselves onto the boat.
"What kind of moron takes a Grady White into a storm?" Piper asked, grabbing a life jacket off the boat floor and wiping her face off with it.
"You don't have to be smart when you're rich," Pope said, tapping Piper's stomach with a towel. Piper wrapped her arm loosely around Pope's temples and pulled him down, kissing the top of his head.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah..." John B said. Pope shoved Piper off him with a smile. "That's the boat I saw when I surfed the surge. Maybe it hit the jetty or something."
"You think?" Piper asked. "Harry'll be pissed—"
"You surfed the surge?" Kie interjected, her voice filled with a worried seriousness that came from the crux of her chest.
JJ laughed and did a handshake with John B, "Yeah, that's my boy. Pogue style, man."
"Wait, do we know whose boat that is?" Pope asked, standing up abruptly, looking at the sunken Grady White from afar.
Piper threw the towel across the boat to JJ, "I thought we established it was a stupid Kook?"
"Let's find out," John B said, pulling the anchor out of the compartment next to the fish box in the bow.
"Dude, it's too deep," JJ lightly swatted John B's shoulder blade with the back of his hand.
"Oh, for the weak and feeble, JJ."
"Well, I'm not resuscitating you. I'm just making that clear up front."
Piper grabbed the red baseball cap off the deck, wrung it out, and placed it on her head backward, "Permission to make a gay joke?"
"Permission denied," John B sing-songed and grinned at Piper, holding the anchor close to his chest.
"John B," Kie said, her voice, still oddly serious, cutting through the smiles.
"What?"
"Diver down, fool," Pope said from beside Kie.
"Diver down," John B replied, his hand to his forehead in salute.
"Yeah, he is," JJ grunted and lunged forward, pushing John B backward off the boat. He disappeared beneath the water within seconds, and Piper shimmied her shorts off her, so she was just in her swimsuit, and wrung them out over the top of JJ's head.
"What the fuck?" Kie and JJ said together, though Kie said it to JJ, and JJ said it to Piper. Piper and JJ shrugged, and the four of them crouched on the bow of the HMS, watching the water for any sign of John B.
It was silent. For a beat too long.
"Should we go get him?" Pope asked, and just as he did, John B resurfaced in front of them, coughing and wiping water out of his eyes.
"Oh, my God, that took forever!" Kie said, and Piper reached out her hand, not caring if John B would pull her in like JJ did, the worry that Kie had adopted since she found out John B had surfed the surge had permeated even the most joking parts of Piper the longer they waited for John B to resurface.
"Any dead bodies?" Pope asked.
"Looting potential?" JJ prompted.
"Let him up," Piper said, gripping John B's wrist and helping him up the bow.
John B shook his head and held up his other hand, a set of keys hanging from his index finger, "I found this motel key."
"A key," Pope echoed hollowly.
"Yes, a key, Pope."
"Great! We salvaged a motel key," JJ said, wrapping his hands around the anchor chain and beginning to haul it up.
Piper would admit it was a bit disappointing. It was odd, though, too. What kind of person—who had enough money for a Grady White—would stay in a motel? You don't have to be smart to be rich, sure, but you don't have to be smart to realize there are 5-star resorts on the island, too.
"Guys, we should report the wreck to the coast guard," Kie said—ever the voice of reason. Piper got behind the steering wheel and started driving the boat through the water, the waves lapping against the side of the metal hull fading into a melodic white noise the further out they went. "Maybe we'll get a finder's fee."
"Yeah," JJ said, gripping onto one of the poles near the steering wheel, "and Piper won't have to work all summer."
Piper stuck her tongue out at JJ childishly, "If I don't work, how will I ever get a break from you and get on Edith Abernathy's nerves at the same time?"
JJ looked at his sister with raised eyebrows, and Pope snorted, "Oh, you always find a way."
"That's right, Pope," Piper said. "It's 'cause I'm a problem solver."
Kie laughed airily through her nose, and John B shoved Piper's shoulder lightly.
Although Piper didn't know it then, that motel key would be the start of the wildest summer of her life. She may have been certain that nothing would stop their summer, not even DCS knocking on John B's door, but she certainly hadn't expected a sunken Grady White and a wild goose chase.
✧.*ೃ༄ [ 𝘅. author note ]
piper and pope brotp asf