Enemies with benefits and beach houses

The next few days for JJ and Kiara have been a blur of grabby hands and fast lips. Eyes locking for a single moment at a party, or in the quiet spaces after everyone has gone to bed. At times, they may even cross into normal daylight hours. Sneaking off with each other behind their friends backs to make quick work of breaking tension.

Cause that's still the story they are sticking to. Fiercely so. Won't hear of it when their friends make jokes and endlessly tease. Never backing down from denying the accusations that something more must be going on. Because even in the face of relentless attacks and confrontations on what they are and why they are still doing this, they both know the truth.

This is nothing. There is nothing going on between them. Not in a more than physical sense. There is no real affection or care between them. That's what they repeat. Over and over in their minds.

This is just an arrangement. This is just about letting go of tension. This is just about not killing each other and making everyone else miserable while they live together, temporarily to boot.

So, when Kiara is pouring herself a cup of coffee into her favorite mug and hears JJ coughing, she doesn't think anything of it. Simply goes about her business in the kitchen, opening the fridge to get her coconut creamer and taking a spoon out of the drawer.

The noise from said movements has JJ groaning out, "Can you keep it down, god damn." His face is reburied in his pillow when his exclamation is done.

Kiara rolls her eyes. "I'm not even being that loud," she defends, taking the sugar jar and opening it at an ear splitting level, in JJ's opinion.

God, his head was pounding. He takes a few steadying breaths while Kiara finishes up being his personal tormentor, biting back his desires to tell her off like he usually does. Most of the reason is he's trying to orient himself. Can't really pick a fight when you felt like you just lost one. At least you shouldn't.

He sits up, shaking his head slightly.

"Wow," she remarks. "Man flu hitting you hard?"

"Mimimi," he mocks. "I'm fine."

Her pressed smirk doesn't say she's convinced, but he really doesn't have the energy to argue.

"You look like shit," she throws back.

He really does. Was clearly catching something. She's been hearing him cough all morning. Now he's barely responding to her. Clearly something is wrong with him. Not that she cares.

"Don't even try to argue with him," John B says, bopping in from behind her, Pope close on his heels.

"I'm not," she denies. "I don't care."

"He's never been big on missing anything, even for being sick," Pope picks up. "Ain't that right, wrench dick!" he yells from across the room.

JJ's only response is to raise a middle finger. Pope and John B just chuckle. They've seen this before, and JJ knows it.

It started when they were kids. Any time JJ was sick he pretended not to be. His friends thought it was just because he didn't like being left out of things. Didn't want to miss anything. When they were in middle school John B learned a new social term FOMO. Attributed it to JJ anytime he was sick because the kid would rather get hospitalized than miss out of anything they were doing.

As they got older he's just rolled with it, and it's just become a joke anytime he looked under the weather. It's one of the things that JJ was actually proud of. How he managed to make John B and Pope believe that he downplayed disease because he didn't want to miss things.