Jj maybe fic inspired by stupid song by Olivia would be so good
pairing: jj maybank x reader
genre: fluff, angst, romantic comedy, friends to lovers, long-distance, mutual pining
warnings: emotional yearning, college setting, mild swearing, mentions of alcohol and partying, lovesick!reader
word count: 3.8k
summary: Leaving the Outer Banks for college was supposed to be the beginning of a new life. Instead, seven nights away from JJ Maybank has you realizing that maybe missing your best friend has never felt quite this much like being in love.
note: Hi!!! I tried my best and i like how it end up, so i hope you do too!!!
New York had never looked so blue.
Maybe it was the hour, maybe it was the rain that had started sometime after midnight and turned the city into a blur of silver streets and smeared lights, or maybe it was simply because you had spent the entire evening surrounded by people who seemed to know exactly what they were doing while you stood in the corner of a crowded apartment, holding a drink you had forgotten to drink and wondering what JJ Maybank was doing.
Which, admittedly, was not a particularly useful thing to wonder. But still, you had been wondering it for seven days.
Seven days since you had last seen him, which was not even a particularly long amount of time, except that it apparently was when you were you and JJ Maybank. You had tried to act normal about it. You had gone to class, answered messages, eaten something that had technically counted as dinner on two separate occasions and even attended this party because your friends had insisted that you needed to get out of your room before you became permanently attached to your phone.
It had not worked because your phone was still in your hand and you glanced down at the screen to find no messages.
Three minutes later, you checked again. Still nothing.
“You know he’s not going to magically text you because you keep staring at your phone, right?”
You looked up to find your friend leaning against the wall beside you, a cigarette tucked between two fingers and an expression that suggested she had been watching you for a while.
“I’m not waiting for a text.”
“You’ve checked your phone six times in the last ten minutes.”
“I could be checking the time.”
You glanced down at your wrist. “Maybe I like checking the weather.”
You took a sip of your drink, discovered it was warm and tasted mostly like something you had once been told was vodka, and decided that you hated this party.
It was full of people who looked like they had been born knowing how to stand at parties. Girls with perfect hair and tiny sunglasses despite the fact that it was nearly two in the morning, guys with expensive watches and the sort of effortless confidence you had always suspected was mostly a result of having never once had to worry about whether you were being annoying. Everyone seemed beautiful, relaxed and impossibly cool.
You had never been good at being cool.
You were good at remembering things about JJ.
You knew that he hated when people touched his hair, except when you did it. You knew he lied about being fine by becoming louder, funnier and considerably more irritating. You knew that if he called you after midnight, he probably needed something, although what he usually needed was either money, a ride or someone to tell him that whatever terrible idea he had was, in fact, a terrible idea.
You knew the exact sound of his laugh when something genuinely surprised him.
You knew how he said your name when he was tired.
And, apparently, you knew how to spend an entire week thinking about someone who wasn't even in the same city.
“Come on,” your friend said, pushing herself away from the wall. “We're going to the bathroom.”
“Because everyone else is.”
That was how, ten minutes later, you found yourself sitting on the edge of a bathtub while three girls you had never met smoked by the open window, talking about people you did not know and laughing like they had never once had a thought they were embarrassed by.
Your phone buzzed and your heart stopped. You looked down so quickly that one of the girls glanced over. But it was a message from your mother.
You stared at it for a second before locking your phone again.
“Everything okay?” your friend asked.
“Yeah.” The answer came automatically. You were always saying that you were okay.
You were okay when JJ didn't call. You were okay when he disappeared for days and then showed up at your door like he had not left you wondering if he was dead. You were okay when he threw an arm around your shoulders and called you his best friend, because that was all you were.
You just couldn't stop thinking about him.
You couldn't stop wondering what he was doing, whether he had eaten, whether he was sleeping, whether he was somewhere on a boat with his friends or lying on his bed with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling and thinking about absolutely anything except you.
That thought made something in your chest hurt.
So you stood up, smoothed down your dress and decided you were going home.
You made it as far as the front door before your phone buzzed again.
You stared at the message.
JJ: dont answer that obviously youre awake
Despite yourself, you smiled.
The typing bubble appeared almost immediately.
You: It's two in the morning.
JJ: exactly. prime time for being nice to me.
You looked at the screen for a long moment, at the stupid messages and the familiar way he managed to make you smile even when he wasn't there, and felt something inside you come undone a little more.
Because this was the problem.
You could go seven days without seeing him and still feel like he was everywhere.
In every late-night thought.
In every moment when something happened and your first instinct was to turn to him, only to remember that he wasn't there.
You: What do you want, JJ?
This time, his answer took longer.
JJ: just wanted to hear from you.
You read it once. And then, because you were apparently completely insane, you smiled at your phone like he had just told you he loved you.
You hated that he could still do that.
You hated that he could be hundreds of miles away, probably sitting somewhere in the Cut with a beer in his hand and absolutely no idea that you had just spent the last seven days thinking about him so often that it had become embarrassing, and still make your entire night better with four stupid words.
You: You could have just said that.
The typing bubble appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
JJ: yeah but then i wouldve sounded sincere
You laughed before you could stop yourself.
It was quiet, barely more than a breath, but your friend still looked over from where she was standing by the door.
You immediately locked your phone. “No.”
She stared at you. “Okay.”
You ignored her and slipped your phone into your bag, but the smile refused to leave your face.
That was the problem with being away from home. You had thought leaving would make everything easier.
When you had accepted your place at college in New York, everyone had been excited for you. Your parents had cried. Your friends had thrown you a goodbye party that had ended with JJ nearly falling off the dock because he had been trying to convince everyone that he could jump from the roof of the Chateau and land in the water.
You had laughed until your stomach hurt.
Then, two days later, you had driven away.
You had told yourself that you were ready.
You were excited. You wanted this. You wanted to see new places and meet new people and become someone who didn't know every single person on the island by name. You wanted to walk through a city where nobody knew you as the girl who had grown up alongside the Pogues, where nobody knew that JJ Maybank had been your best friend since you were both children.
You had wanted a new life.
You just hadn't expected to miss the old one quite so much.
You missed the island in ways you hadn't expected. You missed the smell of the ocean when you woke up. You missed the sound of boats in the morning and the way the sun seemed to settle over everything. You missed your friends, even when they were irritating.
You missed JJ most of all.
You had known him your entire life. He had never been particularly difficult to find before. If you wanted to see him, you went to the Chateau. If he wanted to see you, he showed up at your house, usually without warning and usually with some excuse that made absolutely no sense.
Now, if you wanted to see him, you had to buy a plane ticket.
If he wanted to see you, he had to cross half the country.
And you had both discovered, rather quickly, that wanting to see each other and actually seeing each other were two very different things.
At first, you had talked every day.
Then, somehow, seven days had passed.
Seven days since you had heard his voice.
Seven days since he had called you just to complain about something that had happened to him.
Seven days since you had seen his face.
And apparently, seven days was long enough for you to start feeling like you were losing your mind.
JJ: so are you having fun?
You looked around the party.
A girl you had never met was dancing on a table. Someone had spilled a drink on the floor. Your friend was arguing with a stranger about music.
You stared at the message.
Your heart did something stupid.
You hated that you didn't know which one was worse.
You: You don't know everything about me.
This time, the reply came almost immediately.
JJ: i know you hate parties like this
You: I don't hate parties.
JJ: you hate parties where everyone is trying too hard to look like they dont care about anything
You stared at the screen.
Then you looked around the room.
At the girls laughing by the kitchen island. At the guys shouting over the music. At the people who seemed completely comfortable in a place where you had spent the last two hours wondering when you could leave.
You: Maybe I just miss home.
The typing bubble appeared. Then vanished. Then appeared again.
And suddenly, just like that, the whole city seemed too big.
You had spent months trying to convince yourself that you belonged here. You had learned which coffee shop stayed open late, which subway line to take to class and which streets were safest to walk down at night. You had made friends and memorized professors' names and learned how to be alone in a city full of millions of people.
But sometimes, at one in the morning, when the lights outside your window blurred into the darkness, you still felt like you were waiting for someone to come find you.
And that someone had always been JJ.
You stared at his message until the screen dimmed.
Then you unlocked it again.
You didn't think before sending it.
The second it appeared on the screen, your entire body went still.
You could pretend it had been a mistake.
You could say you meant everyone.
Your heart began beating faster.
Long enough for you to regret everything.
And then another message came through.
Your smile faded into something softer.
Because you knew JJ. You knew that he didn't say things like that easily. Not really. He made jokes when he was uncomfortable. He turned everything into something stupid before it could become too serious.
And suddenly, all the things you had spent the last seven days trying not to think about came rushing back.
The way he looked at you when he thought you weren't paying attention. How he always reached for you first when something happened. The way he called you before anyone else. The way you had hugged him goodbye at the airport and held on for a second longer than you should have. The way you had spent the entire flight pretending you weren't crying.
You pressed your lips together.
His answer came almost immediately.
You: You don't know that.
This time, he took longer to answer.
Long enough that you thought maybe he wasn't going to.
JJ: because i think about you all the time too
You stopped breathing. You read it once. Then again. And then a third time, just to make sure the words hadn't changed. Your heart felt like it was made of wax beneath the sun, softening so quickly that you weren't sure what would be left of it by morning.
You looked down at your phone.
At the distance between New York and the Outer Banks.
At the fact that, somehow, no matter how far you went, JJ Maybank still seemed to be the person you wanted most.
You: I think I might be in love with you.
The typing bubble appeared.
Finally, his reply came through.
For one horrible second, you couldn't breathe.
You read the message again, your smile slowly disappearing as the warmth in your chest turned into something cold and sharp.
Maybe he had only said all of that because it was two in the morning and he was sitting somewhere back home with a beer in his hand, missing you in the same vague, harmless way that you missed everyone else.
Maybe he would wake up tomorrow and remember what you had said and regret it.
Maybe he had only taken so long to answer because he was trying to figure out how to tell you that he didn't feel the same way.
JJ: i was starting to think i was gonna have to come to new york and make a fool of myself before you figured it out
You stared at the screen.
You read the message once.
Your heart began beating again.
You: What does that mean?
This time, he didn't answer immediately.
You waited and a minute passed, then two. You looked at the screen again.
The smile that had barely begun to return to your face disappeared.
Of course he had been joking.
You should have known. This was JJ. He made jokes when he didn't know what to say. He flirted with everyone. He could turn the most serious moment into something stupid before you had time to understand what was happening.
You had said you were in love with him, and he had responded with a joke.
Maybe he had fallen asleep.
Maybe he would wake up tomorrow and not even remember the conversation.
You put your phone in your bag and told yourself that you were going home.
You made it three steps before taking it out again.
By the time you got back to your apartment, the rain had soaked through your dress and your shoes were killing you. You kicked them off by the door, dropped your bag onto the floor and stood in the middle of your tiny room, staring at your phone like it had personally betrayed you.
You changed into an old T-shirt, washed the makeup from your face and climbed into bed.
Every time you closed your eyes, you saw his messages.
I think about you all the time too.
I was starting to think I was gonna have to come to New York and make a fool of myself before you figured it out.
You had replayed the conversation so many times that you no longer knew what had actually happened and what you had imagined.
At four in the morning, you finally gave up.
Your phone was still beside your pillow.
There were no new messages.
You stared at the ceiling.
You had confessed your love to your best friend, who was several hundred miles away and possibly drunk, and he had responded by making a joke before disappearing completely.
Everything was absolutely fine.
You didn't pay attention to a single word.
By lunchtime, you had checked your phone forty-three times. By three in the afternoon, you had decided that you were never speaking to JJ again. By four, you had decided that was stupid. By five, you had decided that you hated being in love. And by six, someone was knocking on your apartment door.
You weren't expecting anyone.
Your friends had keys. Your roommate was away for the weekend. You had ordered no food.
You walked slowly toward the door.
Then, from the other side:
You knew it even when it was muffled through a door, even when your heart was beating so loudly you could barely hear anything else.
You opened the door. to see JJ standing in the hallway.
For a moment, neither of you said anything.
He looked tired. His hair was a mess, his clothes were wrinkled and he had a backpack slung over one shoulder, as if he had simply decided to cross the country and show up at your apartment without giving you any warning.
Which, apparently, was exactly what he had done.
You stared at him. “What are you doing here?”
You continued staring. “JJ.”
“Okay, technically, I was going to make it more romantic, but the bus was late and I got lost twice and then this guy at the station tried to sell me a watch, so—”
Your eyes were beginning to burn.
You looked behind him, as if there might be some reasonable explanation for why he was standing in your hallway.
“You didn't answer me last night.”
JJ's expression changed. “I know.”
“I thought you changed your mind.”
“I thought you were drunk, or that you wouldn't remember, or that you were going to wake up and realize that you didn't actually mean any of it.” Your voice became increasingly unsteady, and you hated it, because you had spent the entire day trying to act like you were fine and now he was standing in front of you and suddenly you were absolutely not fine. “You just stopped answering me.”
“I didn't stop answering you.”
He winced. “Okay, yeah. I probably should've mentioned that.”
“After I told you I was in love with you?”
JJ rubbed the back of his neck. “I was tired.”
He immediately raised his hands.
“Okay, that sounded bad. I didn't fall asleep because of that. I mean, I did fall asleep, but not because you said that. I was just—”
You pressed your lips together, trying desperately not to cry.
He looked at you for a moment, and then all the joking disappeared from his face. “I didn't change my mind.”
You swallowed. “You didn't?”
“Especially because you said it.”
He stepped closer. “I've been in love with you for so long that I genuinely thought you knew.”
You let out a disbelieving laugh. “You thought I knew?”
“JJ, you live in North Carolina.”
“It is extremely relevant.”
“I called you every night for a month.”
“Because you were lonely.”
“I told you I missed you.”
Then he shook his head. “You are actually unbelievable.”
You laughed despite yourself, wiping quickly at your eyes. “And you came all the way here?”
He looked at you like the answer was obvious. “Because you said you loved me.”
Your heart hurt. “That's it?”
“No.” He stepped closer again, until there was barely any space left between you. “Because I love you too.”
The city continued moving around you. Cars passed outside. Someone laughed somewhere down the hall. A door slammed in another apartment.
But for the first time since you had arrived in New York, you didn't feel like you were missing anything.
JJ reached for your hand.
“And because,” he continued, his thumb brushing over your knuckles, “I figured if you were going to finally tell me that you wanted me, I should probably be there.”
You smiled through the tears in your eyes. “You're an idiot.”
“You took a bus across the country.”
“You could have just called me.”
“That would've been less romantic.”
You laughed, and JJ smiled.
Then he pulled you into his arms.
You held onto him so tightly that for a moment, you forgot that he had ever been anywhere else.
You had spent seven nights alone, dreaming about him.
You had spent months missing him from a city that was too big and too loud and too far away from home.
And now, finally, JJ was standing in your apartment, his arms around you and his face buried against your hair.
“You know,” he murmured, “I did have a whole speech planned.”
He pulled back just enough to look at you. “I forgot it when you opened the door.”
You leaned closer, your forehead touching his.
“Because I like you better when you're stupid.”
JJ grinned.“Are you sure?”
And suddenly, New York didn't look blue anymore.
