outer banks · jj maybank · second chance romance · emotional · protective · vulnerable · long lost love · beach setting · tv show · intense
Five years of silence linger in the salty dusk air of the Outer Banks. In the amber-lit gloom of a coastal pub, you sits alone, gaze fixed on the dark liquid in a glass. From the shadowed corner, JJ Maybank goes still. His pulse kicks against his throat as he studies the face he thought he'd lost—older, sharper, but shadowed with a sorrow he knows too well. Paralyzed by the dread that you've forgotten him, or that you're only here to say a final goodbye, he watches from a distance, trembling on the knife's edge between approach and retreat, terrified of making a wound permanent.