"If she remembers as much as I do about our conversation, then there's a slight possibility that I actually have a chance with her." Meaning that the less of an impression that he made on Collins, the better, which was quite different from his normal approach to dating. "But come on, when have I ever struck out on a girl?"
"Kie." John B deadpanned in reminder. 
"Kie does not count." Except it kinda did. 
But if there was one thing JJ knew came pretty easy to him in life, it was girls. He never had trouble picking one up nor did he ever have trouble keeping them around- if anything, his biggest issue was shaking them off. He'd gotten the skill of charming the ladies down pretty quickly and it had become a simple affair for him when he was picking up a pretty girl at a party and taking her back to the Château for the night. And very rarely did it ever happen when he found himself feeling like he struck out a little, but given the circumstances of the night he and Collins had spoken, JJ figured he had an excuse for his minor lapse.
He did have to say though, Collins Jacobson was a bit of a shock to him. It didn't happen very often where a girl as stunning as her slipped past unnoticed by him but even JJ had to admit, he wasn't the most perceptive guy on the block and he'd fallen asleep in Econ more times than he could count. 
There he goes again making excuses for himself.
The truth is, Collins and JJ didn't exactly have that much in common. In fact, they were pretty much total opposites besides the fact that they both were as local to the cut as one could get and they both had pretty crappy father figures and moms that were no longer apart of their lives. In the grand scheme of things, Collins and JJ had very different views for how their life would turn out and how they were going to get there. 
JJ didn't really have a plan all made out for himself; he mostly just liked to play things by ear, live in the moment. He figured he'd stay in school unless he wanted to be shipped off to the mainland like John B was deathly near to, then if he actually graduated, he'd work a couple jobs to keep himself afloat. And maybe life would throw him a bone and he'd win the lottery or something and suddenly become filthy rich enough to have people who would spit on his shoes if he asked because he had so much damn disposable income that he'd think, 'why the fuck not?' What's the point of having money when you've barely had any your entire life, if you're not gonna use it irresponsibly?
In Collins's case, she was going to get out of that shack of a house she and Charlie lived in and leave Kildare county and all of its 온라인카지노게임book socioeconomic rivalries behind her. She'd go through college and join some clubs where she'd meet people that she actually had a lot in common with and feel like she finally belonged somewhere for once. And then she'd become a doctor, find her specialty in med school, make enough money to support her and Charlie alone and pay him back for all of his hard work to get her there and she'd feel like she could finally breathe after years of questioning how they were going to budget their money to make sure they had enough money to pay the gas and electric. She was prepared to have to work for it, and she knew that it would take a lot out of her but it would be worth it in the end. 
That's what made Collins and JJ so staggeringly different; their interests and goals alone proved how incompatible they were. It explained exactly why they had never been apart of each other's lives perfectly; it's because they lived completely different ones. They experienced the same hot summer days, yet JJ was up to his usual mischief with John B, solving the massive mystery that was his father's compass which had somehow found itself on a Grady White and nearly gotten them killed by some randos in the marsh. And he went through all this because JJ liked adventure, and burying his head in a book was the last thing he imagined spending his summer doing.