The Boyfriend League Read online

  “I’ll have to try it.”

  “We could do it after this one,” I said, before I could stop myself, before I convinced myself that out of loyalty to Mac, I should spend the day riding alone.

  “Okay,” Jason said.

  He seemed slightly amused, but it was difficult to be sure because he was wearing sunglasses. Of course, so was I.

  Jason leaned down and said, his voice low, “Look, I know you’re with Mac. But who wants to be at a water park alone? Let’s just have fun.”

  I smiled at him. “I like your thinking.”

  We finally got to the top and climbed into the huge inner tube, boy, boy, girl, girl, so Bird and I were sitting beside each other with Brandon beside her and Jason beside him. We grabbed the straps along the bottom of the tube.

  Brandon and Jason were wearing huge grins.

  “You realize our side is weighted more than yours,” Brandon said.

  “Yeah, so?” Bird said.

  “So we’re going to go fast,” he said, just as an attendant pushed the tube over the edge.

  Bird and I screamed and laughed most of the way down, while the guys just laughed. I’d never been to a water park with a guy, and it was fun, really fun, riding this ride with the guys.

  “Let’s do the Black Void next,” Bird said, as we climbed out of the tube at the bottom of the slope.

  “We were thinking Avalanche,” I said.

  “Yeah, but the Black Void is right here, and Avalanche is on the other side of the park.”

  I looked at Jason. He grinned, shrugged. “Black Void is fine with me.”

  I wondered if he realized the Black Void was a two-person ride. I thought about asking who was going to ride with whom, but since Bird was already nestled against Brandon’s side, it seemed like a pointless question.

  “Black Void it is,” I said. Not willing to admit that I wasn’t entirely disappointed I would be riding it with Jason.

  It was a five-hundred-foot tunnel. The inner tube was designed for two-person seating. I sat in the front with my legs stretched out over the tube. Jason was in the sitting area behind me, his legs along the side. I had to lean back a little, which put my back against his chest. I guess he could have held on to the sides of the tube. Instead, his arms came around me.

  “Okay?” he asked, his voice low near my ear.

  “Yeah.” I sounded breathless. I’m sure it was the anticipation of the ride, not his nearness.

  A red light at the top of the tunnel switched to green, someone pushed us, and then we were plunging into the black abyss.

  “Awesome!” Jason said as we came out from the ride, holding hands.

  I’m not sure either of us had given the taking of hands any real thought. It just seemed like the thing you should do after traveling through the darkness to the final splash.

  “That was totally cool,” Jason said.

  “Totally,” I said.

  Bird and Brandon came out next, Brandon wearing a grin wide enough to challenge Jason’s.

  “Where to next?” Brandon asked.

  “Avalanche?” I suggested.

  “Let’s go.”

  “I think I could go to sleep right here,” Jason said.

  It was late afternoon. The four of us were in individual inner tubes, floating along the Lazy River, which was basically a narrow, three-foot pool that circled the entire park, the water somehow set up so it flowed constantly and slowly.

  Jason and I were holding hands so our tubes didn’t wander away from each other. I think we’d ridden every slide and tube the park had to offer. We’d gone back to the pavilion to eat lunch. Jason had brought ham sandwiches, which I recognized as coming from Ruby Tuesday. Brandon had brought drinks and chips. Apparently they’d coordinated their food efforts. I guess they’d figured we’d be hanging out together.

  Tiffany had taken a pass on eating. She was entertaining a couple of guys in the pool area. By entertaining, I mean asking silly questions they were dumb enough to try to answer.

  Now we were letting our food settle, before taking another shot at the rides we’d enjoyed most.

  “I know after all the thrill rides that it seems strange to enjoy this ride, but I love having a few moments of calm,” I said.

  “Nah, I like it, too,” Jason said.

  His fingers squeezed mine. “I wasn’t sure you’d hang out with me today.”

  I looked over at him, glad I was wearing sunglasses so he couldn’t read whatever expression might be in my eyes. “I’m family, right?”

  “Right.”

  I lifted our hands, splashed them in the water. “I had fun. I’m glad you invited me.”

  “I’m glad you came.”

  Okay, could we get any more lame? It’s like we were both trying to say something without saying anything.

  I swallowed hard. “What would you have done if Tiffany ‘did water’?”

  “You mean if I’d had to choose who to ride the rides with?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It could have gotten awkward.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re more fun,” he said.

  I almost said, “You are, too.” But that would have been totally unfair to Mac. For all I knew he was a blast at a water park.

  I heard the rush of the waterfall, and unhooked my fingers from Jason’s. The river had this spot where water cascaded in various sheets, but if you guided your tube just right, you could slip through an open space, so you didn’t get hit. I began to maneuver to the side.

  As I neared the falls, I felt a tug on my tube and looked back. Jason had his hand on it and was grinning broadly.

  “No way are you not going through the falls,” he said.

  “I don’t like them.”

  “You don’t ‘do’ water?”

  “I don’t ‘do’ waterfalls.”

  “Oh, yeah, you do.”

  With me kicking and screaming, he pushed me off my course and sent me through the falls. I purposely dumped myself over on the other side and was standing, waiting, when he came through. I put my hands beneath his tube and dumped him over.

  “Hey!” he yelled before he went under.

  I was laughing as I plowed through the water to snag my inner tube. I hoisted myself on it, smiling as I watched him threading through the water, dragging his tube behind him to catch up with me.

  “You don’t want to mess with me,” I warned, unable to stop my grin.

  “No, I guess I don’t.” He climbed into his tube, leaned back, and took my hand.

  “You’re really fun to be with, Dani,” Jason said.

  It almost sounded like he was saying something else. Something deeper, more intense. Something you didn’t say to a girl who had a boyfriend.

  We stayed until the park closed at eight. I called shotgun, so I sat in the front on the way home.

  But it was like the water park had been a magical place where Jason and I could laugh, have fun, hold hands. But it wasn’t real.

  The magic disappeared as soon as we walked out through the gate.

  Chapter 19

  “What are they talking about?” Bird asked. “I’ve never seen a pitcher and catcher spend so much time on the mound. This is, what, the third time this inning?”

  Since it was Jason and Mac, I wondered if they were talking about me again. And maybe I didn’t really want to know what they were saying.

  Mac had returned to Ragland late that afternoon, just in time for the big Rattlers pretailgate party my dad had thrown in our backyard, early enough that the players could join us before the game and grab a couple of the burgers he was grilling.

  I was glad to see Mac, but feeling guilty, too. I couldn’t forget how much fun I’d had with Jason at the water park, the feel of his hand in mine, the way he’d looked so triumphant and pleased when he’d pushed me beneath the falls. I couldn’t forget the appreciation and awe in his voice as he’d walked through my bedroom and looked at all the things that were important to me. And I k