Mark My Words

50 | Basic Geometry

a/n: New cover :)

The late evening hosted premature celebration. During it, Rosalie stuck to the outskirts. She chewed her thumbnail in absent paranoia over what awaited her on the other side of the waterpark. It was an irrational fear, but the threat of the River Height Eagles being around wasn't something she took lightly. Her rational mind tried to reassure her that the Eagles weren't around, however, she couldn't help but think that Drew Mendoza was around every corner of the lazy river.

Coach was against the team's avid desire to return to the waterpark. Their next game would be at nine the next morning, and Maguire ordered eight hours of rest. Many of the girls insisted on one o' clock for lights out, but Coach pushed it back to midnight for the sake of her own sanity. It was the best she could do when Ray was there negotiating the deal.

Rosalie was too busy keeping an eye on the team from her post at the table, guarding everyone's towels.

In the midst of checking her phone, Ray dropped down beside her and kicked her legs up on the plastic lounge chair strings. As Ray started braiding her hair back, she said, "So that's two games down, one to go. How's it feel to be two steps closer to Regionals?"

"Kind of daunting," Rosalie confessed. She bit into her ruined thumbnail. The edge of her nail was frayed enough to be unrecognizable. She picked at it with her other fingernails and said, "To be honest, I have a kind of... foreboding feeling about it all."

"Regret?" Ray offered, and Rosalie hesitated to shake her head. When she did, she did it firmly. "Well, that's good. It'll be fun. Maybe we'll go some place warm."

"Yeah, maybe," Rosalie hummed. She looked to the pool room doors, drawn in by the entrance of three recognizable individuals, but seeing them all together was a bit odd. She straightened in her chair a bit, and Ray leant forward to look.

As Ray snapped her hair tie in place, Rosalie watched Joanna walk up with Isaiah and Sami in tow. She looked past Brynn's bikini top to what was clearly a boy's pair of swim trunks. Joanna pointed her thumb at Isaiah, who looked far too proud to be wearing spandex in a public waterpark.

"Hotshot here is lending me his trunks," Joanna said. She held her hand out to the guy to high five, and Isaiah slapped his hand down on it with a loud crack. Joanna cursed, withering at the pain of the slap. "Fuck, dude, not so hard."

"Shit, sorry," Isaiah said, laughing. He nudged Sami, who rolled his eyes, arms crossed over his chest.

"We all know why you decided to give up your trunks, huh," Ray said, arms around her knee. Isaiah winked at her and came to sit at the lounge chair beside hers. Sami sat behind him, one ankle crossed under his knee.

"You'll never guess who texted me to keep my mouth shut about something," Joanna said, dropping onto the end of Ray's lounge chair. Ray pulled her feet back, eyeing Joanna skeptically as Joanna sifted through her phone and pulled up a text conversation consisting of a hefty-sized grey message bubble. She held it out to Ray and said, "Jamie messaged me. Apparently Pittmen matched with you Tinder."

"You're shitting me," Sami gasped as Rosalie's soul transcended from this plane to one where Lennie Pittmen didn't exist.

Ray, on the other hand, paled. Her jaw dropped, a distressed squeak leaving her throat as she looked from Joanna's raised eyebrows to the phone screen.

Ray snatched Joanna's phone from her hands. She bent over it while Sami got up from the chair behind her to see. He leant over her shoulder as Ray read frantically down the message Jamie sent: