Page 75 of New River Gorge(ous)
“I think they love each other,” I say in a low voice.
“Yeah, but he’s mybrother.”
I adopt a faux psychiatrist demeanor. “Does that make you uncomfortable?”
Brooke snorts and I lower my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I think in this instance, payback could be fun.”
Logan rolls his eyes, but Brooke’s blue ones sparkle with mischief.
“What do you have in mind?” she asks as she takes the flat edge of the paddle and pokes Matt with it. “Matt!” she hollers.
Matt swats the paddle away, but Brooke keeps poking him with it. This stretch of river is calm. There’s still a few more rapids, but for now, we can swim. Or perhaps a better thought would betheycan swim.
Logan knows exactly what I’m suggesting when he catches my eye. We’ve done this a time or two, usually to him and whatever girl he’s picked up for the day. “Too much love happening in this boat today,” he grumbles, but then hops to the seat right behind Melanie and Matt and plops down with just enough force to catapult them into the water. Coupled with my own well-timed stumble where I ‘accidentally’ bump into Matt’sshoulder, the two love birds pop out of the boat and splash into the water.
“H-hey!” Melanie sputters indignantly as they surface.
“You did that on purpose!” Matt accuses as he shakes a fist at us.
Logan quirks a brow in plausible denial, and my part of payback for Matt and his makeout is to pull Brooke into my arms and kiss her.
“Gross! That’s my sister!” Matt shouts from the water.
I break my kiss with Brooke. “That’s the point!” I call back.
“Ok, lovers,” Logan shouts. “It’s time to get back to the boat because we’ve got our Class IV rapids coming up around this bend.”
41
Brooke
Matt and Melanie swim back to the boat, and Ben’s head appears on the other side of the raft. Logan and Beck extend hands to Melanie and haul her in, where she sits dripping wet but weirdly glowing because, apparently, my twin brother loves her. Weird. And gross. I can’t contemplate too much about that because Ben hops into the boat, swinging his legs over like he’s a gymnast on a pommel horse.
Matt’s reentry is not nearly as smooth as Ben’s or Beck’s, and does it make me a terrible sister if that fills me with a tiny bit of glee? More teasing ammo is always a good thing when you have a twin, so no. Not terrible.
Matt grabs his paddle. “What do we need to do, boss?” he directs at Logan before winking at Melanie.
Beck catches my side eye and mouths, “You ok?”
I nod back, listening while Logan tells us about how we’ll be approaching this rapid. He’s more serious than he has been before, and his instructions reflect that. We have a few moments of paddling before we round the bend, so I drop my voice to alow whisper and ask Beck, “What’s their story?” I tip my head to indicate Ben and Logan.
Beck gives a watery sort of smile and shakes his head. I can tell he isn’t saying he won’t tell me, just that now isn’t the right time for that conversation. If the mark of a man is the company he keeps, Logan and Ben are definitely interesting company, and I’d like to know their stories. Mainly why Logan keeps frowning at Matt and Melanie, and why Ben dove out of the boat when they started locking lips.
The rapids hit right after the curve in the river, and there’s a moment of hushed concentration as the boat twists around the bend. Beck, Logan, and Ben know this river. It’s clear from the way they’ve approached the entire afternoon of fun, but even they tighten the grip on their paddles and face this rapid with an uncharacteristic seriousness.
As soon as we’re in the rough water, I understand why.
“Back two! Back two!” Logan hollers as Beck begins paddling backward twice. “Four! Four!” Logan shouts again.
I attempt to paddle, but the rapids are buffeting the boat, and my side of the boat is popped up in air above them, so my paddle doesn’t even dip into the river. I’m paddlingair. My stomach swoops as the nose of the boat tips under the surface, and spray flies into my eyes, my ears, and my open mouth. Somehow, I don’t lose my paddle in the chaos as Logan continues to shout different numbers.
“Three! Three!” he yells over the roar, and this time, when I start to stroke, the paddle slices into the water.
It might be only a few minutes, but it feels like much longer before the raft slips out of the white water and into the calmly flowing river again. My heart ran a marathon in just a short expanse of river, and I take a deep breath as the raft lazily slides along. I let it out shakily. It’s not enough to still my racing heart, so I do it again. As I inhale, I catch Beck watching me withconcerned eyes. It’s enough to completely undo the calm that was starting.
“Have fun?” he asks.
“Y-yeah,” I say. “That was a lot more wild than I thought it would be.”
