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:

___

JAMIE: Yo so problem
Don't go telling people about this because Lennie's in a bit of an existential crisis mode and he doesn't want to hurt any feelings but he and Ray matched on Tinder and he isn't sure if he's supposed to ENGAGE, you know what I'm sayin? So could you, like, see if Ray's said anything about Lennie to make you think she'd be cool with it?

JOANNA: I'm so telling Ray.

JAMIE: Damn, I shoulda asked Rosalie
But ya know, sometimes you're reading her messages anyway so I guess that's why I just didn't bother?

___

Ray put her head in her hands and moaned, "Oh fuck."

Joanna plucked her phone out of Ray's hands and gave it a shake in Rosalie's direction. Rosalie propped her elbow up on the table and pressed her fingers to her forehead because within her skull, spinning rapidly together, came the conglomeration of guilt, regret, and embarrassment for having swiped right on Lennie Pittmen. Lennie, of all people, the possible asexual recovering from heartbreak.

And Ray, who Rosalie knew for a fact was as straight as they came. She wasn't one to weigh her friends' libidos, but something told her that Ray wasn't on Tinder to make friends.

Sami sat himself down on their lounge chair and leant between Joanna and Ray to see the phone. "You're kidding, right? I mean, you didn't seriously swipe right on this guy—" Sami started, but Joanna shushed him with a wave of her hand.

"Hey, careful. His heart is fragile right now after he dumped Harper's ass," she said. Sami slapped her hand away, but it only prompted her to poke him in the throat. Sami gagged a little, hands clasped to his neck.

"I wasn't even the one to swipe on him!" Ray cried, throwing her arms out in Rosalie's direction. She looked desperately to Rosalie, who turned red with embarrassment when both Sami and Isaiah turned their wide-eyes onto her.

"Unknowingly," Rosalie squeaked. She covered her eyes, cheeks hot under her fingers. "I didn't mean to. I was in a panic, okay?"

At this, Joanna blinked fast and said, voice dry, "Excuse me, what? What were you doing on Ray's account anyway?"

"I was just looking and he came up on the screen," Rosalie said, slapping her hands into her lap. "I did not mean to swipe right, it just sort of... happened."

"A lot of things just sort of happen. Swiping right on accident is not one of them," Sami said, leaning forward, anticipation clear. Isaiah was now on the chair with them, which pushed Joanna to the far edge, lips pursed in distaste.

Joanna straightened her shoulders with a huff. "Well, you know confusing your right from your left is a symptom of dyslexia," she said and shrugged. "It's not that weird."

Sami grinned at Joanna's ear, pompous as ever, "Oh, right, I'm sure I know why you're saying that."

Joanna scowled at him out of the corner of her eye. She tossed her hair back, and it smacked Isaiah across the face. Isaiah sputtered, blinking hard against the ginger curls in his eyes.

"I don't have dyslexia," Rosalie said, pouting.

"What, so are you just gonna let them accuse you of swiping right on purpose?" Joanna hissed through a fierce scowl.

Rosalie turned her nose up, arms crossed. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that Lennie's thinking about messaging Ray, which means he must like her, right? He doesn't need to know it was me, or that it was an accident, Sami, stop looking at me like that—hey! Stop laughing!"

Sami was doubled-over on the lounge chair, flopping into Ray's lap as Ray groaned helplessly against the backrest. Isaiah snorted from behind Joanna, who looked like she was about to be sick.

In the midst of all of it, though, the lounge chair creaked, and stretched, and... snapped.

The four of them dipped towards the middle, and Ray and Isaiah screamed like little girls as the plastic gave way. They dropped onto the concrete, their legs caught on the metal frame. Joanna floundered with her arms out and managed to swing herself to her feet before she could be taken down with them.

"Oy vey," Rosalie sighed, only to yelp at the realization that one of the life guards could have witnessed the destruction of the lounge chair. "Hide the evidence!" Rosalie cried, leaping up. She grabbed a nearby towel as Ray, Sami, and Isaiah scrambled out of the chair.

She snapped it over the top of the wire frame, and Sami helped her arrange it so that it appeared as though they were simply drying a towel over the plastic.

In the process, the pool doors opened, and with every one of them strung tight around the idea of Lennie like-liking Ray, they all turned towards the echo of it.

Ray shrieked like a baby at the sight of the clump of Bradshaw boys. She ducked behind Sami, who had the biggest build of the five of them. Sami thrust his arms up to cover more surface area, and with Isaiah's help, they meandered to the lazy river where Ray could hide behind a tube.

Rosalie and Joanna watched as the current carried them away from the situation, and under the waterfall bridge. Rosalie didn't bother putting her foot in the water.

"Not so appetizing now," Joanna commented.

"Yeah," Rosalie sighed.

She looked up at Joanna, and then to where Jamie-Lee was running towards them, jumping down the steps from the bridge over the lazy river, and rushing into Joanna's arms. He was laughing, his giddy smile enough to reassure Rosalie that they weren't being hunted for her mistake.

"Get your hands off me, Berry," Joanna said, wiggling out of his grasp. She flicked her hands out at him and said, "I don't hug."

"But you did it! You guys tore them to pieces," Jamie said as he moved on to Rosalie, who accepted the hug with a relieved smile.

"Thanks, Jamie," she said, squeezing him around the shoulders.

Though, over Jamie-Lee's shoulder, she found Lennie lingering with the other guys, his hands in the pockets of his Hawaiian-printed swim trunks. It was like the party all over again, and Rosalie eyes immediately locked on his back, only to divert to the ceiling in the next second when Lennie turned his attention onto her. It was just long enough for her to realize that he had the V. Not just that, but he had the dimples of Venus punctuating his lower back.

Fuck, I never should have looked, she cursed herself, biting her tongue as she rolled her eyes down from the ceiling and over to Joanna, who had her lips pursed and nose wrinkled up at her. Joanna saw everything, and Rosalie let Joanna's amusement simmer in the pit of her stomach where she felt guilty about everything to do with this situation.

"Nice game, Mason," Lennie said.

Rosalie cleared her throat as she stepped away from Jamie and swayed back to Joanna's side. "Thanks... Lennie," she said, and Joanna scoffed from beside her, smiling like the devil. Rosalie looked at Jamie-Lee to save her sanity, since he was actually wearing a shirt. "So, where's Blake?"

"Oh, celebrating with his team. They're just getting back from the arena," Jamie said, gesturing towards the pool. "They should be down any minute. Their next match isn't until noon, so I think we're planning on sticking around late. Mind if we hang with you guys until they come?"

"Uh..." Rosalie droned, jaw slack.

"That sounds like an excellent idea," Joanna said.

"Why do I feel like that's a bad idea," Lennie said, squinting his eyes at her.

"Maybe because my moral compass is skewed," she said, and punctuated it with a wink.

"It's only skewed when women are around. In other cases, I think it's quite straight," Jamie-Lee said, and Rosalie caught the way Lennie rolled his eyes, and how Joanna let out a maniacal laugh.

"Straight, right," Lennies said.

Joanna jabbed her fists against their chest. Jamie was closest and got the brunt of the hit, and as he grunted, wincing, Joanna said, "Funny, guys. Getting double-teamed is supposed to be more fun than this, isn't it? But, well, what can I expect from two straight guys. Excuse me, one straight guy and one crooked guy."

"Hey, I am both a circle and a square. You might call me a pentagram," Jamie-Lee said.

"What, like the devil? I thought that was me," Joanna said.

"No, you're just a circle," Lennie said.

"Oh, how square of you," Joanna said with a tight, fake smile.

"Does that mean I'm also a pentagram?" Rosalie said, and Jamie clapped his hands with a gasp, thrilled at the idea. Rosalie would have laughed, if she hadn't caught the shock on Lennie's face at that moment.

"Wait—Hold on," Lennie said, shaking his head. "You aren't—? But Joanna—" He said, pointing to Joanna, who's amusement faded to fascination.

"Oh, oh dear," Joanna said, feigning surprise. "You didn't know."

Rosalie wasn't sure why she felt the need to be embarrassed, but all at once she was. Her cheeks turned hot as Lennie looked desperately from Rosalie to Joanna, as if hoping that the rumors were true, and that Rosalie and Joanna were shagging in the locker room. Rosalie could only imagine why he was desperate to believe she was gay.

"I-I mean, I went to Homecoming with Jamie," Rosalie insisted, forcing a laugh.

Lennie floundered, and before long his ears were bright red. "Well, that was—you guys were just going as friends. It's no different than you and Sami."

"But Sami's gay, Jamie's bi," Rosalie said.

Jamie rubbed a hand over his forehead and muttered, "Christ, okay, buddy, now is not the time to have an anuerysm. Joanna's still got dibs."

"I her, and she me," Joanna agreed, and Rosalie took a deep breath in, as if to scream, but held it back when she caught Joanna's eyes on her. "Mutual agreement," she elaborated.

"I still don't get that. So are you two—? Aren't you dating now? I mean, you're talking like that has yet to happen, so clearly Rosalie's still single," Lennie said, and Rosalie's eyebrows rose in a mixture of horror and antipathy.

"Excuse me, no thanks to you," she said with an awful laugh, folding her arms over her chest.

"Look, buddy, we made a deal," Joanna said, and Lennie went from staring at Rosalie, to staring at Joanna, eyes wide. Joanna gestured with her hands as she explained, "I get the Knights to Nationals, and in the end I take Rosalie out on a date. It's that simple."

If Rosalie didn't know any better, Lennie Pittmen was two seconds away from punching a girl. He clenched his hands, jaw lowered in horror. He let out a laugh of disbelief as he threw his hands out and cried, "That's so much worse than what I was thinking. You realize how shitty that is, don't you? Why can't you just act like a normal human being and do what you're supposed to?"

"Where's the fun in that, huh?" Joanna said with a grin.

"I don't need you picking a fight over this," Rosalie said, stepping between them. She cut her arm out, blocking Lennie's path to Joanna, who stuck her tongue out at him. Rosalie turned to her to say, "Stop antagonizing him."

"Ay ay, oh Captain, my Captain," she said with a low bow.

"Rosalie—" Lennie started, only to stop when Rosalie whipped back around to peg him with that same, condescending stare she used on him in the parking lot. She wondered what Ray would do now, with or without Sami's car to run Lennie over.

Eventually, he mustered his voice back up and swallowed hard, staring at Joanna over her shoulder. "You know how important Nationals is, don't you? Don't you think it's manipulative to hold that over Rosalie's head just to toy with her?"

"I don't toy, and it's not manipulative," Joanna said.

"And what the hell do you know about that?"

"You aren't the only one who used to be trapped in a manipulative relationship, buddy," she spat at him. Rosalie's eyes widened, and she looked to Jamie, who covered his hand over his throat to stop himself from screaming. "And no, I really don't get the fascination with Nationals. But you know the hell what? I get the adrenaline rush of competitive contact sports. You and any other bastard hooked on football—excuse me, soccer, basketball, lacrosse, whatever—are nothing more than a bunch of addicts looking for a high. What about that screams 'healthy' anyway?

"And another thing," Joanna said, gesturing vaguely to where Rosalie now stood with Jamie, half-in between her and Lennie, "it's entertaining. It keeps my mind off of shit, probably the same way you kept your mind off of the shit Harper put you through. Off of school. Or maybe your overbearing parents."

"Are you seriously trying to tell me we're one and the same, is that it?" Lennie said with a dark laugh. "You won't always be a fucking victim, you know? It doesn't make you immune to manipulating other people."

Joanna laughed, and Rosalie jolted at the sound, because she had heard Joanna's real laugh, and this wasn't it. Joanna shook her head slowly, looking down her nose at Lennie until the exact moment she took a step towards him.

He lifted his hands to stop her, but she took him by the wrists and shoved him backwards. Rosalie shouted as Joanna drove Lennie to the edge of the lazy river and pushed him over. He slipped on the edge and tumbled back, but not without grabbing Joanna's receding hand and pulling her with him.

"You fucking cunt—!" Joanna screamed as she plunged into the river. 

a/n: YALL I am SO damn excited dudes. No joke I spent HOURS developing two new characters for MMW with a friend.