Chapter Forty Eight: In Love With Our Best Friends
~~~
"Oh, I love it when we're all alive!" Sammy shouted as her, Kenji and Eva ran towards the others, who were down in the jungle. Once they made it off of the gondola, they guessed which direction the others were in— based on the direction the girls were flying in when they escaped off the mountain on a paraglider— and ran at peak Kenji speed to reach them.
The girls looked totally fine, save for the sweat lining their foreheads and the breathless look Brooklynn was sporting. And thankfully when they ran up, Ben and Darius were there, too.
"Yeah! Take that, dino island!"
Eva grinned watching Yaz and Sammy hug. The two could bully her all they wanted but she couldn't get over the fact that they would be hella fucking cute together.
"Yeah, it's a little torn, but we can fix it," Darius said, surveying the damage of the hang glider up in the tree behind them. "And it's gonna be a perfect sail for our next boat."
"Boat!" yelled Sammy. She shook Kenji's shoulder, "Boaaat!"
Kenji had this look, like something dawned on him, and he yelled, too. "Boat!"
They danced around, laughing and yelling "boat".
"Uh, what are we talking about?"
"We saw Tiff and Mitch's boat!"
"It's on some rocks not far off shore! We can totally get to it!"
~~~
Eva slowly followed the others to the shore. It's not that she wasn't excited, but rather worried about getting back in the water. Even if a powerful wave couldn't take out the boat, who's to say something else wouldn't? With their luck, the worst really could happen.
"Hey, that boat's big enough to fit Bumpy!"
She turned her head to the right, where Darius was addressing Ben. Ben was standing by the ankylosaurus, petting her head.
"Darius, I guess you were right. Every problem does have a fix."
Darius smiled, walking away. When Eva looked to Ben, he was frowning.
She furrowed her eyebrows, walking closer. "Why do I get the feeling you still don't want to get off the island?"
Ben jumped at her words. "Uhh, what do you mean?"
"You don't want to leave Bumpy, right?"
Slowly, he nodded. "But it's not— I'm not— I'm not scared. I could get on that boat. I'm not scared."
Eva bit her cheek. "Right..."
"I just mean... um..."
She raised her hands in surrender. "That's fine. Keep your secrets." She began walking to the others, but stopped rather abruptly. "Ben?"
"Yeah?"
"If I'm getting on that boat, you're getting on that boat."
~~~
"Stay sharp," Darius said. "For all we know, Tiff is still in there."
"This is fine," Eva told herself.
She watched as Yasmina dove into the waves. Sammy, Ben and Darius happily jumped in, while Brooklynn climbed down the rocks and stepped into the water, unbothered.
They were all wearing various bathing suits they scavenged yesterday, and while Eva didn't give a damn about who saw her in one, she cared too much about what could happen while she's in the water.
"You'll be fine," Kenji repeated.
"This is controlled," she continued. "There's no waves."
"There's some waves." Eva glared at him. "But nothing you can't handle."
"It's, what, fifty meters?"
"What's a meter?"
Eva bit her cheek, watching the water lap against the rocks.
"Okay, look, think of it like a wave pool at a waterpark. Do you remember the field trip to Summer's Kingdom? When our entire class got into the wave pool?"
"That was like, the most chaotic moment of freshman year."
"Yeah, but the waves weren't there to drown us." She finally pulled her attention from the rocks and to Kenji. "They just rocked us a little. That's what this'll be like. We'll swim through the waves, but they'll just pull us around a little bit."
"But I'm not a swimmer."
"Yeah, but I watched you take down a six foot tall, gigantosaurus wall of muscle— that was definitely on steroids— in the middle of a lacrosse game last year because he injured one of your teammates. If you can win a fight against the scariest kid from West Bridge, you can win a fight against something that gets bossed around by a giant hunk of rock in space."
Eva looked down, her eyes resting on Kenji's abs. He looked just as good as every other time she stared at him for too long. Squeaking, she glanced back to his soft brown eyes. "I don't know, I might die."
Kenji outstretched his hand. "I'm not going to let that happen."
Eva softly placed her hand in his. He led her to the edge of the rocks, where they carefully slid down until they were just above the water. Kenji dipped in first, hand still in Eva's.
"See? We're good so far, right?"
Eva stepped in carefully, but her left foot still slipped. She fell forward, colliding with Kenji.
"Oof!"
Alarms bell rang in her head. Water slid over her skin. Cold. She sucked in a breath, choking on air. Or was that water? Her vision waned. The air grew dark, and suddenly Eva was convinced there was a harness over her chest, keeping her in place.
"Angel— Eva. Look at me. Look at me— you're not drowning. You're above water. You're doing this."
She nodded slowly.
Suddenly, she could see the grey clouds above them. She could feel the breeze on her face.
"We're gonna move now, okay?"
Again, she nodded.
It took them a while to reach the boat. As they swam, Eva's mind turned to their adventures in Kenji's hot tub. She forced herself to relive those moments, where she was in water but she had no risk of dying. She forced herself to remember that Kenji was beside her, helping her every step of the way.
Her cheeks flushed pink in embarrassment, but also maybe in exhaustion. They were close to the boat— maybe a dozen more feet. All Eva wanted to do was collapse somewhere and take a nap.
Kenji helped Eva up first before climbing on the edge after her. They split off, everyone going in their own separate directions to search the boat.
Eva entered the bridge with Darius and Sammy to find shattered glass and blood.
"Careful," Eva mumbled to the pair. "There's glass, like, everywhere."
Darius carefully stepped around it. "The control panel's busted up."
"And so is the radio," Sammy sighed as she picked it up off the floor, frayed wires sticking out the back.
"And it's almost out of gas," Eva added.
"Are you sure?" Sammy set down the radio. "Did you tap it? They always tap it." She tapped the screen, and the trio watched as the little arrow dropped further into the red. "Huh, well, now we're really sure?"
"So, we've got a boat, we just can't use the boat," Ben said from the doorway.
They exited the bridge, where they met up with Brooklynn.
"Okay, the northwest dock is just around that bend." Darius led Brooklynn down the ladder.
Eva turned to Sammy and Ben. "Anyone else craving dino nuggets?"
Ben rolled his eyes. "Really?"
"What? They taste better than regular chicken nuggets."
Ben walked away without saying anything.
"Oh, you're one hundred percent right, Eva," Sammy smiled.
Eva grinned at her friend, whose face lit up like a match stick. Sammy glanced around the second story of the boat, then pulled Eva away from the cockpit and onto the roof overlooking the first floor. She checked underneath, then nodded in content, and turned to a confused Eva.
"Let's talk you and Kenji," she said as she pulled Eva to the floor.
She pinched the bridge of her nose and muttered, "Oh my god."
"We were all making fun of your inability to fess up yesterday," Sammy continued, "But I totally wanted to talk to you about this, because come on, he's totally— p-probably in love with you, and you're clearly in love with him, so why isn't anything happening?"
"Sammy, I love you and all, but I'm gonna get up and walk away now."
"But Eva! This needs to be talked about!"
"Why aren't we talking about you and Yaz?" Eva asked, raising her eyebrows.
Sammy flushed red, "W-what?"
"Yeah, exactly."
"Okay, you're right, let's talk about neither... Darius and Brooklynn?"
Eva grinned. "Now you're talking, baby."
"It's happenin', right? Like, I'm not going crazy or anythin'?"
"Sammy, I've been shipping it since Day One," Eva said. "Maybe we're just going crazy together."
Sammy looked around, briefly noting Yaz and Kenji in the cockpit, and pulled Eva to the ground again. She lowered her voice till it was just above a whisper, and kept a close eye behind Eva. "What made you think there's something going on between me and Yaz? Cause there's nothing. At least I think. She brought up having crushes on boys in the past, but never girls, and that can't be a good thing, right? But then she's so—" she turned her voice into a whisper, "so Yaz and I, I can't stop thinking about her, no matter what's going on, and I... I..."
"Oh my god, you're in love," Eva realized.
"Shh! Not so loud!" She looked around nervously. "And I could say a number about you and Kenji—"
Eva slapped her hand over Sammy's mouth, then turned to look at Kenji, behind her. Kenji noticed her staring and offered a wave. Eva awkwardly waved back, then said in a low voice, "I didn't think I could be in love with my mortal enemy, but he's just so... I liked him before, Sammy. Like, way before I thought I hated him. But I hated him for so long, there's no possible way he could like me the way I do. He might be my best friend, but that's where the feeling wall stops and the friendship starts."
"So we're both in love with our best friends, and we're both too scared to say anything. Awesome, go us. We're doing amazing, Eva."
Eva giggled, her head tilting back as laughter fell from her lips. "Sammy, we're in deep shit."
"How'd we get here?"
"I don't know but it's like— it's like... I'm drowning, and Kenji is my ring buoy. I'm..." Don't say anything. "I don't know, he's just, there whenever I feel like life is too much."
As she talked, Sammy started smiling until she was grinning from ear to ear.
"Easy, easy. Hold up! Hold up! Hold up!" Yaz shouted, cutting through their moment.
Eva didn't even realize the boat was moving until Kenji smacked the boat against the dock. "Not a bad parking job, if I do say so myself, and I will."
"You don't 'park' a boat, dumbass. You 'dock' it."
Kenji put his hands on his hips and leaned forward. "Sure you wanna sass the captain? It's a long swim home!"
"I bet Yaz could outswim you," Eva yelled at him.
"Oh really? You've watched me swim. You really wanna make that bet?"
Eva instinctively blushed, thinking about the last time she saw him swim in school. She went because Jenny practically dragged her along, like always. But like always, she stayed because it meant watching Kenji swim, and he always looked so determined, so proud of his team and himself. Lane number five. It was always lane number five.
Ben and Bumpy met the campers off the boat. Kenji and Darius worked together to moor the boat to the dock, while Brooklynn critiqued how Kenji tied the bowline around the cleat, to the point he gave up, telling Brooklynn to come down and tie it herself.
Eva shrugged, and went down to meet Kenji's side, tying the bowline knot around the cleat— the T-shaped metal device on the dock.
"I'm not even gonna ask how you know how to do that, Miss I've Never Left The City."
Darius cleared his throat. He stood at the front of the ship next to Brooklynn. "It's getting late. We might as well rest up here. We can scavenge for gas and supplies in the morning."
Kenji scoffed. "Woah, woah, woah, pump the brakes, bro! Look around! We've got swimsuits, a few hours of sun, and a whole boat at our disposal! If that doesn't scream yacht party, I don't know what does."