"Oh, mylanta." There's no way I was spending all evening with the three people I disliked more than anyone else here. "Beth, I think me and Beau are gonna sit this one out."
"No! You can't leave me with them by myself," she whined.
"You'll still have Tonya, though."
"But she's not you."
I hated bailing on her, so I caved. "Alright, we'll go. But I'm driving separate. That way if we want to leave, we can."
"Yay! Me and Hunter will ride with you, then."
"Okay. We'll be heading your way in a minute."
I hung up and explained who all was going and how awful they were. "Then why are we goin'?"
"I don't know." Now that I thought about it, I couldn’t remember why I had agreed to go in the first place.
We told Grandmama bye, grabbed an extra pump, and headed out the door. "Ya look awfully nice this evenin, Miss Reed," he said as he opened my door for me.
"That reminds me," I waited for him to get in, "don't open the door for anybody tonight."
He looked at me funny. "Why?"
I turned the Jeep on and backed out of the driveway. "You can for me, and even Beth, but no one else. The girls going with us are so full of themselves that they will think you like them."
"And likin' them is bad?"
"No, they'll think you like them like them, as in wanting to court them."
"Just from openin' a door? What's wrong with girls now days?"
I assumed that was a rhetorical question, so I didn't answer. "Just don't even look at them. And especially don't smile."
"Let me get this straight. I can't open a door for 'em, look at 'em, or smile at 'em?"
"It would be best if you didn't. You're dimples alone are like an invitation to procreate."
He was laughing now. "What?"
"Okay." I knew I would have to explain for him to understand. "Both of these girls like Jace. And the fact that we were dating made these girls not like me; or at least I assume that's the reason. But anyway, I know for a fact they are gonna like you, too. So I don't want them to take your being a gentleman and turn it into something it ain't."
He nodded his head. "Oh, okay. Now I getcha. But unless they're total twits, they should be able to tell that I only got eyes for you."
That made me smile. "They are definitely total twits."
As we pulled up into the driveway, I thought I was going to puke, and Beau must have sensed it. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know. I'm just afraid something's gonna go wrong; something might get said, Chad is gonna be a jerk, Jace might say something, I may have to smack Tonya or Morgan, you may suddenly disappear."
As we got out of the Jeep, he stood in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders. "Don't worry 'bout what anybody says and I won't either. Let's just go and have fun. And if I disappear all of a sudden," he shrugged his shoulders, "just tell 'em I'm a magician."
I smiled and stretched up to kiss him when I heard someone yell my name.
"Are y'all gonna come in or do we need to get you a room?"
"Here we go," I whispered to Beau as I shot him a fake smile. We turned around and walked up the sidewalk toward Beth. "Beau, this is Beth."
Beau reached out his hand and said, "Nice to meet ya, Beth."
"Nice to meet you, too." I could tell she was a little flustered, which was not like her. But I knew how she felt—Beau had that effect on me sometimes, too. "Come on in, guys, everyone's here."
"How is Morgan? Is she in a mood?"
"Ain't she always?"
We walked in and saw that everyone was in the living room. I immediately felt very uncomfortable, but Beau seemed extremely calm, walking right on in.
"Hey, this is Beau,” Beth announced. “Beau, this is my boyfriend, Hunter, my brother Jace, his friends Tyler and Chad, our family friend, Tonya, and this is Morgan."
Right off the bat he smiled at all of them, just like I had told him not to do. "Nice to meet y'all."
"So, you're Malyn's boyfriend now?" Chad asked.
"Yep," Beau smiled back with confidence.
He looked at me, then back at Beau. "Hmph. Okay." He laughed and grabbed his drink. "So we ready to go?"
I was surprised that he didn't say anything else rude or out of the way, and that Jace didn't say anything at all. "That wasn't too bad," I quietly told Beau.
We let Beth and Hunter into the Jeep and told Chad we would follow him. Jace, unlike Morgan and Tonya, didn't even look our way. "Is Jace sick?" I asked Beth.
"Love sick is all."
"Oh." I wished I hadn't asked.
"Try to keep up," Tyler yelled. "Chad drives like a bat outta hell."
We made small talk on the way into Pigeon Forge; Beau talking about his life as much as he could without giving too many details. Hunter tried to talk to Beau about sports, but since Beau had no clue what any of the teams were, that conversation quickly died out. So Beth and I filled in the silence with useless chatter until we go to the restaurant.
There was a thirty-minute wait, so we all sat down on the benches outside. Tonya, of course, had to sit on the bench next to us. "So, how did you two meet again?"
"We used to date."
"And you dropped Jace, just like that, to be with him again?"
I was glad Jace was talking to Tyler and didn't hear her. "Don't go there, Tonya. It's none of your business."
“I was just curious. You don’t have to get snippy.”
Jace must have heard us because he stopped talking, came over, and sat down by Tonya.
"So, what's goin' on over here?"
I just looked at Tonya and smirked. "The usual."
"So, is your family from around here? We know most of the people in town." Jace asked him.
"They're dead."
"Oh, sorry to hear that."
Luckily Jace didn't ask how. We made small talk for a little while until we ran out of things to say, then we just sat there, watching people walk by. The awkward silence was finally interrupted by our beeper letting us know our table was ready. By the time we finally got seated, ate, and headed out into town, it was almost dark.
"Where do y'all wanna go?" Beth asked.
"Hey, let's go on the haunted boat ride. I heard it's cool," Tyler said.
"And dark," Chad added, grabbing Morgan.
"Okay, sounds good. But since it ain't far, let's just walk," Jace suggested.
Chad, Morgan, Tyler, and Tonya walked ahead of us. I was surprised to see Tyler and Tonya getting so close, but deep down it made me happy. Jace had been talking to Hunter, but slowed so he was walking by me, which Beau didn't seem to like.
"Mom said to tell you that you'll be working in the store instead of the restaurant tomorrow. But I'm working, so I can help you out if you need it."
"Okay."
Beau reached over and held my hand. "I doubt she'll need your help."
Jace just looked at Beau and started walking with Hunter again. I elbowed Beau and gave him my big-eyed 'what was that' look, which just made him smile.
We got to the ride and it seemed cheesy from the outside. There were zombie like statues and your typical ghosts hanging around. And they were playing ghostly sound effects and moaning sounds over a PA system, which made me smile.
"You don't sound like that at all," I whispered to Beau.
"But I'm sure I could, given the right circumstances," he said with a wink, making me elbow him again.
I had him stand next to one of the ghosts so I could take his picture and send to Grandmama. I thought she'd get a kick out of it.
"Come on!" Chad yelled. "Let's get in line, already."
We walked through the line, paid, and got up to the boats, which were the kind you had to jump into while they were moving. Each boat had two rows of seats that only held four each, and Morgan and Chad jumped into the front, followed by Hunter and Beth. This left Beau, me, Jace, Tonya, and Tyler to get in the back. I thought they'd split us up since we had one too many, but he motioned us on. Beau got
on first, helping me in, and then Jace got in behind me, which Beau didn't like at all. Tonya and Tyler jumped on last, making us have to smoosh together to fit. It was very awkward being sandwiched so tightly between Beau and Jace. Tonya slid onto Tyler's lap after we left the dock, which helped some, but not enough.
I turned toward Beau, which made it feel like I was partially sitting on Jace. The boat moved very slowly as we came upon a door, which opened for us. We were then in pitch black darkness with nothing but the ghost moans.
"It sounds like somebody's screwin' in here," Chad laughed as he joined in, making his own gross noises.
Then all of a sudden the boat stopped and a strobe light started flashing. Ghostly pieces of what looked to be some sort of mesh were moving all around us, and the strobe light made it look wicked. "That's cool," I said. Then I happened to glance to my right and saw that Tyler was kissing Tonya. "Oh, my."
Jace heard me and looked to see what I was looking at. He seemed as shocked as I was when he looked back at me and mumbled, "What the…?"
I was rather taken aback by this little turn of events, but before I could dwell on it, the flashing stopped and we started moving again. I saw a faint light up ahead and noticed a figure sitting on one of the props that was made to look like a tombstone. I thought it was just another prop until it stood up. As we got closer, I could see that it was a man—a dead man.
"Oh, shit," I blurted, immediately averting my eyes from the man and telling Beau not to look. Then I realized that if he got much closer to us, especially to Beau's pump, that he may end up like Beau—solid and very visible. "What do we do?" I whispered to Beau. I never would have thought we would run into an actual ghost on a haunted ride.
The next thing I knew, this man jumped on our boat. He acted like it was something he did often, probably just to scare people and break the monotony. When he actually made it move, which I'm sure hadn't happened before, he looked stunned. Everyone screamed, having this man suddenly appear in front of them, shaking our boat.
"What's going on?" the man yelled, obviously distraught and confused. He had on a solid blue uniform with his name on a white patch on his shirt, so I assumed had been a worker who must have died here. He almost fell off the boat, since he was startled by the fact he could move it. It reminded me of how Beau reacted when it first happened to him. "HEY! What's going on here?" He started to climb over the front of the boat, causing everyone to freak out. He must’ve gotten out of range of Beau’s pump because he started to shift back and forth from spirit to solid.
"Is this part of the ride?" I heard Tonya ask.
Then he fell over the front of the boat into the front seat, causing the girls to scream.
"Hey!" Chad yelled. "Get off!" He stood up and grabbed the man, trying to push him off of our still moving boat.
The man started to fight him back, making Hunter jump up, too. Jace and Tyler stood up, but just stayed where they were. I looked at Beau and said, "We've got to do something."
Beau reached around behind him, and I knew what he was going to do. This was gonna be hard to explain, but we didn't have much choice. The ride would be ending soon and we couldn't have this going on when it did. "Dump my clothes," he said before he switched his pump off. He immediately disappeared, leaving his clothes and the pump in the seat, so I grabbed the pump, stuck it in my purse, and threw his clothes and shoes in the water, hoping they would just sink. Since everyone was distracted by this man, no one even noticed Beau had disappeared.
"What the hell?" I heard Chad say as he grabbed air. "Where did he go?"
Tyler and Jace were still standing, looking around for the man who was still on our boat—they just couldn't see him.
"He disappeared!" Morgan yelled. "How?"
"Was it part of the ride?" I asked, trying to get them to make sense of it. "Maybe he wasn't real."
The man stood up, still yelling, but I tried to ignore him. He was smacking at Chad, but his hands were going right through him.
"What a ride!" Chad yelled.
When Jace realized that I was no longer in danger, he moved from in front of me and sat down. "Can you believe that? How can they have a man just appear like that, attack us, then just vanish?"
"I don't know, but Chad seemed to like it," I replied, pointing at Chad who was still boasting about how awesome the ride was.
"But still…" He must have noticed I wasn't on his lap and looked over and asked, "Where'd Beau go?"
Crap. I hadn't thought of an explanation yet. "Um…he jumped off the boat to go get help. He thought someone had broken in and was gonna kill us or something."
"I did, too." Jace looked like he was still rattled by what happened. But then again, the man was practically standing on him, staring at me, so I'm sure he sensed him.
"Who are you?" the man asked me. "I know you hear me. You can see me, too." I continued to ignore him, thankful that we seemed to be coming to the end of our interesting ride. "What just happened?"
"Woo hoo!" Tyler cheered as our boat approached the exit door. "I told you guys this would be cool. Made Chad nearly shit his pants," he laughed.
"Whatever! I was the only one trying to get that thing off the boat."
"Yeah, you probably weren't supposed to do that," Morgan said.
We were finally back at the dock and everyone, aside from me, Jace, and Beth, were talking about how awesome it was, which made the attendant look at them like they were crazy. I'm sure the people getting on after us were going to be very disappointed.
The man stood in front of me, blocking my exit, forcing me to have to walk through him. He followed me, but I knew he could only go so far—or at least I hoped so. I was trying to think of what to tell them about Beau, so I acted like I had a phone call. I walked away from them, acting like I couldn't hear, then the next thing I know my phone flew out of my hand and slid across the parking lot.
"Talk to me!" the man yelled.
I picked up my phone, hoping it wasn't cracked, and headed toward the sidewalk, getting as far away from this place as I could. Luckily my phone was still intact, so I called Grandmama. As the phone rang, I glanced back to see if the man was still behind me, and he was. Then I saw Jace watching me, so I just turned and kept walking.
"Hello?"
"Have you talked to Beau yet?"
"No, I ain't seen him."
"Really?" It made me wonder why he hadn't went in and told her what had happened. "Well, I've got to hurry."
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing now. But Beau had to turn off his pump because we ran into a dead man on this ride. He jumped on our boat." I sighed, "It was awful. But anyway, Beau turned off the pump so the man would go back to normal and stop freaking out. But somehow he knew I could see him, so he's following me." I turned back, but the man was standing several feet back, still yelling at me. "Well, he was following me. But now I'm out of range."
"Malyn, what do ya need? What do ya want me to do?"
I could tell I was scaring her. "Oh, I need you to tell me what I can tell them about Beau. Where did he go? I can't say I have to go and pick him up anywhere because people rode with me and I have to take them home."
She was quiet for a minute, and I turned around to see Jace coming toward me. "What's goin' on?"
"Oh, Beau called," I lied. "I'm just…talking to him."
"Malyn?" Grandmama asked.
"Yeah, I'm here. Jace just walked up."
"Okay, just tell them that Beau saw a friend who was havin' car trouble. He got it started, but rode with them to get somethin' for it, and now it won't start again. He's gonna help them get it fixed, and they'll bring him home."
She was good. "Okay, that sounds good. I'll see you later then?" Jace was still standing in front of me, listening.
"You better see me," she teased. "I love you. And be careful."
"Okay, and I love you, too." Jace crossed his arms and looked away.
When I hung up, he quizzed me about what was going on. I tol
d him exactly what she told me to tell them, and he just looked at me. "So, he ditched you?"
"No, he didn't ditch me. He's just helping a friend. He's nice like that."
"How did he know his friend was havin' trouble if we were on that ride?"
"Um…he saw them when he came out to get help…in the parking lot."
"Hey! Are y'all coming?" Ty yelled.
"Just a minute," he told him. Then he turned back toward me. "Are we gonna stay for a while, or do we need to go?"
Even though I was ready to go home, I opted for the easier choice. "We can stay for a while."
Jace smiled. "Good."
I didn't see the man as we walked back by, but I hurried anyway. "Freaky ride, huh?"
"You ain't kidding. Not what I expected at all. Makes me want to ride it again now that we know what's gonna happen."
I laughed. "I don't think so."
So the night was going surprisingly well, considering my company. Tonya seemed wrapped up in Tyler, which shocked both me and Jace, and Morgan was hanging all over Chad. Being ignored by both of them had worked out for the best. But I had a feeling Tonya was just trying to make Jace jealous. If she was just using Ty, and hurt him, I would hurt her.
"I'm surprised they've all behaved so well," Beth said, interrupting my thoughts, seeing that I was looking at them. "But it is hard to talk when you've got your tongue down somebody's throat."
"You're gross," Jace said, eavesdropping on us.
They decided to ride go-carts, which I wasn't in the mood to do. "Y'all go ahead. I'll sit this one out."
"Yeah, me too," Jace said.
Chad just laughed. "Whatever, Stone. Get it while you can, I guess."
Jace ignored him as we walked to a nearby bench. "Did you sleep well last night?"
If only you knew. "Why would you ask that? Do I look tired?"
He shrugged. "Just wondering if you have any regrets or anything. Because you know if you do—"
"I know. But you can't wait on me forever. You deserve better than that." I had hoped it wouldn't go in this direction. Oh, well.
"Not forever; Just until you change your mind," he said with a smile, but probably meant every word.
"I'm not gonna change my mind." He just looked at me, not saying anything. "What?"
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