"I didn'tmeanto," Sabrina howled into the tablecloth, and Luke, not even knowing what exactly to anticipate, started to grin.
"She didn'tmeanto," Gina, Jan, and Tom all said to each other, as if they'd said it hundreds of times.
"It turns out Sabrina is a very bad paddleboater," Tom went on. "She kept running into us, and then she dumped Jan in the lake. I hadn't even known it was possible to overturn a paddleboat until then."
"It's not myfault," Sabrina said without lifting her head. "Those paddleboats are made for people who are taller than I am! I couldn't get to the pedals, steer, and look where I was going all at the same time!"
Luke's grin got bigger. "I see."
"Those little legs are really strong, though," Mindy said through her own grin. "She could really build up a head of steam. Just not steer while doing it. Anyway, so Jan went in and the next thing we knew she'd flipped her boat back over and was back in it and going after Sabrina, who was trying to get away, and…"
"Chaos," Tom said. "Sheer chaos. I'm the only man left after that particular incident. All the other boyfriends at the time understood they couldn't face the magic produced by these ladies and bailed."
Sabrina lifted her head. "So then the next time we got together, theyconspiredagainst me."
"That's true," Keana said blissfully. "We chose a place with paddleboats on purpose and all just went at her and dumped herin the lake. By the next time it was a tradition, and the year after that, Gina made a crown for the winner, and we've been trading it around since."
"I've never won it," Sabrina said with exaggerated sorrow. "They continue to conspire against me. Everybody gangs up on me and dumps me in first, and then they go after each other."
"Also true," Derek said. "It was one of the first things Jan told me when we started dating seriously. 'When it comes to the padderbee, we take Sabrina out first.'"
"Funny, Sabrina didn't tellmethat…"
"How strange," Mindy said blandly. "I'd have thought it would be a top priority for her, given that we play padderbee every time we get together, now. How long did you say you'd been dating?"
Something that landed between an alarm bell and a sense of aggravation flooded Luke. It was a little absurd to be offended that Mindy doubted they'd been dating for months, since they were not in fact dating at all. Even so, somehow he didn't feel it was Mindy's businesstodoubt them. "We met at the Fourth of July parade in Virtue," he said as lightly as he could. "So a couple of months, if you want to count it from then, but really more like six weeks? Not long. But really, I wouldn't tell a new boyfriend he was expected to dump me in a lake, either."
"I might go so far as to tell the new boyfriend he was expected tonotdump me in the lake, in fact," Sabrina said sourly, which made everybody laugh.
"Well, I guess we'll find out whose side he's on in about an hour," Mindy said dryly enough that Luke wasn't quite sure she was kidding. "Everybody got their SPF50? I amnothaving a bunch of sunburned faces in my wedding photos. I don't carewhatthey can do with image editing these days."
Luke himself was the only one who didn't actually pull a bottle of sunblock out of a pocket or bag, and his eyes widened. "I'm unprepared."
"I'll share," Sabrina promised, and forty minutes later the whole crew of them were down at the Las Vegas Wash, squinting into a brilliant blue sky that reflected just as beautifully off the water. Within minutes they were all smeared with sunblock and, to Luke's surprise, climbing intoindividualpaddleboats.
Luke sidled up to Sabrina as they waited their turn and lowered his voice. "I thought we'd be paired up?"
"I wish, because with your weight in the boat it'd be harder to overturn me. And you've got much longer legs, so you can probably navigate and paddle and everything better. But no, we do our own boats, mostly…" She trailed off, then gave him an awkward, almost pained smile. "Honestly, mostly because I'm usually single so the ones with partners figured it's not fair to leave me on my own when everybody else is paired up. Sometimes one of the other Girls has also been single, so I guess it's a weird kind of thoughtfulness."
"But it also feels kind of pointed," Luke guessed, and Sabrina sighed.
"Yeah. It's not meant to, or at least, it wouldn't be if at leastonepair of them didn't always complain about having to split up."
"I didn't hear anybody complaining this time?"
"Maybe because for once weallactually have to split up. Thank you for doing this," Sabrina said more quietly. "All of it, I mean."
"You know what, I would have even if—" Luke almost saideven if you weren't my fated mate,but swallowed it. "Even if, uh, even if Emmy hadn't asked me to. You're great and I'm having a great time."
Sabrina laughed softly. "You wouldn't have if she hadn't put you up to it, because there's no way I would have just walked up to the hottest guy at the gym and invited him to Vegas with me over the weekend."
"In that case I'm glad she intervened." Luke smiled at her, and then they got into their individual boats, listened to the lecture about how they weren't supposed to smash into each other, and all paddled out onto the Wash to smash into each other.
Luke positioned himself between everybody and Sabrina as effectively as he could. There were too many of them to actually stop them all from reaching her, but he could keep them from overturning her by providing a buffer for her boat to bump up against, and he never skipped leg day, so was able to ruthlessly crash into the others and overturn them when they got too close. The whole thing was an odd combination of deadly serious and incredibly funny, and got both more serious and more unhinged as people went into the water.
Derek was hard to unseat, but Mindy went in with more grace than Luke expected. Tom didn't even try, and struck out swimming around once he was in the water, yelling absolutely useless instructions to the other 'combatants'. Keana nearly dumped Luke overboard, but was undone at the last moment by Sabrina swinging around and side-swiping her, which sent her into the drink instead. By the time it was down to Luke, Craig and Sabrina, Luke was laughing so hard he could barely paddle anymore, and the others were dragging themselves, dripping, back into their boats.
Gina, looking like a surprisingly happy wet cat, wheezed, "Hurry up, they're coming out to throw us out," and Jan fell back into the water from giggling. A sudden realization struck Luke and he laughed, calling, "Do you guys always get kicked out?"
