The two girls blink, then shift in their seats, cross their arms, and speak in perfect unison.
"Rude."
Joanne and Melissa both gasp. "We do not!"
"I don't know where you got that intel from, but—" Joanne waves at the air, a little too forcefully to be dismissive. "Wrong. You're wrong."
"Very wrong," Melissa asserts.
"So wrong."
"We don't like Kile."
"Why would we like the same person anyway??"
"Yeah, let alone that person."
"We're not—"
"I'm not—"
"That is—"
"We wouldn't—"
"Well," Joanne scoffs, amused. "You know how this goes. What have you got?"
"Oh, I think we can spare a little something, right? Just for fun? Like what about..." Melissa leans over and whispers into her sister’s ear.
Joanne listens intently, then squints.
"Okay, or or—" More whispering until Jo slowly nods yes.
"Hm… Fine."
Melissa's entire demeanor brightens up with glee as she turns with gusto and announces, "Gabe Cortés almost let someone drown this summer!" She immediately breaks out into girlish laughter, leaning back and lightly kicking in delight.
"Wha—" Joanne's eyes widen and she shoots her twin an incredulous glare. "No, not that!"
Mel's giggling ends. "I said the water park."
"That’s not the one I thought you meant."
There's more than one water park rumor?
"Well..." Melissa shrugs, a slight smile still on her face. "Cat’s out of the bag now. So."
Jo sighs, resigning herself to Mel's slip-up.
"We haven’t confirmed this yet—which is why it’s a freebie, by the way—but according to a couple of sources—wait. You do know that Gabe was a lifeguard this summer, right? Anyway, according to our source—"
"Your source."
"They saw Gabe watch someone struggle in the deep end until his boss had to yell at him to go help!" Mel cackles, clearly finding some aspect of this hilarious. "Isn’t that wild!?"
"What I want to know is who was in the deep end. There's got to be some history there. Then I'll believe it."
"Oh, definitely. Gabe is one catty little thing." Mel giggles to herself some more. "You just know he had his shades on, all moody, lording over the water from his tower.." She cackles some more. "Pretending he couldn't see someone... Just like, splashing around, gulping water!" She sighs. "Classic Gabe."
"That's all you get for nothing," Jo closes. The girl draws her lips shut with the motion of closing a zipper and her twin immediately mimics the gesture, though her giggles still haven't subsided.
Joanne has not laughed once.
