Reach for the Sky

The Mulisha boys had gone upstairs and changed in order to join in the Nitro Circus fun; we had sent Cam and Andy out to find some inflatable things to ride down the slide and hang our with, and an hour later they returned with a slew of blow-up dolls, and two tubes with unicorn heads for Jolene and I lest we be offended. The pool complex, we had realized, was much larger than we had expected - with a lazy river, a second smaller pool than the one we played in, and a hot tub. After a few trips around the “lazy river,” with its false currents and rapids, Travis had convinced me to switch to drinking Coronas with him (when in Spain, he had said, and really I think he just wanted to get laid again), and Jolene and I had ditched the unicorns for one of the enormous, two-person rafts we had found waiting by the entrance to the river. The boys all fought around us in their bright yellow one-seaters, and Jo and I reclined peacefully in the double.

“Travis, stop trying to flip us over. We’re too fat, it will never happen!” Jolene joked, as Travis once again tried to get enough leverage (with a Corona in one hand) to flip Jo and I over.

“Oh, shit, now you’ve done it!” I nearly dropped the beer in my hand as Andy, Cam and Godfrey joined the effort, lifting me out of the water - but they couldn’t flip the raft. Deegan and Twitch added their hands, and a few other unknown motocross racers and their posses, and in seconds, Jo and I were in the water, holding drinks above our heads and shouting bloody murder as the guys made off with our raft.

“Damn them, I was having a good time, too.”

“They always have to ruin it.” Jo took a sip of her drink, and nearly spat it out. “Pool water in my Colada. Let’s go to the bar, shall we?”

“Let’s.” Arm in arm, we walked through the waist-deep water and got out at the nearest exit. A quick drink exchange later, and we were back in single rafts, I held her wrist and vice-versa so we didn’t take off in different directions around corners.

“So you and Travis, huh?” Jolene asked, after we had passed a pack of kids who were jumping off one of the waterfalls into the deep water below it.

“So you and Oakley, huh?” I teased, and she made as if she were going to hit me with her bottle. “Yeah, Travis and I. He’s such a great kid. Oakley is too, you know. He’s just a bit sore, that’s all. I was supposed to go to Maryland, learn the backflip, and go home, you know?”

“He doesn’t ride, does he?” Jolene wondered, and I threw back my head in laugher as I took a sip of my lime-infused Corona.

“God, the first time I let him ride my little 90cc quad he flipped it over. Nah, Oakley’s one of those crazy surfing kids.”

“I hope he comes back, though. He was such a sweetheart. I didn‘t just use him, for the record.” I could see Jolene was infatuated, and so suppressed a laugh.

“But it’s so nice when he’s not around, Oakley’s been my mother voice for years.” I sighed and leaned back in time to see a face floating above the water above us. “Geeze Andy, Jo and I are having girl time. Go away or we’ll start talking about our periods.” He disappeared under the water and swam past us silently.

“So do you love him?”

“Oakley or Travis?”

“Travis.” I sat up on my elbows to look over at Jo.

“You know, I may be insane, but I do. You make a hell of a playlist, Jo,” I tried to change the subject, but she caught me.

“We have common tastes in music. Do you think he loves you?”

“What do you think? I can’t tell if I’m just someone to fill in his downtime or whatever.” I emptied the rest of my Corona and set to digging out the lime with my tongue, a futile effort but worth a tangy try.

“I think he does. Otherwise, he wouldn’t waste so much of his downtime on you. You know what I mean?” I nodded, and opened my mouth to say something as we were flipped into the water yet again.

“Do you guys just wait until we’re deep into conversation to dump us over?” I shouted at our assaulters, wielding my empty bottle as if it were a weapon. Travis’s familiar arms found my waist, and I noticed that Jolene had been borne down river by the same people who had flipped me over.

“Oh, stop it, tough girl.” He kissed me deeply, his tongue dancing somewhere back around my tonsils as I clung to him in the swirling current of the man-made river.

“How much of that conversation did you hear?” I asked, when we finally stopped to catch out breath.

“None of it,” He sounded innocent enough, but I figured he was full of it. “Shush, I only have you like this until the next group of people come around the bend,” With a smile, I ran my hands over his rough-hewn abs as we kissed, fighting to remain stationary as we began to be swept away by the weak current. Travis’s long, calloused digits settled in their favorite places, one set wrapped around my hip, gripping it tightly as he pulled it to meet his, and the other wound through damp red curls. After a few moments of breathless kisses, I ground my hips into his and pulled his face down to meet mine as forcefully as I could with a still-healing collarbone. The hand which rested on my hip slid underneath the water, and two fingers pressed harshly against me through the thick fabric of the turquoise bathing suit.

“Travis,” I could hear voices rounding the bend, but couldn’t force myself to let go of him. “Travis!” Instead of lusty, my voice was hard, and he let go of me to float away as I yanked myself out of the river at the nearby exit point, trying to pull myself together.

I found Jolene at the bar, who gave me a knowing look and ordered a second Piña Colada for me. I graciously accepted it.

“You look like hell,” She teased, flattening the top of my hair for me.

“I’m going to kill that boy one day.” Jo laughed as we drained our Piñas, and leaned on one another as we made our way back to the pool where most of the Nitro boys were jumping into the pool off the top of the rock face of the waterfall with the blow-up dolls. To my surprise, Twitch rode one down the waterslide, with a foot on the dolls breasts and crotch area - but no Travis.

At one point, Andy came over, and I jumped on his shoulders to do a standing backflip off for Godfrey to record. I finally found Travis when I came up for air.

“Cannonball!” Swearing, I held my breath as the gangly boy smashed into the water beside my head, dragging me down with the force of his jump, which had also triggered this curious chain reaction in which everyone else was compelled to do a cannonball as well. I held my breath, sitting cross-legged at the bottom until the splashing had ceased.

Somehow, I found myself on Travis’s shoulders for a game of ultimate chicken - we played versus teams which consisted of Jo and Andy, Cam and Godfrey (nearly physically impossible), Twitch and one of the Mulisha Maidens, and one random team made up of racers I recognized as Ronnie Renner (who was a Florida native and thus, automatically one of my friends) and some random tattooed Mulisha Member. With a still-injured shoulder, my odds were laughable, but Jolene and I silently agreed to team up until it was just the pair of us. I took out the Mulisha Maiden with ease as Jo shoved Gregg off of Cam’s shoulders, we both rounded on Renner and his teammate before we engaged in a fierce battle against one another which ended when I pushed Jo over, and accompanied her - my chest smashed into Andy’s face, awkwardly. Quickly, Travis bore me upward into a winner’s position, one of his fists raised high and the other entwined with mine.

“Bitch, you pushed me over!” Jolene laughed as she lunged for my waist - Andy launched her, actually - and plucked me from Travis’s shoulders in midair. Screeching like banshees, we hit the water, a heap of twisted limbs and nearly-untied bikini tops in the very shallow end. I reached for my top a nanosecond before it disappeared off my chest, and managed only to cover my breasts with my palms.

“Shit, Jo! You have me all naked again!” And this was why I didn’t ever drink. Jolene leaned on my shoulder, trying to get me to expose myself as someone came up with a t-shirt and tossed it over the water for Travis to pull over my head.

“I think it’s time for you two to go to bed,” He chided, and I fell into his arms giggling; Jo had a different agenda.

“Only if I can go to bed with him,” She pointed at a random guy who turned out to be Brian Deegan, one of the Mulisha girls made a noise of outrage.

“Andy, could you?” Andy was all too happy to grab Jolene and sling her little body over his shoulder once more as Travis scooped me up in his arms like I was a sleeping baby. “Thank you everyone, and goodnight!”

“This is why I don’t drink,” I groaned as Travis pressed a bottle of water to my lips.

“Drink it all, you don’t need to be puking tomorrow during the survey.” I sighed, and managed to choke down a few more mouthfuls before I had to push his hands away for a breath.

“Can I sleep now?” Just then, I felt my stomach lurch, and I covered my mouth with a fist during my rush to the toilet. Thank God I’m a good sprinter. Travis held damp red locks away from the toilet as I quickly emptied my stomach of everything and anything alcohol- or food-related that I might have ingested through the course of the day. As I rested my head on the edge of the porcelain bowl, Travis shoved the bottle of water back in my face.

“Drink it. It’s better than throwing up your stomach lining. Believe me.” I managed to get half of the bottle down before it came back up - damn underage drinking. It always bit me in the ass.

“And what have we learned from this experience?” Travis pulled me into his arms as we both laid down in his bed.

“Don’t ever let Travis Pastrana pressure me into anything.” He laughed as I nestled into his chest, and fell asleep immediately.