Kim clears her throat. “We were only permitted one booth.”
Maggie rolls her eyes. “Yeah, but everyone knows they could have made more room. I mean, for crying out loud, they let the lady who’s selling honey have two tables!”
“Because the shit she makes with honey is fucking amazing,” Rain tells her with no shame.
Maggie glares at her, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Do you think this is funny?” Maggie demands as she swings her gaze back to me.
“No, never. But do you think you could finish zip-tying this stand together? My arms are starting to get tired,” I tell her.
Maggie huffs and does as I ask.
Over her head, Rain mouths, “Thank you.”
I shoot her a wink.
“Hey, what’s going on over here?” a voice calls out.
I look over my shoulder and smile when I see Ashley.
“Hey, what are you doing here?”
“You told me you would be here, and I was in the area, so I thought I would stop by. I hope that’s okay,” she tells me.
When Maggie is finished connecting the two metal racks together, I pull Ashley into a hug.
“It’s good to see you, and it’s more than okay,” I murmur.
When I pull back, the other girls give her hugs as well.
“What can I do to help?” she asks as she looks around.
“Do you want to help me attach the prizes to the racks?” I ask.
“Sure.”
While Rain, Maggie, and Kim move on to the next task, Ashley and I take clothespins and pin stuffed animals and other things to the racks.
“You know not all of this is going to fit on here, right?” she asks.
The girls and I laugh.
“No, but the bigger things will. We will pull things out as we need them,” I tell her.
“Okay, just making sure. So how are things going with my brother? He treating you okay?” Ashley asks.
“Yeah, Aspen, is he treating you okay?” Kim teases as she takes water balloons out of their packaging.
“What kind of water balloons are those?” I ask.
I’ve never seen anything like it. They are balloons attached to some sort of tube with a weird thing on the other end.
“You connect this end to a hose, and then it fills up all the balloons at once. When they are full, they fall off, already tied,” Kim tells me.
“Well, shit, where was that when we were kids?” Rain says.
“It clearly hadn’t been invented yet. Now stop stalling and spill the beans,” Kim says, looking at me.
