By that point, the other three boys had caught up to Hayden, and he turned to look at them. “You can hang out with us if you want. We don’t mind. Right, guys?”
His friends shook their heads.
“Oh…” I paused. “I don’t know.”
“Come on, it’ll be fun!” Keenan tugged on my arm, not having much concept of personal space. I brushed him off, but he didn’t seem to notice as he continued. “We can go into the funhouse with all the mirrors! Or go on the Zipper!”
“Only if you want to, but I…” Hayden’s voice trailed off, fading into a whisper, even though the other boys had already moved on. “I just don’t want you to be alone.”
Oh.
“Well…I guess I could hang out with you guys,” I conceded.
Hayden’s face lit up. “Awesome! What do you want to do first?”
I shuffled my foot in the dirt. “I’m not sure. I’ve never been to one of these before.”
“What?!” Keenan’s mouth gaped. “We have to doeverythingnow.”
“I-I don’t think I have enough money for that.” I forced out an awkward laugh. “I didn’t know what to expect, so I just brought this.” I pulled out my singular twenty-dollar bill.
“That’ll be enough to get you some ride tickets. And if you want to play games, I can pay,” Hayden offered.
I shook my head. “No, I can’t let you do that.”
“You’re my friend, Sierra. It’s what friends do. We can make it even later,” Hayden insisted, wrapping his arm around my shoulder, something that would normally make me shrink away. But with Hayden, it felt different. Safe somehow. Like I could trust him.
“Okay. But I’m going to pay you back.”
“Deal.” He stuck out his pinky finger.
I looked down at his hand then back up to him. “What’s that?”
“Pinky swear. Lock it in.”
After a moment’s pause, I linked my pinky finger with his. Then Hayden brought his hand up to his mouth, kissing the knuckle on his thumb.
“Come on, you guys, we’re going to leave you behind!”Keenan yelled over his shoulder as he and the two other boys ran toward the mirror house.
“Um, what are your other friends’ names?” I asked, slightly embarrassed by my terrible memory.
“Jack and Andrew,” Hayden answered without hesitation or judgment.
I nodded then followed behind Hayden, trying to catch up to the three boys.
“Sierra, you’vegotto try these!” Keenan thrust a bucket of apple cider donuts under my nose, his mouth full of the sugary pastry. “They’re so good.”
I flicked my gaze toward Hayden, and our eyes met, both of us holding back laughter.
“Thanks.” Chuckling, I took a donut out of the bucket and popped it in my mouth. Eyes widening, I took another one. “You’re not wrong. These are delicious! It completely melted in my mouth.”
“Iknow. They’re my favorite,” Keenan agreed. “Let’s go play some games!”
We’d already gone on as many rides as possible, blowing through our tickets. My favorite was the Scrambler, even though I was squished between Hayden and Keenan because we didn’t think about weight distribution.
“What do you want to play first?” Hayden asked me as we walked through the aisle of games.
I took in our surroundings, noting all of the different options. Balloon darts, a ring toss, one of those games where you raced horses with water guns, and a boothwhere you had to knock over milk bottles with bean bags were some of the options.
