I paced back and forth in the living room, the same one where we came up with the idea for the calendar. Raising money to save a library, no problem. Finding manpower torun the carnival only a week away?Thatwas the situation we couldn’t solve?
“It can’t be town people,” Jason said. “What if we got people to work in shifts? I bet they’d be willing to pitch in if that’s what it took to make it happen.”
Amanda shook her head. “I don’t think we have enough people.” She scoffed. “Or the organizational skills. I could call Tessa? I bet she has some carnies in her contacts.”
Jason gave a half-laugh. “You burned your favor with the calendar.”
“I’ll need to blackmail some new favors,” she said.
I stopped to look at the shelves. Evie had gone through the books we pulled from the shelves and started curating the ones she put back. It was the first of many steps to turn Mimi’s house into a bed-and-breakfast. There’d be months of construction in her future, but seeing the book hiding Mimi’s flask made me smile.
“What if I call Merryville? They must have a community service?—”
“I wouldn’t,” Jason said.
Amanda shook her head. “A bunch of us showed up at their Flannel Festival dressed as deer and terrorized their residents.”
I stopped, blinking in disbelief. “You what?”
They both chuckled. Jason gave a slight shrug. “They started it when they showed up at the carnival in sad clown outfits. I’m pretty sure it’s the saddest rivalry in the world. I don’t think they’d help.”
The grandfather clocked chimed eight. I waited for it tofinish before I pointed at the end of the couch. Amanda lifted her legs, and I plopped down. She draped her legs across my lap. The three musketeers could save a building, but we could solve the one thing Firefly lacked: manpower.
“I think I know the answer,” Jason said, “but why does this matter so much to you? It’s just a carnival.”
In my complicated rekindling with Tyler, I had never shared our origin story. I couldn’t help but smile. Without fail, whenever I thought of that first kiss, I couldn’t help seeing our adult selves reliving the moment.
“I know that look,” Amanda said.
“Definitely about a boy,” Jason added.
“Do you guys remember the last summer I visited?”
“You mean the summer you ditched us half the time?” Amanda shot me a dirty look. “I still write about it in my journal.” I didn’t doubt her words. Amanda knew how to hold a grudge.
“I met a boy.”
“Knew it,” Jason said.
“Jason, I always envied how easily you came out of the closet.” As I confessed, Amanda reached for my hand, gripping it tightly. “I knew for years, but I wasn’t ready to tell anybody. That last summer, I was sitting at a picnic table readingGreat Expectations, and a boy sat down at the table.”
When I closed my eyes, I could see a younger version of Tyler over the top of my book. I thought my interest in him came from wanting to procrastinate reading that darned book. In all my time in Firefly, I don’t think I had ever seenhim. My curiosity piqued as to why he had taken a seat across from me.
“I had no idea what was happening. Part of me wanted to get to know him?—”
“But the other half worried he knew your secret.”
Jason’s expression had softened. Everybody on this couch had walked through this process in their own way. They were my friends by choice, but we shared a bond that went even deeper than blood. I didn’t have to explain the excitement clashing with fear. They had lived it.
I nodded. “He’d hunt me down whenever I was in the town center. We’d walk around town talking about school. The first time we went to the quarry, I swore he made excuses to touch me.”
“Wait…” Amanda’s head shot up. “Was it… no…”
“Tyler kissed me at the carnival.”
Her hand threatened to break my knuckles. She gasped, fanning herself with her free hand. Amanda might appear a hard-ass at times, but she was the first person to sit down and watch the Romance Channel with me. At her core, she loved love almost as much as me.
“I was sitting at the same table where we first met. It was my last night in Firefly. I got brave.” My eyes were watering. “I put my hand on his knee and left it there.” That’s when it happened. I could almost feel his lips as he slobbered all over me. “It was the worst kiss ever.”
