-        Elena-  You GUYS I am so pumped for tonight!!!

-        Susan- Me too girl! I haven’t been to a carnival in 30 years, probably

-        Val- If someone doesn’t win me a cheaply-made, comically-oversized stuffed animal imma be pissed

-        Tracy- I’m pretty sure Quinn has you covered~ ;))

-        Val loved a message

-        Tina- what time are we meeting again?

-        Elena- 7:30, if everybody’s good with that still?

-        Susan- yup! See you all soon :D

Theo locks his phone before tucking it back into the front pocket of his jeans. The weather in Eustace Springs has finally started to warm up, but after nightfall the temperatures slip back down to more frigid numbers. He stands with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, scanning the gathering crowd for the rest of the Drama Queens. It’s only a few minutes after 7:30, but from what he remembers, the girls make a habit of being punctual. If you’re early you’re on time, on time you’re late, and if you’re late, your fired. It’s supposedly something that Broadway directors say that they all live by.

“Theo!” he hears a deeper voice call, and he turns to see Julian walking towards him. He wears a pink button-up shirt with vertical white stripes, sleeves rolled up to his elbows stylishly, with dark jeans and white converse. Theo can see in the lights from the ticket booth that he has a little bit of white eyeliner in his bottom water line. His hair has some sort of product in it that makes it look shiny, but Theo doesn’t know enough about hair care to know what it is exactly.

“Hi,” Theo says once Julian is close enough to hear him. After coming to terms with his possible homosexual crush in the back booth of the local Olive Garden last week, Theo has found it significantly more difficult to look into Julian’s eyes.

“I wonder what’s taking them so long? Usually Elena beats me to everything,” Julian says, pulling his own phone from his pocket to look at the group chat.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Theo agrees, tugging at his earlobe awkwardly. He feels his phone buzz and retrieves it to read the messages.

-        Julian- its just me and Theo rn, are you guys here or  ?

-        Elena- oh shoot! I forgot to text and say Susan and I are running late :/ We’ll be there in like, half an hour ok?

-        Val- big fat bummer! Got stuck in some weird post-rush hour traffic?? UGH should be half an hour

-        Tina- my mom just got home from work, she’ll be ready to drive me in like half an hour

-        Tracy- oh wow, is it 7:30 already? I still need to get ready,,, give me half an hour ok???

-        Quinn- I gotta get some gas in my car or I will 100% break down on the side of the road. It should be like half an hour, sorry!

Julian pinches the bridge of his nose in annoyance. Do they really think they’re slick? After a week of Elena pestering him with questions, suggestive looks, and not-so-subtle comments in rehearsals, this was just the icing on the cake. He feels like he’s in a bad romcom.

“So, it looks like they’re all running late, that’s weird,” Theo says. “Should we get tickets without them?”

Julian looks at him with a surprised expression. Does he really not catch that this is a setup? Or does he just not care?

“Uhm, sure… we can play some of the games while we wait,” Julian suggests.

With that, they make their way over to join the line in front of the ticket booth. Theo buys $40 worth of tickets while Julian buys around $20, enough for a few rides and maybe one or two games of ring toss. The sounds and smells of the carnival overwhelm the boys as they make their way towards the game tents.

“When you go to the fair, do you get kettle corn or cotton candy?” Theo asks, strolling as casually as he can manage next to Julian.

“Well, I love them both… I think cotton candy, since it’s harder to find that freshly made anywhere else,” Julian says.

With that, Theo turns to make a quick detour that catches Julian off guard. He trails behind the tall, pale, dark-haired boy as he makes his way towards a vendor selling cotton candy.

“Pink or blue?” he asks.

“Pink… but you don’t have to-”

“A bag of the pink cotton candy, please,” Theo says to the plump man running the booth, handing him a few singles. Julian’s face is already burning from embarrassment when Theo turns around and starts untwisting the tie at the top.

“You cool with sharing with me?” he asks, pulling a tuft of the pink cloud out of the bag and handing it to Julian.

“Yeah… thanks.” Julian accepts the tuft and nibbles sheepishly. “Um, what carnival games are you best at?”

Theo thinks about it for a moment while some cotton candy dissolves on his tongue. “Well, I’m pretty good at ski ball, but they don’t always have it. I won a fair fish in that ping pong toss game once, too. But I think I’m probably best at the one where you knock over the clowns. How about you?”

“Well, I’ve only ever been to a carnival one other time… but I really liked the ring toss when I went.”

Theo stops walking for a moment, scanning the booths around them. When he spots what he’s looking for, he takes Julian’s arm and practically runs towards the ring toss booth.

“Wait, wait! I never said I was any good at it!” Julian protests once reaching their destination.

“Come on, just try! I won’t laugh at you if you miss,” Theo teases, nudging him towards the booth.

With a determined huff, Julian hands the lady running the booth his tickets. She hands him a few blue plastic rings. Julian focuses his eyes and starts calculating his aim, swinging his arm back and forth a few times like how they do in golf tournaments. Theo has more fun watching Julian’s concentrated face than he does watching where the hoops land, so he doesn’t notice right away when Julian lands one.

“Theo, oh my gosh! I won! These are always rigged! I can’t believe it!” Julian shouts, turning to Theo with an excited expression and wide eyes.

“Pick a prize, anything from the bottom shelf,” the lady says, gesturing to the wall behind her.

After contemplating for a few moments, Julian points to a red monkey with Velcro hands and shaggy hair that will definitely fall out. He accepts it from the lady, unstraps its hands, and turns to Theo to drape it around his neck. Theo tenses, caught off-guard by Julian’s sudden closeness, but doesn’t recoil. Julian is too focused on strapping the Velcro hands back together to notice how close their faces are, nor the peculiar expression on Theo’s face.

“Payback for the cotton candy, ok?” he says, stepping back once he’s finished situating the monkey on Theo’s shoulders.

“What made you pick this one?” Theo asks while trying to urge his cheeks to cool down.

“I dunno, it just reminded me of you,” Julian says with a smile.

Theo simply can’t ignore the fast pace of his heart as he notices the expression on Julian’s face. It’s one that he has never seen before, but he hopes he can see forever. It makes his stomach do somersaults.

“Thank you,” he manages to say. They begin walking slowly again, closer together this time. Sometimes their shoulders brush together, making Theo’s heart flutter.

After a short while, they reach a booth with the clown-knockout game. “I’m gonna win you something too,” Theo says, shoving his hands into his jacket pocket and taking out a wad of tickets.

Theo easily knocks down three clowns, the threshold for a small prize. He ignores the congratulations from the man running the booth and instead hands him another few tickets, making it up to the medium prize. Julian notices that Theo doesn’t seem to be letting up. He also notices that the large prizes live up to their name; that is to say, they are in fact, very large.

While Julian is distracted by the overstuffed bears and dogs and monkeys, Theo has finished knocking over ten consecutive carnival clowns, successfully winning a large prize.

“Any prize from the top, man,” the booth guy says. Theo tugs on Julian’s sleeve, suddenly looking nervous.

“I uh… I may have gone overboard,” he admits quietly, making Julian laugh.

“That’s okay. If you wanted, you could get one for Jess instead,” Julian suggests.

“Nah, Jess doesn’t like stuffed animals.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, never has. I got one for her when we first started dating and she gave it back. Said it was just gonna clutter up her room.”

Julian’s heart aches for a moment while he wonders what other sweet gestures were ignored by his girlfriend. “Well, in that case,” Julian says, trying not to focus on the girlfriend he brought up, “I like that pink fish. Nice and round. It will make a good pillow, I think.”

“Practical as ever,” Theo laughs. “Hey man, can we get the pink fish up there?”

Julian tries to ignore the way his stomach feels after hearing Theo use the word “we.” That’s no big deal, a common pronoun used when in a group. But this wasn’t a group. Maybe that’s why it felt different.

The booth guy hands the big pink puffer fish to Theo, who hands it to Julian, who wraps his arms around its middle and just barely manages to clasp his hands together.

“Thanks, Theo.”

“No problem. I’m glad you like it,” he says with a shy smile.

Neither boy notices that time has slowly ticked past the half hour time allowance originally promised by the girls. They’re too lost in conversation and friendly competition.