“What do you guys want? My treat,” Jace offers.
A chorus of “no thanks” breaks out. Her friends were sometimes too nice for their own good.
“Are you guys sure?” Jace looks at Natalie for encouragement.
She knew her friends wouldn’t order and make Jace pay out of politeness, especially if she didn’t order first. Knowing how hungry they were, Natalie takes sympathy and responds first.
“Ummm…” Natalie murmurs, “can I get some fries?”
Jace nods.
Natalie looks to Min, who seems desperate for some sustenance if her grazing over the menu was any indication.
“Min?” Natalie calls outs.
“Can I get the quarter pounder sandwich?” she looks to Jace, who nods again to which she says “thanks.”
Emboldened, Levi and Kelly also make their requests.
Somehow, Jace manages to recite their orders in perfect memory to the single cashier manning the front.
After a short wait, they sit down. Levi and Min, next to each other, and the rest across from the couple.
Like a pack of starved hyenas, they descend on their food without a second thought. Min is the first to finish what with only a small burger. She leans over to Levi and attempts to nab some fries when he swats her hand away.
Min yelps dramatically to which Levi scoffs and scolds her for trying to commit the ultimate crime: stealing someone else’s food,
Surprised and hungry, she pokes fun at Levi.
“You ate most of our snacks!”
Levi shrugs as if depleting the girls of their rations was inconsequential, but stealing fries was leagues more important.
Min continues, “it was meant to last us the weekend! Or at least, one night.” Her eyes narrow and promised a drive of indignation for Levi.
Properly chastised, Levi pouts, “fine, you can have half my fries” to which she doesn’t hesitate to. But he isn’t finished, “you should’ve ordered more if you were starving.”
She shoots back, “and you should’ve brought your own snacks if you knew you were gonna get hungry.”
They pause before Levi admits defeat.
“Fair enough,” he concedes.
Happy with her win and he too busy with munching away, they don’t notice the three pairs of eyes watching them. Kelly locks eyes with Natalie. Yet another, telepathic conversation begins.
“It’s gonna suck being the fifth wheel,” Kelly mumbles as quietly as she could. Though with the oblivious couple and Jace not paying attention, she didn’t need to.
Natalie rolls her eyes at her friend’s dramatics.
“You’re not gonna be a fifth wheel,” she stresses, trying to relax Kelly’s unnecessary concerns, “if anything, you, me, and Jace are gonna be ditched as third wheels. We’ll be a throuple.”
Kelly snickers and says, “fine, but I swear if you leave me alone for Jace, I’ll be mad.”
“I won’t,” Natalie reassures her.
They finish up after a bit and head back to the car after cleaning up.
Kelly offers to drive as she is the only one besides Jace and Levi who had a license. Her offer was mostly to be polite and luckily, Levi shakes his head.
They drive off once again.
With food in her satisfied belly and her earlier nap reviving her, Natalie leans back in her seat and stretches her leg freely, crossing her arms. Min and Levi mostly keep to themselves, so Natalie decides to let the couple be. She leans against Kelly who has her head down on the door handle. She was already sleeping and snoring gently, lost in her dreams.
After an pecular amount of staring at nothing and marinating in her thoughts, Natalie begins to feel the pain on her neck from its odd position. She sits upright, cranking her neck and rolling her shoulders in an attempt to stretch the pain away. Jace feels her accidental elbow to his arm and looks over her, seeing her discomfort.
“You can lean on me again if you want,” he offers.
Her cheeks get hot. She glances at him. Head on his arm, which is propped against the door handle. Clearly, he hadn’t been as affected as her by their near-cuddling earlier.
Oh god. So he did notice.
Nevertheless, his offer is a kind one, so she accepts gracefully. And he is kind enough to not bring up the awkward stain on his arm that he must have noticed.
Jace lifts his left arm up as if to invite her in his arms. So she does and Jace wraps his arm around her once again. This time he sort of leans against her too. They made a cute display—not unlike two towers leaning on each other for support.
Natalie’s distraction and initial embarrassment distracts her from realizing Min and Levi had gone quiet and only music was playing. She misses Min’s eyes who spy at them through the rear window. Min, a sucker for cute moments, discretely snaps a picture of Kelly and Jace and Natalie practically cuddling each other.
~~~
After several hours of nonstop driving, they finally reach their hotel. Though, hotel was a generous word to describe the small building. Despite its small size, it is beautiful and quaint in its simple design. Bricks of different reds and browns are stacked high with a faded black roof. Multiple windows with small balconies dot the building.
Levi pulls up in the small parking lot, which is surprisingly full. Likely from the nearby college students.
They grab their backpacks with Levi carrying a duffel bag full of board games Min stuffed inside along with a little secret stash she planned on surprising her friends with.
They head inside, where they get their keys and head to separate rooms. Levi and Jace share a room together and the girls share another. Luckily, the rooms are just across from one another. They planned to meet in the lobby after an hour or so of washing up. Then they’ll sight see the college town when it gets darker.
In the girls’ room, they only have two small beds, which Min and Kelly would be using while Natalie volunteered for the couch. While she didn’t mind her sleeping arrangement, she was picky about the bathroom.
“Dibs on the bathroom!” Natalie shouts.
“I’m after her!” Min beats Kelly to the punch.
Kelly sighed loudly, but honored their code who called dibs.
Natalie rushes past her before she could change her mind. Kelly was a horrible bathroom hog. From the countless times Natalie stayed over at her house, she knew Kelly would use up all the hot water to the point of steaming up the bathroom and she probably wouldn’t get a chance to pee until an hour if Kelly was in the bathroom.
Natalie finishes shortly followed by Min, who also didn’t take too long. Dressed in a casual, but cute outfit of jeans and a button up flannel, she relaxes on the couch on her phone while Min tidies up the bed, dressed in a long skirt and white tee.
After Kelly leaves the bathroom, dressed and ready to go, they walk to the lobby together. It is a small communal space with several couches placed randomly. There is no order or organization in the lobby, just some furniture and some busy students reading books or surfing on laptops and a handful of middle aged people lounging around. Min spots the boys and points towards them.
They walk over to Levi and Jace before they all walk out of the hotel.
“So….” Jace starts, hands in his pockets, “where to?”
Before anyone could get a word out, Kelly quickly launches her speech.
“I know we planned this as a spontaneous thing and we would just walk around the town. But I actually googled around and found some things we could do.” She pauses for a beat to gather her thoughts.
“There’s this big entertainment center about 20 minutes or so from the hotel. It has a roller skating rink, an arcade, and a food court. And a bowling alley, I think. Or we could do something else. Umm…” she tries to recall her google searches, “there’s a movie theater, but I forgot what they’re showing. We could also bike around town.”
She ends her rushed rant with a sigh and casual shrug.
“Whatever you guys prefer.”
Min is the first to respond. “I kinda like the arcade place. It sounds like there’s a ton we could do.”
Natalie nods and hums in agreement and adds, “we could save the others after the game.”
Levi agrees as well and responds with: “do you know the address, Kelly?”
She pulls out her phone and shows him the address, which he searches on google maps. They get in the car and drive out of the drive away with Levi driving and Min in charge of navigation.
After the short drive—at least it was short compared to the drive to the town, they walk inside the game center.
“Woah.”
One of them whispers in awe.
Kelly’s description of the game center was an understatement. It is big as she claimed but it’s more than that—it is impressive. A real hidden gem in this ordinary town whose main attraction was the college campus or so Natalie thought.
Inside was buzzing with all kinds of activities and people.
Rows of arcade machines on one side and mutliple lanes of bowling alleys on the other. Behind the arcade machines and bowling alleys is a food court with several tables and a skating rink.
They stand in the entrance for a minute or two enjoying the sight before them.
“What do you guys want to do first?” Natalie asks them.
Min suggests, “how about the arcade first, then we can take a bowling alley while eating?”
Everyone else nods and they head to the ticket booth. After each of them buys some coins, they break off into two groups. Min leads Levi to a machine while the rest wander off together.
Kelly points to the basketball game. They each take a stop and insert coins in the slot, opening the gates to let the basketballs down. Kelly grabs hers with two hands and changes her stance. She bends slightly and attempts her first shot, which she fails miserably. While Jace misses none of his shots, Natalie has no strategy besides shooting as fast as she could. In the end Jace, of course, wins as he is the most athletically inclined between the three of them—really the only athletically inclined.
They grab their tickets. Kelly with a small handful, Natalie with slightly more, and Jace’s is as long as his arm.
They continue to wander around, playing as many games as they could on a twenty dollar bill, when someone calls Jace’s name out.
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