A group of boys ahead of them stand out from the bright lights of the arcade machines from where Jace was called. He waves them over. A chorus of greetings breaks out: “hey Jace” and “what’s up man.”

In the center of the group, a tall, muscled brunette towers over everybody. His questioning eyes sweep over Natalie’s friends. Jace answers them by introducing his newfound friends. 

“These are my friends,” his hand vaguely gestures towards them. “That’s Natalie, Kelly, Min, and Levi.”

Natalie and the rest say their “hey’s” and receive friendly greetings in response. Then he introduces his football friends, “guys, this is Tommy,” he points to a tall one in the center, “and those two are Davey and Marc.”

Tommy asks, “are these the ones you drove with?”

Jace nods and says, “we’re staying at a little hotel a couple minutes away.”

A couple seconds pass awkwardly and no one knows what to say. Levi and Min are too busy staring at each other, moon-eyed and blushing and Kelly doesn’t bother with manners, blatantly eyeing one of the boys.

Natalie clears her throat to break the uncomfortable silence and follows up with an invitation to the other group.

“We’re gonna take one of the bowling alleys and a table or two to eat if you guys wanna join us.” 

Tommy nods his head. “We’re gonna play for a bit then we’ll join you guys.”

To which Min says, “ok, we’ll see you guys later.” 

Everyone else understands the subtle go-ahead to break away and disperse. The group of boys nod their acceptance before strolling away.

Natalie, Min, Levi, and Kelly head to the bowling alleys which had several tables nearby. Natalie turns to Jace, surprised to find him walking with them, certain he’d join his other friends.

“Aren’t you gonna go with them?” she nods towards the group retreating away.

He shakes his head, saying, “no, I’m kinda hungry.”

They sit down on a table. Min and Levi to one side as usual and the other three cramped on the little couch.

Kelly taps her fingers on the table, Min dramatically drops her head on the table, forehead on her arms. 

“I’m so tired and hunngrrry,” she groans.

Kelly ignores her, asking, “should we get some food for your friends?”

Jace shakes his head, “no, it’s fine. They get’ll their own things.”

“What do you guys want, I’ll order,” Levi volunteers, as always, quick to please Min.

Kelly jumps in with her infinite wisdom, “I think they have basic fried food stuff. Like chicken tenders, fries, burgers, stuff like that.”

Natalie digs through her bag, searching for some money.

“Umm….” she mumbles, “ok, here, I have twenty dollars.” She reaches across the table to hand Levi her money. 

“Can I get some chicken tenders,” she asks, then looks at Kelly, who asks for a burger.

Min jumps in, listing out several items. Somehow, Levi manages to understand, then he looks to Jace who has yet to answer.

Jace gets up. “I’ll just go with you.”

“Thanks!” Kelly calls out as they get up to leave.

They walk together towards the food court.

Kelly rests her head on her palms, looking at the boys. She jokingly whistles at them. She tries to rile Min up, who still hasn’t recovered from her sudden bout of tiredness and lethargy.

“Min, are you and Levi gonna get together or what? Cause I wanna try my shot at him.”

Her voice has a teasing tint to it, though Natalie was sure if Min wasn’t interested in him, she probably would chase after Levi.

This gets Min out of her funk. She raises her head from the table and shoots a glare at her friend.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Her glare promises a slow, painful death if Kelly tries something funny to which Kelly puts her hands up in jest. Though, Min knew her friend would never actually try anything to sabotage her potential relationship. Now if she could manifest her friend’s courage and lack of shame to ask Levi out, things would move alot faster between them. When it actually mattered, she got unusually shy out of the sudden.

Kelly looks at Natalie, smirking. 

“What about you, Nat. Do I have your permission to ask Jace out?”

Natalie rolls her eyes. Though she’d be lying if she said that wouldn’t bother her, but she wouldn’t admit that out loud in public. Even if it were just strangers around them, who most likely didn’t care about their conversation, she couldn’t take a chance.

So she shrugs as nonchalantly as she could, “dunno, ask him yourself.”