In My Dreams

Fourteen

“Did we earn very much this time around?”  Mike asked me as he snacked on our left over baked goods.

I counted quietly to myself, grinning as the amount grew. After I finished, I set the earned money into my small, metal container, which was now feeling heavier and I set it down in front of Mike.

“You tell me,” I said, nudging the container to him. He raised an eye brow and lifted it.

“Dang,” he laughed. “That’s getting heavy, Jay. That’s good then?”

I scowled at the name ‘Jay’, but then nodded enthusiastically. “We earned about $155!”

“We earned $155?” Shay asked excitedly, walking to the booth with even more trash bags in hand, Tyler, Finn, and Vienna followed close behind. We might have been the messiest and most disorganized booth at the fair—that being the reason we were still cleaning up an hour later--but we definitely earned way more money than anyone else. Tyler came up and handed me a cupcake, a lazy smile on his face.

“Congrats, I believe you’re one step closer to Africa,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said. “Can’t believe we don’t even have any leftovers except or these couple of cupcakes.” I smiled and bit into the chocolately goodness.  

“Well, I think we can all agree that it was my Nana’s recipe that was the best seller,” Mike said proudly. “You’re welcome.”

I walked over and ruffled his hair, having to stand on my tip toes to accomplish it. “I think you’re right, Mike, but…I didn’t know you called your grandma “Nana”? I said with a smirk.

He turned a dark red. “What? That’s what I’ve always called her…”

“I have never heard you call he ‘Nana’,” Finn teased.

“Real manly of you,” Vienna laughed as she lugged away more trash.

He stomped away mumbling insults to each of us.

As I finished with cleaning out our booth and started to take down the lights, I heard Tyler interject, “Hey, maybe wanna leave those up for a couple more minutes?” I gave him a quizzical look and then noticed everyone else had either left or was carrying pieces of the booth back to the school building

“I guess, they are really pretty, huh?” I smiled and stepped back to admire the soft glow against the dark night sky. He nodded and stood next to me, and it seemed on cue that a familiar song came on the intercom. I raised an eye brow. “I thought they already took the intercom off? They stopped playing music like an hour ago.”

“Huh. Weird.” Tyler casually spun on his heel and faced me. “Hey, I love this song.”

“Flightless Bird, right?” I asked.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iuFJ5P9ung) (link to song)

“Yeah, by Iron & Wine.” He smiled nervously and then looked around us, while offering me his hand.  

I blushed furiously and asked him, “What are you doing?”

“We could awkwardly stand here, or we could dance. I’d prefer the latter.”

“You want to dance…with me?” I asked, baffled. Obviously, he hadn’t seen my dancing skills.

This seemed to build up his confidence some. “You’ll do fine, just follow my lead. It’s easy, I promise.” He gave his laid back grin that was hard to say no to.

I laughed. “That’s what you said about ice skating.”

“And I taught you how to do that too, didn’t I?” He said with a proud smile.