Page 39 of The Kissing Booth
‘Oh, God, don’t even bring that up,’ Lily agreed. ‘I’m on the next table to her and the other day I just wanted to yell at them to go on a date already!’
‘Oh, by the way, guys – you’ll all be doing thirty-minute shifts. Is that okay? That way you all get a decent break.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Sure.’
‘That’s fine.’
‘Totally fine.’
‘Cool.’
Then I heard, ‘Hey, hey!’ and saw Dana and Karen half running, half skipping over to us. They, like the other girls, were in cute pink or red summer dresses. The guys wore jeans and a fitted shirt that showed their jock muscles.
Well, they all looked a lot better than me in my cut-offs and black camisole.
‘Oh, shoot!’ Karen cried, rummaging frantically through her purse. ‘I forgot my lipstick!’
‘I have some, don’t worry,’ Lily told her.
Karen breathed out in relief. ‘Thank gosh.’
‘All right, folks – I’m here, panic over,’ announced a voice. I turned around to see Ash strolling over.
‘Hey, great,’ I said. ‘Okay – so, Ash and Dave, you guys are up first. And Lily and Karen. Then we’ll text the rest of you at ten twenty-five to remind you to head on back to the booth to switch over.’
They all nodded in agreement.
The nine of us made our way across the field, everybody checking out the other colorful, bright booths and stands at the carnival with interest. Rachel had disappeared by the time we got back, and Lee was putting up a dividing rope, cutting the booth in half so the girls could queue one side and the boys on the other.
‘All ready?’ I asked, when we heard Tyrone calling out that we only had a couple of minutes till the gates opened for the public.
‘Yup, all set,’ they chorused.
I looked at Lee, and we grinned at each other.
People started flooding in, and within twenty minutes there was a huge queue at our kissing booth.
Lee and I had to stay on hand to collect the money and make sure there weren’t any guys – or girls, for that matter – trying to get more than a quick peck.
We made almost two hundred bucks in the first hour.
‘This is insane!’ I exclaimed to Lee when we were finished counting and closed the box again.
‘Tell me about it! I’m so going to win my bet with Joel.’
‘What bet?’
‘I bet him thirty bucks our kissing booth would make more than his water balloon one.’
‘Oh, yeah, I remember.’ Joel and Francis had set up a booth where you had to throw darts at water balloons. You had to pop three to win one of those giant teddies. We could see it from where we stood.
‘I don’t know,’ I said warily. ‘They seem to be pretty busy...’
‘Yeah, but I bet they haven’t made two hundred dollars,’ he said smugly, tapping our metal moneybox.
I grinned back. We had our carefully constructed playlist blasting out of the speakers and when you looked around, it was clear that everyone was having a great time.
