By some miracle, Emilia and I made it to the festival on time, opening up her stand just as people started to file in. All of her work was still there; the area was closed off overnight and volunteers took shifts to keep an eye on everything. But in my two decades of start of summer festivals, I had never heard of anything being stolen.

"You're still going to help me get going, right?" Emilia asked.

"Of course." I ducked under a table and pulled out a cash box. "You sell. I'll handle the money."

Emilia gave me a grateful smile. "Thanks," she said. She handed me her phone. "The credit card reader should be in the cash box. You remember how to do it, right?"

I nodded and plugged the reader into her phone. "We're ready to go."

As usual, things got off to a busy start. Everyone wanted to get the first pick of everything before they got lunch, so after only about five minutes past the hour, Emilia already had several customers looking at her work. My heart swelled with pride as she spoke with everyone and anyone who stopped by. I knew how hard she worked for this.

I couldn't keep observing her for long, though. Before I knew it, customers were coming up to me to make purchases, and I was as busy as my friend the saleswoman up in the front of the tent.

The crowd finally died down after an hour, when everyone got hungry enough that they migrated to the food stands. When Emilia's stand finally cleared off all customers, she anxiously came up to me.

"Why do you look like that?" I demanded. "You know that you just had a very successful morning. So stop being anxious."

Emilia took a deep breath. "You're right, you're right." A grin cracked across her face. "It was successful, wasn't it?"

"Hell yeah, it was." I opened the top of the cash box. "And this is just the cash. I definitely took a lot of credit card transactions."

"It's not about the money, Ana," Emilia chastised me, but she looked proud all the same. "But this is good, I might even have to bring some more stuff for tomorrow."

"Well, given that you haven't let me into your room for the past several weeks, I'm sure you have plenty you can bring." She did all of her work in her bedroom, and at times it looked like a bomb went off. Emilia never let anyone inside when that happened.

"I have to admit, though," Emilia said. "I'm kind of hungry." She gave me a hopeful smile.

I sighed. "Yeah, yeah. I'm hungry, too. I'll see what I can do."

The food stands would be swarmed for the next hour or two, but everyone knew Coral Brews, which meant everyone knew my dad, which meant everyone knew me. I could usually sneak in the back of most places and pick up a few things.

I dropped by to say hi to my dad, first, but business was booming and he didn't have much time to say anything but a quick hello. I didn't try and get any food from that stand; I ate too much of it already. But, I did pick up a couple of soda cans. I would pay for them later when things were less hectic.

The place I headed for wasn't exactly any less busy, though. A line wound probably a quarter of a mile out from Fiona's Fried Foods. Usually a food truck that stopped at various places around town, the start of summer festival was the only time they had a set location for more than a day. And people took full advantage of it.

"Hey, Fiona!" I called as I ducked in through the back.

Fiona looked up from her cooking and gave me a brief wave. "You picked a hell of a time to drop by," she said. "I think this is the busiest year we've ever had."

"You say that every year."

"And it's true every year." She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. "But I know what you're going to ask, and I can't say no to you, dear."

I grinned. "Thanks," I told her. "Next drink is on the house whenever you come in."

"You're a dear."

I grabbed a couple of corndogs, a basket of fries, and an order of onion rings. I didn't want to take much more; Fiona really was that busy. "Thanks, Fiona!" I called. I waved at her as I put a twenty on the table, and then headed back toward Emilia's stand.

She was talking to a customer when I got there, but as soon as they left, she downed the corndog with impossible speed. "Ugh, okay maybe I was actually really hungry," she admitted.

I held out the fries to her. "Here, eat these."

Emilia sat down next to me and dug into the rest of the food. "I really needed this," she mumbled, her mouth half full.

"Yeah, well, don't expect much more for a while," I told her. "It's crazy over there."

"I bet." Emilia shook her head. "Things seem to get busier every year, don't they?"

"That's what Fiona said." I shrugged. "But maybe you're right. I mean, it's definitely gotten busier since we were kids."

"Yeah, well, new people move here all the time," Emilia pointed out. She focused on something behind my back. "And speaking of people new to the neighborhood...That guy looks familiar."

I turned around to follow her gaze. I immediately spotted Alex at one of the stands, looking at some of the homemade goods. "I guess he decided to come, after all."

"Well, from what you told me, half the reason he decided to come was because of you," Emilia said as she tried to hide a smirk. "You should go. You wouldn't want to disappoint him."

I shook my head. "I told him I would be here, not that I would spend the day with him," I countered. "And besides, I already promised you I'd help."

"And you have," Emilia said. "You got me through the initial rush, and that's always the worst of it. I can keep it going, here. You should go have fun."

"Are you sure?"

Emilia got up and gave me a hug. "Go," she said. "I know you didn't take an extra ten minutes to get ready just for me."

"Thanks," I told her, choosing to ignore her comment about my potentially more elaborate than usual beauty routine. "I'll check back in later, okay?"

"Go!" Emilia ordered.

I ducked out of her tent and wove my way through the crowd. "Hey, Alex!" I called.

He turned around at the sound of his name and a small smile appeared on his face. "I was beginning to think you were lying to me about being here," he said as I approached.

"I've been helping my friend, Emilia," I told him, pointing to her stand. "She's selling some of her artwork and jewelry."

"She's the one I met last night?"

I nodded. "Yeah, that was her."

I felt myself relax slightly when he didn't say anything else about the previous night. "Well, this all certainly seems like a big deal," he said. "There's a lot going on."

"Have you been down to the beach yet?"

He shook his head.

I started walking in the direction of the water. "Come on, there's more to do down there."

He hurried and caught up with me, falling into step by my side. "You don't need to help your friend anymore?"

"Nah, she'll be fine," I said. "Opening is the busiest part of the day, at least for that section of the festival."

We passed the food stands, but I purposely went far around them. I had no desire to fight through that crowd. "See, when everyone is getting food, everything on the beach has calmed down," I explained. "In an hour or so, it'll be packed.

I paused by a bench just before we reached the sand and we both took off our shoes. "So this is it," I told him as I stepped onto the sand.

Ahead of us, various fair games stretched out almost all the way to the waterline. It was mostly simple stuff, like bean bag toss and darts, but the prizes were worth it.

"What do they do when the tide comes in?" Alex asked.

I shrugged. "Pick up the stand and move up," I said. "Everything's built so it can move easily." I headed over to the ticket stand. "How many do you want to buy?"

"You actually play these games?" Alex asked. "They seem a little childish, no?"

I turned around, my eyes narrowed. If he actually thought that, we were going to have a problem. "Do you have an issue with my bean bag toss?" I asked him.

He seemed to be suppressing a laugh. "No, not at all."

"Or maybe, you're just too afraid that I'll beat you at it."

He gaped at me and then nodded. "Alright, you're on."

Spoiler alert: I won basically everything.

"How are you this terrible at throwing rings onto pegs?" I asked, trying and failing to hold back my laughter.

Alex glared at me and then tossed another ring, missing once again. "Well, they are moving pegs," he argued.

"Uh-huh," I said. "Excuses, excuses." I threw my last ring, landing on a peg and officially winning. "I should have bet money on this," I told him. "Because you would owe me so much right now."

Alex just shook his head as he watched the person running the game hand me an envelope with my prize. "Thank you," I told her.

"How do they get all these prizes, anyway?" Alex asked as we walked away.

From the three games I had done well enough in to qualify for a prize, I had gotten a t-shirt made by a local artist, a small, stuffed tiger, and a coupon for my favorite coffee shop. "Shops donate stuff," I told him. "It's publicity for them, and it draws people to the fair where they'll probably spend money on their business, anyway. And some of them run games themselves, so they make money that way."

"Well, you clearly have gotten your fair share of free stuff from the local businesses around here," Alex said, eyeing everything in my hands.

I chuckled. "Here." I held out the stuffed tiger. "Consolation prize."

He plucked it out of my hands. "Thanks," he said sarcastically.

"Hey, if you don't want it..."

"Well, maybe I do." He shook his head. "Apparently I need to work on my hand-eye coordination."

"Yeah, I'd say so."

"But I will take what I can get." He held up the tiger. "And hey, I like animals, anyway."

I stared at him. "You know, I think that's the first actual thing you've told me about yourself," I said. "I call that progress."

He rolled his eyes. "What, you couldn't have guessed that fact about me?" He flexed his tattooed arm. "I've only caught you staring at these all day."

I blushed slightly. I thought I had been being discrete. "Well, I think it's cool," I defended myself. "And, I suppose yes, I did guess that animals were an interest." Other than the bird I noticed the other day, he had a lion, panda bear, and octopus as well.

He shrugged. "Well, they're usually better than people are."

"Fair enough." I wanted to ask more about it, but given how closed off he was, I decided not to push it. "And hey, I'm with you on it. You've already noticed the jellyfish." I ran my hand over my arm tattoo. "But we also have the sting ray," I balanced on one leg, holding my ankle so he could see, "and starfish." That one was on my wrist. I didn't tell him about the lotus flower design that ran up and down my side. I would have been too tempted to show him.

"I see ocean creatures are a theme for you," he said.

I nodded. "I mean, look at where I grew up." I gestured at the ocean. "But I studied them in college, so yeah, you could say I have an interest."

"Where did you go to college?"

Now we were heading into territory that I didn't want to be in. "UConn," I said. We reached the walkway and I brushed the sand off my feet before putting on my flip-flops. "I could use a funnel cake," I said. "Coming?"

"Well, I can't exactly turn down funnel cake, now, can I?"

A/N: Makes me miss living by the ocean. Hope you guys enjoyed!