Once we walked down the steps into the subway, Sammi and Luke stopped short.

"Why did you stop?" I asked, looking around in bewilderment. A grouchy old man with a leather briefcase pushed passed Sammi and toward the turnstile.

"We can't get through." Luke said, tugging at his lip ring and looking at the locked gate.

"We need to get subway cards." I told them, walking towards the ticket machine, herding everyone to the side, out of the way of all the people walking through.

Ashton appeared next to me as I started pressing the buttons to get seven subway cards. He leaned his arm against the top of the machine and I scrunched my nose.

"I wouldn't do that, it's probably-"

"Oh, so sticky." He said, pulling his arm away and looking at it.

I laughed, grabbing hand sanitizer and a tissue which he poured on his arm and rubbed the grossness away. While he did that, I played around with the machine that put money on the cards.

"Hm...we could start with $10 each and see where that gets us." I said to myself.

Ashton watched me, and I knew he was going to try to pay this time. I grabbed my wallet from my bag as the machine was calculating, ready to swipe it.

"Vi, look at Luke!" he gasped. If he'd said anyone else's name, I wouldn't have fallen for it, but with his issue this morning, I was worried about the guy. He was perfectly content flirting with Sammi, so I turned back to find Ashton sliding his card into the slot.

"That was low, Ash. You know how worried I was about him."

"I know, and look how happy he is right now, having all of Sammi's affection bestowed on him. I just wanted you to see that." I glanced at them just in time to see Sammi kiss his cheek and see Luke's face immediately turn red. I smiled.

"Let's just take turns." I told him. I didn't want us to fight about this, and I know his manly pride couldn't take much more of my insistent independence. It's just how I was raised, not to rely on other people. It's hard to believe that people actually want to help me now. And who knows, one day he might just get tired of it and demand something back from me. It happened before.

Ashton looked at me for a moment before smiling.

"Deal." He held out his hand and I shook it.

We finished getting the metro cards and then handed them out to our friends. We converged in a corner so I could explain what was going to happen. I pulled the map up on my phone and shared it in the group chat.

"Everyone, find your travel buddy!" Ashton shouted, putting his arm around me and pulling me to his chest. I rolled my eyes and pushed him away.

Luke, Sammi, and Sarah had linked arms with each other and Calum and Michael were holding each others hands and grinning stupidly at each other. I didn't want to assume, but I was curious if they were a thing. Maybe they were just close, who knows. I'll have to ask Ash later.

"You're dumb, but also, we should all have a travel buddy." I agreed. "We have phones, so it's not as important, but also I'd rather not lose any of you. Stay close and don't wander off. We have plenty of time, so if you want to look at something, we can do that, you just have to let us know."

"Aye, aye, captain." Michael cheers, but no one else joins in. He looked at Calum and pouted, but was ignored.

"Right, so we're going to take the N train for three stops, then get off and transfer to the 1. Then we'll have four stops until we get to Times Square. Everyone got that?" I asked, typing it out and putting it in the group message.

They nodded.

"Okay, great. Do we want to try to stick together when we get there, or do you think it'd be easier to split off?"

"Into our travel buddies?" Ashton asked excitedly. What was with him and the travel buddies?

"If you want?"

"I think it would be easier to split, but maybe we could meet up for dinner?" Sammi suggested.

"That sounds good to me." No one complained at that, so I put that in the message, as well as pulling up the list of food in Times Square so we could have a plan later.

"Geez, Luke told me you were organized, but I had no idea..." Michael said in awe as he looked at his phone.

"That's mad impressive, mate." Calum agreed.

I smiled in thanks.

"Right, let's go then. Swipe your card through and push through the gate one at a time." I looked to Luke and Sammi; they'd have to separate eventually.

We made it through the gate with no issues and I checked the map to see which platform we were supposed to go to.

"Okay, we're going to platform 3, everyone, take these stairs and go to the other side. The train will be here in less than 2 minutes."

Michael "whooped" and started running up the stairs. We all followed behind him, and Ash grinned at me.

"We're like real New Yorkers!" He laughed, pulling me along with him.

I giggled with him, not wanting to break it to him that New Yorkers might rush to get to their train platform on time, but they were never as happy as our group.

We made it to the train in time and got there right as it pulled up.

"Stay back from the edge, Michael!" I scolded, grabbing his arm and pulling him behind the yellow caution line on the floor so he didn't get his face ripped off by the incoming subway car. The wind whipped passed us, pushing the strands his white-blonde hair that peeked out from under the hat all over the place and ruffling peoples coats.

"Sorry, I just wanted to watch it come in." He said sadly.

"Well, I wanted to make sure you could get on the train, and maybe see another one in the future." I rolled my eyes at his "sad boy" act. He smiled at me in thanks as we all walked on the train.

There weren't many people on it, so I sat down in one of the yellow plastic seats. Ashton sat next to me, and Luke, Sammi, and Sarah sat across from us.

"You can sit," I told Michael and Calum who were standing by one of the poles at the back of the car.

"No way, that's not how real New Yorkers do it." Calum said, almost being launched down the car when it lurched forward. Michael had been holding the pole so he caught it and kept himself in place.

"Be careful." I warned, shaking my head. I saw Ashton and Luke eyeing the two boys who were laughing and trying to see if they could stand without holding the pole or on one foot.

"Go with them, Ash, I know you want to."

He didn't say anything as he got up and shakily walked towards his friends. They were doing okay until the train braked to prepare for the first stop. Ashton wasn't holding anything and was facing the wrong direction and slammed into the wall.

"Ash!" I got up, a little unsteady since I haven't ridden on one of these in a while, but I made my way over to him.

"I'm okay!" He laughed, letting me help him up. I decided to stand with them and try to stop them from getting hurt again.

The announcer came over the train saying something and I caught part of it. The train was being switched from Express to Local, and once I consulted the map, I found it would add two more stops on our route before we had to transfer.

"Okay, you heard him. We have three more stops now, instead of just one more. Then we can still transfer to the 1."

Everyone looked at me in shock.

"Those were words he said?" Luke asked.

"No it wasn't Lukey," Calum said, "He said 'adsdllkdsanwefnb'." he covered his mouth and just made random sounds. Everyone laughed at him, even a couple on the train that we didn't know.

"Do you happen to know what it was he said?" the woman asked me. She and her friend were dressed in business casual. I'm assuming they worked in the city somewhere. "I just moved here a couple months ago and I'm still learning the lingo."

"He said express to local, so it adds a couple stops." I showed her my map and she thanked me, looking at it quickly before talking to her friend about their new route.

Three stops came and went, and I had everyone stand by the door before the train slowed and we got off. We did the same thing again, with the boys standing and playing their games, although it was a little more crowded on the second train, so they couldn't do it as much without hitting other people.

"Okay, gang, let's go outside."

We walked through the dirty station and up the stairs. It was sunny outside and clear skies, a complete difference than the usually dreary Minnesota. Pretty much all of winter was grey skies and snow. It was a bit chilly here, but not nearly as bad, comparatively.

I watched my friends faces as we emerged from the underground and into the city. People were bustling around us, there were food and merch carts on the sides of the roads. The buildings were so tall, and covered in bright signs, advertising the latest fashions, Broadway shows, and restaurants nearby, and they soaked it up, wonder etched into their eyes.

It was strange to be back here. We moved off to the side of the street out of everyone's way to figure out what we wanted to do.

"Okay, everyone, what's the plan?" Sarah asked, still looped with Sammi's arm. They were going to get very angry looks from everyone if they kept holding on to each other like that. I should tell them...but it'll be more fun to watch them struggle.

"Let's walk together until we find something we want to look at, then we can split off when we want." Calum suggested when no one immediately offered an idea.

We all agreed to that and headed toward the area where the ball drops.

About two seconds later, Sammi got everyone's attention.

"I want to look in here!" She said, keeping hold of Luke's arm and reaching to take Sarah's hand so she could follow behind her into the third "I <3 NY GIFTS" we'd seen in our short walk.

I shook my head at her and took Ashton's hand and led him on.

"Where do you want to go?" I asked him.

He shrugged.

"I don't really care. We'll have time to do what I want to do later."

"What do you want to do?" I asked before I listened to what I had just said. Ashton smirked.

"For the love of everything holy, please don't answer, Ashton. There's child present." Michael said, gesturing to Calum. Calum proved his point by whining and batting Michael's hand away.

"I want to know what Mom and Dad are doing, Mikey, let me knoowwww," he cried.

"You're too little, Cali, maybe when you're older I'll explain." Michael pinched his cheek and Calum tried to bite him.

"You're all ridiculous." I muttered, and turning to Ashton I hissed, "And if you think you have any chance of fulfilling any of those probably ridiculous fantasies later, you'll shut up right now."

Both Michael and Calum cheered, yelling an, "Ohhh get it!," as I flipped my hair and walked away, leaving a gaping Ashton standing on the streets of New York.

They caught up to me, a newfound respect in their eyes.

"Can we hang out with you today? You're our new idol." Michael proclaimed in awe.

"Yeah, please? No one's ever able to put Ashton in his place like that."

I laughed, putting my arms around both of their middles-as I couldn't reach their shoulders since I'm much shorter than them.

"Of course, young apprentices. Bask in my wisdom this afternoon, and I shall teach you all I know."

Ashton huffed, shoving his hands in his pocket and putting head down as he walked behind us in the wake we created trying to walk three-in-a-row on the busy streets.

"You guys have nothing on me, because you don't have anything I want. Vi has a card to pull, you have nothing." He hissed, and when we reached the end of the block, he pried my arms off the boys and claimed my hand.

I blushed at his mention of my "card", my v-card. I wonder if he knew that I was a virgin, or if that was just a figure of speech? I've only had one boyfriend in the past and it was a really messy situation, plus I was only 14, so we never ended up doing anything, and after I moved out of my father's house, I didn't have time for dating.

We move on, not talking about that anymore as the light turns green and people surge forward onto the street. I change the subject.

"So where do you boys want to go?" I ask them as Ash and I follow behind them.

***