Page 22 of Dead Boys Club

“Shut up.”

Parker’s reply gets swallowed up as they pass.

“So, you’re not Parker Reid’s new best friend forever?” Isaac mutters.

Zach looks at Isaac’s face again. The jealousy is obvious now. Up until this moment, Zach had been pretty sure that Isaac didn’t even like him that much. Isaac, jealous that Zach is spending time with someone else? It’s insane. He’s glad that he can at least say, truthfully: “Definitely not.”

The fairground is teeming with high schoolers and families by the time Zach and Isaac pull up. Zach is already uncomfortable. He clenches and releases his fists in the hem of his hoodie. They sit in the car for a while before they get out and Isaac fiddles around on his Sidekick while he waits for Zach to stop breathing so hard. Which is kind of the nicest thing Isaac has ever done. Maybe he’s feeling badly for all the times he’s been not so nice to him.

Zach walks a few steps behind Isaac, because Isaac isn’t afraid of shouldering through the crowd. There’s a brief debate over whether they should get tickets or wristbands:

“I’m not going to ride any rides. They look like death traps.”

“Not everything is a death trap, jeez.”

Ultimately, Isaac buys them both bright yellow wristbands. Isaac helps him put his on and some of the sticky tape gets caught against Zach’s arm hair.

Zach doesn’t like the crowds or the noise. Isaac leads him through the less-congested areas and they walk around the outer edges of the midway. Eventually, they get to the food stalls, and Zach sits on a nearby metal bench while Isaac waits in line for vinegar fries. Zach people-watches, and the ever-compounding anxiety that usually weighs down on his chest begins to loosen. He touches his silly yellow wristband, peeling the sticky side out of his arm hair.

When Zach looks up to see if Isaac has gotten any closer to the front of the line, he catches sight of Paige Reid. She’s standing with a small group of people, probably her newspaper friends. She’s laughing at something one of them said. She looks carefree. Zach is so busy watching her, he doesn’t notice the dark figure approaching him. And then Parker drops to sit on the bench beside him.

“Hey.”

Zach startles, turning to look at Parker. He’s dressed in his customary dark clothing, distressed jeans and something that looks like it had once been a rather nice leather jacket, now destroyed with pins and patches. Zach’s eyes drop to his wrists, where Parker is wearing one of the bright yellow bands too. He wonders if Parker had really ridden in the trunk of Paige’s car.

Parker’s arrival is more of a surprise simply because Zach had assumed that Parker was done with him. Maybe he just needed someone to talk to, and now that he had, he didn’t need Zach’s presence anymore. He wants to ask why Parker had stopped coming to sit with him at lunch, but the question gets stuck. It’s too confrontational.

“Hi,” Zach says, instead. “I thought you didn’t do carnivals.”

“Yeah, well,” Parker says, kicking his heavy combat boots against the dirt. “What kind of loser sits at home during Oktoberfest?”

Zach exhales a high, nervous laugh. “I mean—I did, the last three years.”

“Me too,” Parker says, leaning back against the metal bench, propping his elbows up against the backrest. He swings his knees back and forth. “I want to ride the Zipper.”

“Is that the one that swings upside down?” Zach frets.

Before Parker can confirm or deny whether the ride in question goes upside down, Isaac returns, carrying a huge cup of fries. He draws to a slow stop in front of the bench, his eyes flickering between Zach and Parker. Zach’s nose stings at the sharp smell of the vinegar. He remembers Isaac’s earlier outburst over Parker, and his stomach starts to twist up in knots. Is this about to be a problem? His emergency Ativan is in his backpack, which he left in the back of Isaac’s car. Zach looks down at his hands, picking at one of the edges of his wristband.

“Hey,” Parker says, looking up at Isaac and brushing the hair out of his face.

“Hey…” Isaac replies, dragging out the exhale on the H. “Parker.”

“Isaac, right?” Parker asks. He starts jiggling both his knees. “We have Physics together.”

“I have literally never seen you in Physics,” Isaac answers.

“Yeah,” Parker agrees. They stare at each other for a long moment. Zach does his best not to freak out.

“Well…” Isaac sits on the opposite side of Zach and holds out the fries over his lap. “Want some?”

Parker and Isaac share the fries while Zach holds the cup for them. He doesn’t like vinegar fries, but he’s not really all that hungry anyway. He’s too focused on Isaac and Parker and whether this whole thing is about to explode in his face. Isaac’s earlier jealousy seems to have abated, maybe because once you actually sit down and talk to Parker, it’s easy to see that he’s just… a boy. He’s intense and sometimes Zach is terrified of him, but as he watches him suck vinegar off his thumb, Zach is very aware that Parker is just a boy.

When they’re done with the fries, they toss the sticky, empty cup into a nearby garbage can and start walking through the fairgrounds. This time, Parker leads the way, with his long legs and intimidating height. Isaac gets kind of jumpy and eager as he talks and Zach wonders if he thinks Parker is cool, or something.

“This one,” Parker says, wheeling to a stop in front of the Zipper, which does, in fact, go upside down. The cages rattle loudly as the ride whips the riders head over heels.

“I’ll throw up,” Zach says. He’s starting to get dizzy just looking at it.