When we get back to the beach house after our trip to the twins' house, we meet up with the vlog squad at the boardwalk. It was already getting a little dark out since we spend so long driving and traveling, and we all decided to go to the arcade first.
"I want to play ski ball," I tell Alex, after we get our tokens.
"Let's go against each other. Whoever loses has to pay for more tokens when we run out," Alex challenges me as we reach the ski ball machines.
"Okay, fine. Get ready to have your ass beat, Ernst," I say, putting a token into the machine, and handing Alex one too.
"Don't be so sure of yourself, Denley, I'll have you know I'm a ski ball master," Alex says, winking at me before grabbing his first ball and throwing it.
I turn my attention away from Alex and to my own game instead. I throw my first ball, trying to aim it right down the middle.
To my surprise, it goes straight up in the air and lands in the 50 hole. I feel a sense of satisfaction as this happens, and throw in the rest of my balls.
When we're both done, I take a look over at Alex's score and jump with joy.
"Yes! I told you I'd beat you! You should know better than to challenge me anymore," I laugh, as Alex pouts.
"I should, but I still don't," he sighs, grabbing both of our tickets from the machines and then slipping his hand in mine.
"So what game are we doing next?" Alex asks me, and I look around to find a fun game.
Eventually, my gaze lands on a claw machine filled with adorable puppy stuffed animals.
"That one," I say, pointing at it.
"You know those games are impossible to win, right?" Alex chuckles as we walk towards he machine.
"They're not if you try hard enough," I say, letting go of his hand and grabbing the tokens and putting them in the slot.
I expertly position the claw over a cute golden retriever plush, and look at the machine from the side a couple times to make sure it's perfectly over it. Then, I push the button in and watch the claw fall on top of it.
Then, the claw captures the stuffed animal for a few brief seconds, before dropping it. I stick out my bottom lip at this and look at Alex.
"Here, let me try," Alex says, holding his hand out for some tokens.
I reluctantly give him enough tokens to play and watch as he puts his tongue in between his teeth in concentration.
When he drops the claw and it captures the puppy again, I feel excited, but my mood goes away after it drops it once again.
"Just one more try," Alex says, taking more tokens from me.
I sigh, and watch once again as he attempts to get the stuffed puppy from the machine.
To my disbelief, the claw once again classes around the stuffed animal and actually doesn't drop it.
"Yes!" I squeal, clapping my hands as Alex hands me the golden retriever plush.
"Thank you, I love you so much," I say, hugging Alex.
"Anything for my girl," Alex says, making my heart do a flip.
When we pull away, I stand up on my tippy toes and give him a kiss, before we walk to the next arcade game to play.
L A T E R
Soon enough, we've used all of our tokens and more, and our time at the arcade is over and we have to use all of our tickets.
"Hey, Guys," David says as we're about to walk up to the register to get some prizes.
"Yeah?" Alex asks.
"We're all putting our tickets together to try to get that big bear for the house, you in?" David asks, gesturing to a large bear worth a couple thousand tickets.
"I mean, we only have about a thousand, so we won't be much help," I shrug.
"Anything helps, trust me," David says.
I look at Alex and shrug and he shrugs as well in reply, so I hand our tickets over to David and we follow him to the ticket machine.
"Alex and Kota contributed their tickets," he says, handing Scott our tickets.
"Yes! We only need 1,034 more so I think this might do it," Scott says, putting our tickets into the machine.
We watch as the machine eats our tickets up, and the numbers on the screen go up to 40,086.
Everyone cheers as this number comes on the screen, so I assume that our tickets were enough to get the bear.
"Let's go get it!" Scott says, printing the receipt and marching over to the ticket counter, all of us following shortly behind.
As soon as we hand the lady at the counter our receipt, her eyes go wide.
"Forty thousand tickets? What do you want to get with those?" She asks us.
"The bear," Scott says, pointing to the huge white bear with a bow tie.
"Well, here you go," the girl says, grabbing the bear and hurling it over the counter.
We all cheer once again when Scott has the bear in his arms, feeling proud that we all managed to get it together.
"I think we might have have to get that bear it's own seat on the flight home," David jokes, making us all laugh.
Together we all make our way out of the arcade and walk down the board walk towards the rides.
"Kristen and I are going to go put the bear in the house. Don't have too much fun while we're gone!" Scott announces, walking in the opposite direction of us with his girlfriend right behind him.
We all wave to them as they walk away, and continue our journey down the board walk.
Soon we end up in front of a huge rollercoaster, which pretty much everyone wants to go on.
"I'm not going on that," I say to Alex, feeling a sick sensation just by looking at the ride.
"It won't be bad babe, I'll even hold your hand the whole time if you want me to," Alex assures me, putting a hand on my waist as he says so.
"No, that's okay. I don't want to. You can go on, I'll be just fine down here," I tell him.
"Are you sure?" Alex asks me, skeptical.
"Yeah, I'll be fine," I smile, nodding my head.
Almost everyone else gets on the rollercoaster except for me and Todd, leaving us alone to wait for everyone to finish the ride.
"So, I see you two made up pretty quickly," Todd says once we're completely alone.
"Yeah, I guess we did," I giggle. "Things are still a tiny bit awkward, but I think we'll be okay."
"Well, I was going to say something if you guys didn't, but I guess it's no use now," Todd says, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and kicking at the sand on the wooden boardwalk.
"What? You can always tell me anything, Todd," I assure him, as he looks at his shoes instead of making eye contact with me.
"It's no use, it's just stupid of me to tell you now. I lost my chance," he sighs.
"It can't be that stupid if you still want to tell me. Come on," I say.
"It'll just ruin the friendship we have if I tell you. It's okay, I can live without telling you," Todd says.
"What do you mean?" I ask, still confused on what he wanted to tell me.
"Can't you see it, Dakota?" He says, lifting his arms up in exasperation.
"See what?" I ask, still clueless.
"I like you, Dakota! I've liked you for a while now! Couldn't you tell? I gave you my room and let you cry on my shoulder for days when you and Alex broke up, I was flirting with you in the ocean today, and I let you have my bed and sleep there today when you guys fought. I'd do anything for you, because I have a fucking crush on you," Todd admits.
"W-what?" I sputter out, stunned by what Todd just told me.
"I like you, Dakota. In fact, I think I might love you."