wringing out her wet hair even as the rain continued to pour. “Tell me we can get funnel cake.”
The girls made their way up to the boardwalk, shops still open and waiting, where the three of them ordered a funnel cake bigger than their heads—one for each of them, no splitting—and stood under the store’s awning. It was still cold, Pike’s body a giant shiver as she watched the rain continue to fall, the sky continue to flash in and out of existence. But she felt warm, too, felt electric, the dough of the funnel cake fresh and hot, the taste of powdered sugar on her tongue and the body heat from Riley and Lin, one on either side of her, as the three of them stared out from their place on the boardwalk, the waves still crashing beneath the lightning, the sound of skee ball being played, of arcade games, the distant song of the carousel and their clothes still heavy against their limbs, soaked through with the Atlantic and adrenaline and something almost like being free.