Chapter 7: Shoot your shot
The boardwalk was a living thing, breathing with the rhythm of crashing waves and tinny carnival music. The heat rose in visible shimmers from the sun-baked planks, carrying the sticky-sweet perfume of cotton candy and frying oil. Steven and Jeremiah walked ahead, already bickering good-naturedly about which greasy atrocity to eat first.
Joseph hung back, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his shorts. The oppressive stillness of the house had been replaced by a different kind of weight—the dense, cheerful humidity of a crowd, the pressure of normalcy. It felt like wearing a coat two sizes too small.
Isabel fell into step beside him, her shoulder occasionally brushing his arm in the press of people. “Aren’t you glad we came?” she asked, her voice pitched to carry over the din.
He squinted up at the harsh sun, then at the sweat already darkening the back of Steven’s t-shirt. “How is this any less hot than it would be inside?”
“Because,” she said, a smile in her voice, “you have the magic sea breeze to cool you down.” As if on cue, a sluggish, warm gust lifted the hair from her neck. It did nothing to cool anything; it just moved the heat around.
He almost smiled. “Right. Magic.”
They caught up to the others in front of a garishly painted ice cream stand, its freezer motors humming an angry counterpoint to the calliope. The air here was marginally cooler, thick with the smell of waffle cones.
“This is gonna be fun,” Isabel announced, studying the menu.
Jeremiah leaned against the counter, grinning. “Fun? I seem to remember the last time you were here you were crying. You were fourteen and Joseph bet you at ‘Shoot Your Shot’ and your penalty was to ride the Tower of Terror. You were so scared you threw up.”
Steven snorted. “Classic.”
Isabel’s cheeks flushed a faint pink. “I was sick. It was a stomach bug.”
Joseph watched, a distant amusement on his face. “Sick with fear. I remember my mom had to throw out your clothes and carry you home in a caftan.”
“First one to vomit on the teacup ride buys the rest of us fried oreos,” Jeremiah declared, shaking off the last of the car’s stiff silence.
Steven made a beeline for a concession stand, but Isabel hung back, her eyes tracking Joseph as he stared at the whirling scrambler. His hands were jammed deep in his pockets, his shoulders a rigid line even here, in this temple of forgetfulness.
She nudged him with her elbow. “You remember the summer you tried to win me that giant octopus?”
A faint smile touched his lips. “I spent thirty dollars and won a keychain.” He finally looked at her, the ocean in his eyes. “You pretended it was better.”
“It was.” She meant it.
They caught up to the others by a ring-toss game manned by a bored-looking kid with sunburned shoulders. Steven was already handing over cash for a fistful of wooden rings.
Jeremiah snorted. “That game is rigged, man. The bottles are welded down.”
“A true champion doesn’t make excuses,” Steven said, lining up his first throw. It clattered uselessly against the glass bottles.
Isabel plucked a ring from Steven’s hand. She felt the worn wood, the press of three pairs of eyes on her. A old, competitive spark flickered in her chest, warm and familiar. “Do you wanna watch me beat Joseph’s ass?” she said, her voice all false sweetness.
Joseph looked at her, one eyebrow raised. “You can’t do that.”
“I would watch that,” Steven and Jeremiah said in unison.
She held Joseph’s gaze, the challenge shimmering between them in the thick, sugar-scented air. “You think you still got it?”
He accepted the remaining ring from Steven, his fingers brushing hers. A static charge, small and seismic. “Losers have to buy the biggest bag of candy for the winner.”
“That’s so boring,” Steven groaned, missing another throw.
Joseph didn’t look away from Isabel. “It was Belly’s favourite.”
The old nickname, his name for her, landed softly between them. It belonged to the boards under their feet, to the salt on their skin, to a thousand summers that felt both gone and painfully immediate.
Steven sighed, defeated. “Fine. But we start in the arcade. It’s too hot out here.”
They all walked to the arcade, a dim cavern screaming with electronic noise and the violent flash of screens. The processed, cold air was a shock, raising goosebumps on Isabel’s arms. They passed skeeball lanes and racing games, the cacophony a welcome narcotic.
Jeremiah stopped in front of a neon-lit doorway that led to a darker chamber. “Laser tag,” he announced. “Best of five rounds. The first and last, everyone plays. The middle, choose your best fighters.” He recited the old rule like a liturgy. “As it always was.”
“Teams?” Jere said, already vibrating with competitive energy.
Steven clapped a hand on Jeremiah’s shoulder. “How about siblings?”
A beat of silence. Isabel felt the division like a physical line drawn on the sticky carpet. Fisher brothers versus her and Steven. It placed her squarely opposite Joseph, an adversary for the half an hour.
Jeremiah’s grin was sharp. “Alright.”
They were handed bulky vests and phaser units that hummed with a low power. The attendant swung open a heavy black door, releasing a plume of dry-ice fog that smelled like plastic and ozone. The interior was a maze of ramps and foam barriers, bathed in pulsing blacklight that made their teeth glow.
Joseph paused on the threshold, his profile illuminated by a streaking purple beam. He glanced back at her, just once, his expression unreadable in the strobing dark.
Then they all went into the room. The door sealed behind them with a decisive, airtight thud, locking them in the artificial night.
The game began with a blaring siren. Joseph and Jeremiah split up instantly, a wordless tactic born from a childhood of shared campaigns. Jeremiah veered left, his laughter echoing as he hunted for Steven.
He found him crouched behind a low, foam wall, peering around the corner. Jeremiah took aim, but Steven ducked back just as the sensor on his vest blinked, unused.
Joseph had circled the entire structure. He came up silently behind Steven, the soft soles of his shoes making no sound on the padded floor. He raised his phaser, the tip glowing a malevolent red in the gloom, and fired. A sharp electronic zap echoed, and Steven’s vest vibrated, his shoulder lights blinking out. “Damn it, Jere!” Steven yelled, not realizing it was Joseph, and stomped back to the respawn point.
Isabel came around the opposite corner, catching Jeremiah’s profile as he celebrated. She fired twice. His entire vest lit up and died.
“Oh, you got me,” Jeremiah said, his voice carrying a genuine laugh as he jogged back to the starting spot.
She ducked behind a barrier, her breath shallow. Joseph, seeing her position, ran a hard diagonal across an open zone just as she popped up to aim. Her shot missed his back by inches. He slammed against the far wall, his heart hammering against the plastic vest.
Jeremiah had respawned. He moved fast, coming up behind Isabel where she was focused on Joseph’s last position. He didn’t shoot. He simply grabbed her arms, pinning them gently but firmly behind her back.
“Noooo!” she squealed, the sound half-laughter, half-genuine protest, kicking her legs uselessly.
Joseph emerged from cover. They faced each other, ten feet apart in the strobing dark. He aimed his gun. Isabel, trapped, could only glare, trying to wrench free. Joseph fired. A direct hit. Her vest sang its defeat.
He and Jeremiah met in the middle for a crisp, triumphant high-five.
“Capture the flag,” Jeremiah announced, still breathing hard. “Winners’ choice.”
They filed out, buzzing with the synthetic adrenaline, sweat cooling on their temples. The rock wall stood at the far end of the arcade, a faux stone monolith with colorful plastic grips. Jeremiah grabbed the blue flag from the counter and started clipping it to the carabiner at the summit harness.
“I’m gonna beat your ass,” Steven said to Jeremiah, staring up the route.
“You wish,” Jeremiah shot back, not looking at him, his fingers checking the knot.
They hooked themselves onto the auto-belay ropes. Joseph stood back with Isabel, watching Steven and Jeremiah begin their simultaneous climb. The mechanical whir of the devices mixed with their grunts of effort, the scuff of rubber on resin holds.
Jeremiah moved with a lifeguard’s fluid strength, finding rhythm quickly. Steven was all frantic, explosive power, gaining ground but burning energy fast. Joseph’s gaze drifted from the climbers to Isabel. A fine sheen of sweat glistened at her temple, a stray strand of hair stuck to her skin. She was watching the climb, but her expression was distant, lost in some private thought.
He remembered holding her arms behind her back in a different context, a game played on this very boardwalk years ago, the press of his body against hers in the cool sand afterward. The memory was so vivid he could almost feel the ghost of her shoulder blades under his palms.
She must have felt his stare. She glanced over, her green eyes catching the fluorescent light. For a second, the arcade noise—the beeps, the screams, the tinny music—faded into a hollow roar.
On the wall, Steven’s hand slipped. He swore loudly, dangling for a second before finding another hold. Jeremiah was five feet from the top, flag fluttering above him, his body a taut line of concentration.
Joseph looked away first, breaking the connection. He focused on his brother’s progress, on the simple, physical victory playing out above them, a welcome distraction from the complicated, treacherous ground he felt shifting under his own feet.
Steven got there first, grabbing the flag before Jeremiah could make a final lunge. They came down, flushed and laughing, Steven triumphantly waving the scrap of fabric.
“So where to next?” Joseph asked, turning to Isabel.
“Steven’s call,” she said, nodding toward the victor. “He won.”
Steven was already scanning the midway, a general surveying his domain. “Basketball. Always basketball.”
They wandered past a ring-toss game and a shooting gallery, the air thick with the smell of cotton candy and diesel from the generator trucks. The basketball hoops were ahead, the rims notoriously tight and unforgiving, the backboards painted with faded nautical scenes.
Joseph picked up a ball from the rack, its surface slick and pebbled. He turned it in his hands. “I don’t know about you, but I think it might be time to shoot your shot.”
A current, sharp and sweet, shot through her. It was the old challenge, the one that used to end with her laughing, draped over his back as he carried her to the water. She met his eyes. “Oh, you’re on.”
They walked over to the basketball hoops. He dribbled once, the sound a hollow thump on the boards. “Too bad for you it’s all about angles.”
She took a ball for herself, feeling its weight. “Too bad for you I had such a great trigonometry tutor.”
He knew that moment. Three and a half years ago, on the couch in the beach house living room, textbooks and worksheets scattered across the cushion between them. He was helping her with her math, patient, pointing to a sine curve on the page.
That led to her leaning into his shoulder, led to his finger tracing not the graph but the line of her jaw, led to the books tumbling to the floor. He shook his head, a quick, physical clearing of the memory. “Thank you,” he said, the words simple and loaded.
They stood there waiting for the countdown, a ball in each of their hands. The carny, a guy with a sun-bleached mustache, mumbled the rules. “Five balls each. You both take a shot after the other. Highest score wins the big bird.” He gestured to a shelf of giant, dusty plush dolphins.
Joseph went first. He took a breath, his body coiling with a familiar, focused grace, and let the ball fly. It swished through the net without touching the rim. “Yeah,” he said, looking at her, a flash of pure, uncomplicated joy in his blue eyes.
“I let you have that one,” she said, lining up her shot, “so you don’t weep when I win.” She shot, scoring her first. The ball rattled in but went down.
Joseph shot his second ball. It went in.
He looked at her as she lined up. She shot her second ball in.
They both shot their third ball in. The rhythm was there, an unspoken synchrony from years of practice. Joseph looked at her, a challenge in his blue eyes, and shot the ball one-handed. It went in.
They laughed, the sound sharp and bright against the arcade din.
She shot her fourth. It went in. Joseph looked at her, grabbed the last ball, aiming for the high-score rim. He shot. The ball bounced back with a definitive, hollow clack.
She aimed, her tongue between her teeth in concentration, and shot. It went in.
She screamed, “Yes!” and spun toward him, her hands in the air.
He smiled, a real, wide smile that reached his eyes and crinkled the skin at their corners. “As much as it pains me to say it, that was a good win.”
“I told you I’d kick your ass,” she said, breathless.
He looked around at the prizes dangling behind the bored attendant. “I think you get to pick a prize.”
Her gaze drifted over the garish plush toys, landing on a familiar, slightly dusty bear. It was the same bear he’d won her years ago.
“They haven’t changed these prizes in years,” he said, looking at them.
“I’ll take the giraffe,” she said, pointing to a long-limbed, spotted one.
He claimed it for her, and she tucked the silly toy under her arm, its synthetic fur scratchy against her skin. They went back into the arcade’s main aisle, the glow of the game fading, leaving them back in the present.
“Do you smell that?” Isabel said, inhaling dramatically.
“What?” Joseph said, playing along.
“A comeback.” She said, laughing. “I’m feeling dangerously lucky.”
“Ohh, are you sure?” A familiar, competitive gleam lit his face, the one she remembered from debates over monopoly and swim races. “I’d be willing to make a little side bet.”
“Okay, keep talking,” she said, her chin tilted up at him. The charge between them was bright and harmless, a live wire from a past life.
“I was thinking,” Joseph said, his gaze sliding from the dance platform to the distant, looming silhouette of a drop tower that pierced the bleached sky. “Whoever loses has to ride the Tower of Terror.”
Isabel laughed, the sound surprising her. It was easy, familiar. “You used to cry every time you looked at the Tower of Terror. I’m excited to see it happen again.”
He met her eyes, a flicker of the old challenge there. “Okay.”
“Mhm,” she mumbled, a smile tugging at her lips.
“You’re on then,” he said.
She smiled fully now. “Alright. Dance.”
They all walked over to the machine, its synthetic beat thumping through the planks. Jeremiah was up against Steven first, their movements awkward and exaggerated, all elbows and stomping feet. Steven won by a handful of points, the machine blaring a tinny fanfare.
“Next game!” Isabel said, feeling the comeback, the old competitive spark. She stepped onto the glowing platform, Joseph opposite her.
The music started—a pop song she half-recognized. Their eyes locked for a second before the first arrows flashed. He was surprisingly fluid, his movements loose and precise where Jeremiah’s had been wild. She matched him, step for step, their synchronization a remnant of a thousand moments in this same place, summers ago.
The machine scored them neck and neck, the tiebreaker a furious, final sequence they nailed in unison. The screen declared a draw.
“Typical,” Jeremiah sighed, tossing tokens to the attendant. “Always a tie with you two.”
They moved through the crowds, the earlier tension diffusing into the shared, silly mission. The scent of ozone and gasoline grew stronger near the race track.
They went to the race cars. The rule was simple: first team with both cars past the finish line won. The engines whined, a high-pitched scream that vibrated in their teeth.
They were off. Isabel sped ahead, her tiny car jerking into an early lead. Joseph held back a fraction, finding a line in second. Jeremiah and Steven were both last, their bumper cars colliding in a clumsy, laughing tangle behind them.
Isabel took the corners sharp, hard, the wheel fighting in her hands. Joseph took them smooth, a calculated drift that ate up the inside track, gaining back space bit by bit. At the last second, on the final turn, he zoomed past her, crossing the finish line a hood-length ahead. Jeremiah came third, Steven a resigned fourth.
The sudden quiet of the killed engines left their laughter hanging in the air. Isabel unbuckled the strap, her heart hammering from more than the race.
“Is it time?” she asked, looking toward the towering structure.
Joseph followed her gaze. A slow, genuine smile spread across his face, the first one that seemed to reach his eyes all day. “It’s time. The Tower of Terror awaits.”
The line was short. They rode in a brittle silence that had nothing to do with fear. The metallic climb of the car was agonizingly slow, each click of the chain a measured beat. The world fell away beneath them—the beach house was a speck in the distance, the ocean a flat, endless sheet of mercury.
The drop came suddenly.
It was a pure, violent surrender to gravity. Isabel squealed, a sharp, involuntary sound ripped from her lungs, and then she was laughing, breathless and alive, as they coasted to a stop. She looked over at Joseph, his fluffy black hair wild, his face alight with a boyish thrill that erased two years of grief in an instant.
They walked back through the cooling evening, the light from the sky fading into a deep periwinkle, the boardwalk lights flickering on one by one. Their shoulders brushed occasionally on the narrow path. The laughter had subsided into a comfortable, worn-out quiet.
Jeremiah and Steven were ahead, arguing about the best route to get funnel cake without waiting.
Joseph’s voice was quiet, meant only for her. “You didn’t scream on the way up this time.”
“I grew up,” she said, tucking a windblown strand of hair behind her ear.
“I noticed.” The words were simple, heavy. He looked straight ahead, his profile sharp against the dying light.
The night ahead felt vast and full of a looming decision, and the space between his arm and hers felt like the only certain thing.