I started laughing at Hook. "Why on earth would you want to kiss Peter?"

Peter and Hook exchanged looks. "I don't think she gets it," Peter muttered, scratching his chin. He sighed and looked straight into my eyes. "He meant you, Wendy."

I stopped laughing.

Oh hell no.

"This is a joke right?" I demanded. "You're joking." I saw the expressions on both their faces. "Oh my God you're serious."

Peter grinned at me apologetically.

"Deal's off!" I exclaimed. "There's no way you're getting me to cooperate. I'm not even involved in this! You can't just make me-"

"We already shook hands on it," Peter pointed out. "Besides, you've kissed me before back at the dock. It should be a walk in the park for you. I mean, we both know that Hook's going to lose miserably anyways."

"That was not a kiss," I protested. "I bet you don't even know the difference between a kiss and a thimble."

"I certainly do too!" Peter cried, clearly outraged.

"I could always kill Peter and call it a day," Hook suggested as he started to remove the pistol from his trench coat. Peter held up his hands hastily and told Hook to put the weapon away.

I closed my eyes and swore under my breath. I can't believe what I was about to get myself into.

"Peter, you'd better win."

--

Slightly hadn't been kidding when he told me Peter was an excellent bowler. Peter sure was quite light on his feet and had extraordinarily accurate aim, for it was strike after strike.

Hook however, was also a good bowler…once he got a good grip on the bowling ball that is. He was also making several strikes. Things were definitely heating up…until Hook only knocked over nine pins.

"Ha!" Peter boasted, clearly proud of himself. "Wendy, prepare to pucker up!"

Hook cursed very loudly and I asked him if he needed bumpers placed in his lane. He cursed once more and told me to sit down and shut up.

I had the feeling Hook didn't like me all that much.

The pirate captain poised himself, looking over his raised bowling ball at the last remaining pin. Focused, he set his lips in a tight line and swung his uninjured arm backwards, preparing for a spare.

"Don't screw this one up!" Peter shouted right before Hook was about to drop the ball on the slick wooden floor.

Lucky for Hook, he didn't drop the ball. Instead, he stumbled slightly before catching himself. He spun around and glared at Peter. "I need absolute silence. If you cheat, then you forfeit and I get your girlfriend no questions asked."

Why was I constantly referred to as Peter's girlfriend? I did have a name.

Peter gestured to Hook for him to hurry up and bowl. Hook prepared himself again to defeat this last pin and swung his arm out again.

"You can do it Cap'n!" Smee bellowed, surprising the bowling pirate.

Hook wasn't so lucky this time. The bowling ball swerved to the right and instantly went into the gutter. The captain roared in anger and grabbed Smee by the scruff of his flabby neck and proceeded to toss the stooped, middle-aged man down the bowling lane. Smee slid the entire way and got himself stuck in the pin disposal.

"Aw, now that ain't right," said Peter somberly. "There's no need for poor sportsmanship. You still have a chance if I miss this last shot." Peter then laughed softly to himself before adding, "Emphasis on if."

I handed Peter his lucky green bowling ball and watched as he walked up to his wooden lane. "Please, please, please," I chanted under my breath. "Please win, Peter."

Peter began to prepare himself as he held the bowling ball under one arm and took the time to flex the muscles in his other. He then took the ball in his slim fingers and squinted his eyes against the reflecting light off of the waxed floor.

"Please win."

He swung his arm out to release the ball.

"Please."

The ball hit the floor with an unnerving crack and spun dangerously towards its goal.

"Please."

All of ten pins fell over.

"YES!" I cheered as my friends and the lost boys all jumped up and started clapping Peter on the back. Peter held up his hands and the noise died down.

"Now," said Peter softly to a very anguished Hook. "I am decent man. And as a decent man, I will offer you best out of three."

What? I wedged myself between Peter and Hook. "No, that's enough. You've won Peter. It's time that we all go home."

"Wendy, I know you're desperate to kiss me," said Peter mockingly, "but let's not be rude to Mr. Hook over here."

"Fine," the pirate agreed. "Best out of three."

"And," Peter added, "I have raised the stakes." He flicked invisible dust off of his shoulders before continuing. "Winner gets bragging rights and two of Wendy's kisses."

I opened my mouth to argue.

"Loser," Peter went on, "has to kiss Smee."

"Shoot," Smee muttered as he crossed his arms and sat down.

Hook narrowed his eyes. "Deal. What's the next competition?"

Peter glanced at me. "Wendy?" he prompted.

I tapped my bottom lip with my index finger in thought. "Everyone," I announced, "cough up! I need enough money to buy like fifty hot dogs. We're having an eating contest ladies and gents."

--

We all gathered around the painted, hard plastic picnic tables after having made several trips to the snack bar. Each plate was piled high with ten hot dogs all smothered with ketchup to make them more slippery and therefore more challenging to eat.

"Does anyone have a digital watch with a timer?" I asked the crowd of friends and foes. Slightly offered his up. I took it and set the timer to zero. "Alright! Peter and Hook: you each have two minutes to eat as many hot dogs as you can. The competition stops when you either run out of time, run out of hot dogs, or run out of breath. I warn you, I will not perform CPR on anyone. Good luck, gentlemen."

"Get ready."

Hook tucked a napkin into the collar of his coat.

"Get set."

Peter gave me a reassuring smile.

"GO!"

Both guys started shoving the disgusting mystery meat into their mouths. Peter, actually, shoved four into his mouth in belief that they would go faster that way. Unfortunately, Peter started choking and he fell sideways off his bench as tears sprang to his eyes. As much as I wanted to help him, I kept my promise and I didn't make a move to assist him. Peter started writhing on the floor, attempting to hack up the ends of four, half-eaten hot dogs while Hook had already downed five-and-a-half.

"Peter, get up!" I snapped at him. "You're embarrassing me."

"I'm…dying…," Peter gasped, clutching his throat. The timer on Slightly's watch went off, alerting everyone that the competition was over.

"Dammit, Peter," I sighed, tossing the watch back to its owner. "What on earth was that?"

Peter's windpipe seemed to have suddenly cleared as he straightened up and spat chewed-up hot dog onto the shiny floor. "I don't need the calories anyways. Okay, so it's one to one. I still have one more competition to win."

I rolled my eyes as Hook started dancing, badly, to brag that he had won. This gave me an idea so I said, "Next competition: a dance off." I still could remember what a dancing god Peter had been back in The Mermaid Lagoon. I smirked at my own cleverness.

"I'm not going to dance!" Hook snapped.

"What, are you scared?" Peter sneered, wiping ketchup from his mouth.

"No," Hook denied, crossing his arms. "I just don't want to have the unfair advantage over you."

"Oh?" questioned Peter, cocking an eyebrow. "You think you can dance better than me?"

"I know," Hook corrected him.

My smile widened. "Quarters, anyone?"

It was off to the DDR machine.

--

Now, the DDR machine in the arcade had two platforms so that people could compete. It cost fifty cents to play one game for two people. As Peter and Hook took their places, I went to the computer screen and looked through the songs.

"Which song do you two want to dance to?" I asked, frowning at the list.

Peter stepped on the down arrow on his platform to land on "It's Raining Men" while Hook stomped on the up arrow to pick "Edge of Seventeen."

"Stevie Nicks!" Hook snapped.

"The Weather Girls!" Peter snarled back.

"HEY!" I shouted, earning their attention. "You guys need to grow up."

Hook and Peter looked at each other. Peter was smirking. Ignoring this, I pointed on the song between the two they wanted. It was "Hotel California" by the Eagles and it was listed as medium in difficulty. "Do that one," I suggested.

"Are you happy?" Peter asked Hook suspiciously.

"No. Are you?" Hook replied.

"No," said Peter cheerfully. "Let's do 'Hotel California' then." They stomped on their arrows to select the song. The music started up.

The dance moves, of course, were slow at first. "'On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair-'" Peter's feet were placed carefully on the arrows as his eyes were glued to the computer screen. It seemed that whoever had made the DDR machine had adapted the songs to make it easier to dance to. This meant that "Hotel California" was being played twice as fast as normal in an unnerving chipmunk voice.

"'And I was thinking to myself, this could be heaven or this could be hell…'"

Peter's feet were flying, his narrow hips were pivoting, and he was even doing moves with his upper half that were quite unnecessary but were merely for showing off. Hook, however, was struggling to keep up with the steps so was instead trying to beat Peter over the head with his hook.

"'You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave!'" A crazy guitar solo followed and this was Peter's time to shine. He was so fast at hitting all of the steps that he couldn't seem to resist putting his left foot out and playing a few of the arrows on Hook's platform to show how great he really was.

Hook clearly had enough of this and before Peter had the chance to finish up the song, Hook tried to step off his platform to give up. Instead, the captain slipped. He threw out his arms to catch himself but his hooked hand accidentally caught the cord plugging the DDR machine into the wall. The electric line tore and sparked, causing the arcade game to promptly blow up.

We all started screaming as Peter was blown backwards into the wall, his platform flying completely in another direction. I ran to help Peter up. He was clutching the back of his head dizzily as he struggled to walk. Hook was straightening up, coughing into his sleeve conspicuously as he tried to blend into the wall.

"Maybe it's time to get out of here," I whispered to Peter as security guards came running towards the billowing flames eating at the carpet.

"I agree," Peter replied as he grabbed my hand and pulled me out into the actual bowling alley. We broke through a gathering crowd of onlookers and slid across four bowling lanes, hopping over the gutters and dodging stray balls. We exited outside through the emergency door into the falling twilight. Hook, his cronies, and our friends were right behind us.

We gasped for breath out on the sidewalk as we came to a stop.

Peter was looking extremely proud with himself as he turned to Hook and said, "Smee's waiting."

Smee was turning red and was looking somewhere to hide. Hook, annoyed, grabbed Smee and kissed the top of the short man's balding head. Zandra, Kim, and I burst out laughing.

"That wasn't a kiss!" Peter protested angrily.

"You failed to specify where," Hook reminded Peter as he wiped his mouth.

"Good point!" I exclaimed cheerfully. "That means Peter doesn't have to-"

My words were cut off by the opening of the emergency door. Security guards spilled out onto the sidewalk. "You there!" one shouted at us.

We scattered in all directions.

Laughing, Peter grabbed my hand and pulled me out into the street through the spaces between the cars stopped in a major traffic jam. I was dragged through an unfamiliar grassy strip of scrawny trees situated between two large buildings before we broke out through the other side onto another sidewalk. Building lamps lighted our way as our feet pounded off into the gathering darkness.

--

A/N: Heh…I wonder where they're headed off to. Oh yeah, please remember to review cuz I'd love to know what y'all think.