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Chapter EightThere was something extremely satisfying about bowling. Balls colliding with pins and the sound it made. And there was something about sliding in bowling shoes on the wood floors. It was like ice skating, but not as cold. Or maybe it was the view. Holy crap, Sawyer’s butt. Or maybe Sawyer was a butt. He wouldn’t take no for an answer when he’d asked me to go bowling with him tonight. He’d gone as far as holding my phone, which I’d left at the comedy club last night, hostage until I’d agreed. This all went down on my office phone at the plant. The Band-Aid was never coming off at this rate. I had pretty much resigned myself to getting a fungal infection from not letting my skin breathe. Make that my heart. Yep, fungus of the heart. That’s what I had.
I was surprised Shelby hadn’t come. Maybe she was packing for our camping trip tomorrow. I was miffed she was coming. I was certain Mom wouldn’t want her there. Sawyer apologized but felt like he couldn’t tell her no when she asked what he was doing this weekend and she asked if she could come. Apparently, she loved to camp and that’s one thing she’d been dying to do since she’d moved to Colorado. More like she’d been dying to share a tent with Sawyer. If that happened, I wasn’t sure what I would do. For now, I was praying Miss Sunshine had her own tent. What she and Sawyer did was none of my business, but I didn’t need to be a witness to it, especially since this weekend highlighted so much of what I had already lost. Although, if they shared a tent, it would rip that Band-Aid off in the most painful fashion ever. It would be a quick cure for fungal heart.
Sawyer missed a spare by one point. I stood to take my turn, trying not to smirk. “Bummer. Looks like I’m still winning,” I taunted him from near the ball return.
“We’re only in frame five. I’ve got this.”
“That’s what you said last time.”
He met me by the ball return and flipped my hair that I had partially styled, which meant I’d run a flat iron through it a few times. “I’m feeling lucky tonight,” he whispered.
My cheeks blew up like a chipmunk gathering nuts while I held my breath and seriously contemplated that stupid suggestion Jenna gave me. Too bad I’d only been drinking Dr. Pepper. I wasn’t sure I could say, sorry my elevated blood sugar made my lips fall on yours. Maybe I could use the excuse that last night’s kiss from that stupid game Jenna and Brad made me play was so awful that I needed something to make up for it. My cheeks deflated, and I blew so much air out Sawyer backed up. “Sorry, I was just thinking about that kiss last night.”
Sawyer’s brow furrowed. “So, you liked it?”
“No. It’s not exactly how I like to meet guys, and that idiot tried to stick his tongue in my mouth.”
“Is that why you punched him? I thought it was part of the game. Pucker or Sucker.” He grimaced.
Dumbest game ever, and completely made up by Jenna so she could see how Sawyer would react to me kissing someone. Her report was that while the crowd was supposed to be clapping and cheering as loud as they could—because the louder they were, the closer Jenna and Brad pushed me and that idiot together—Sawyer was doing neither. And when that guy kissed me, Sawyer stood up, concerned, as Jenna put it. Brotherly concern, I was sure.
“It was a good sucker punch, if I do say so myself.”
Sawyer grinned.
I turned to get my bowling ball from the ball return.
“So . . .” Sawyer let out a heavy breath, “tongue is out for a first kiss?”
I snorted and turned toward him, almost dropping the bowling ball. “What kind of question is that?”
He ran his hand through his wavy hair. “A guy can’t be too careful nowadays. These are good things to know. I’m just trying to get a pulse on how women feel on these issues.”
“Taking a poll, are you?”
“Maybe.” He flashed me his sparkling smile.
I thought for a moment. “Hmm. Well, I would say if you are strangers, definitely no tongue, but it would probably be best not to go around kissing strangers; that would certainly land you in hot water.”
“What if you know the guy?”
“How well?”
“Very.”
“If we knew each other that well, he would know exactly how to proceed if he kissed me.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m saying he would instinctively know by how I respond to his kiss whether he should risk slipping me his tongue.”
“You wouldn’t want him to ask?”
I laughed. “Uh. No. That would totally kill the mood. ‘Hey baby, would you like to feel some of my papillae?’”
