“Let’s bowl,” Josh suggested.
“Please,” Carina said breathily, obviously thankful for an escape from awkward introductions and friends sizing each other up in odd displays of masculinity.
We all went to choose our bowling balls and entered our names into the scoreboard, then Dae was up first. He managed to get a strike and sat down, looking pleased with himself. Had I been here to win, I already would’ve been feeling pretty sorry. I sucked at bowling.
Then went Kellan, Josh, Carina, Grey, and finally, me. I stepped up to the line, praying that I wouldn’t make a total fool of myself. My first ball went into the gutter. I cringed as I watched it make its way oh so slowly to the back, where it harmlessly passed the pins.
“Do we need to get out the gutter bumpers for you?” Kellan called from his chair.
I shot him the middle finger in response and approached with my second ball. This one was a bit more successful, knocking down three pins. It wasn’t much better. I glanced up at the scoreboard. I was already in last place.
“I’m going to get a couple of beer pitchers,” I announced. “Anyone want to come with me?”
Josh and Kellan exchanged a glance that told me they didn’t think adding alcohol to the situation was a good idea. While they might be right to worry, things had been fine so far, so I didn’t share their concerns.
When no one else volunteered, Grey got to his feet. “I’ll go.”
Josh’s and Kellan’s looks of concern deepened, but they didn’t say anything.
I blinked. I had expected anyone but Grey to volunteer. “Great,” I said, trying not to sound flustered.
We made our way to the bar and ordered.
“Thank you for inviting us tonight,” Grey said while we waited for our pitchers. “I was worried that we’d say we were friends then never talk again.”
“I’m glad you came,” I said. “I honestly wasn’t sure you’d say yes when I asked.”
“I meant what I said about us being friends.” Grey gave me a strange look, his eyes darting up and down as if to take me all in.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked, suddenly self-conscious.
“No reason,” Grey said. “You look nice tonight, Ethan.”
Warmth spread across my cheeks. “And you’re breaking the rules.” I grabbed the pitchers as the bartender set them down. “No flirting, remember?”
“It’s not flirting. It’s a statement of fact,” Grey said, but he thankfully dropped it as we headed back. “Why’d you choose bowling if you clearly suck at it?”
“First of all, I don’t suck,” I said loftily.
He raised an eyebrow.
“Okay I suck, but it seemed like a safe choice where everyone could have fun,” I said right as we arrived at the table.
Carina was just finishing up her turn with a spare, and I knew I would lose the game.
“Your turn, babe,” she said, giving Grey a kiss on the cheek before sitting down with the guys.
Josh’s eyes bored into me as he inspected me for a reaction, but I refused to have one. Instead, I sat and divided up the glasses, pouring beer for everyone at the table.
Despite alcohol’s tendency to make tenuous situations worse, it somehow didn’t ruin the night. Everyone drank, bowled, and had a blast. I played the worst out of everyone by far, coming up fifty points behind the second-to-last-place person—Carina. It didn’t matter, though. I was just happy to hang out with everyone, especially Grey. Nothing could ruin my mood, notlosing, not Carina’s gentle touches on Grey’s knees or the kisses she gave him on his cheek. It was all easy enough to ignore with witnesses in the room.
Even Josh and Kellan had a good time. Josh discovered pretty quickly that Dae was premed, and they had a lot of overlap in coursework, so they began chatting about terms so foreign to me that they might as well have been speaking another language. Meanwhile, Kellan and Grey began chatting about video games of all things, and when they weren’t talking, Kellan was more than happy to keep me distracted.
Everything was going great, and the night was coming to a close when Grey and I stood at the same time, needing to go to the bathroom.
I paused for an awkward beat. “I’ll wait,” I said. “You can go first.”
“Don’t be silly.” Grey looked at me through the hair that had fallen over his eye. “The bathrooms have stalls.”
