Me: Promise.
Jack: The Office and Naked & Afraid
Me: AND?
Jack: and Ice Road Truckers
Me: OMG
Jack: It was compelling, okay.
Me: No, I believe you.
Jack: I had to Google Pushing Daisies.
I huffed another quiet laugh and typed,I’m still bitter about that one. It deserved more than one season.
Me: Favorite bands?
And the dots to indicate Jack was typing appeared again, as if by late-night magic.
We kept going, and some of the tightness wrapped around me, the kind preventing me from sleeping earlier, loosened its hold. My favorites were innocuous rather than damning. Confessions in the dark that wouldn’t have made sense in the light of day. These were lists I didn’t mind making. They were nostalgic and warm, rather than brittle mistakes or obligations holding me hostage, keeping my mind from rest.
I smiled more into the night than I could remember smiling inside this house in a very long time. I learned about Jack’s favorite music and foods, the books he reread regularly, and the authors that he auto-bought. The way he took his coffee—black at home or an oat milk latte at a coffee shop—and his favorite sports to watch—basketball, hockey, and baseball, in that order. I was surprised by his honesty and giddy with the feeling of learning about someone new for the first time in quite a while.
And just like a weirdo on the internet, it was easier to be honest behind a screen. I was able to forget how twisted up Jack made me feel when he was just three bouncing dots. The one-sided attraction that made me awkward and tongue-tied in person was muted in the artificial glow of my phone. The hazy memories of that night in his apartment weren’t front and center at the moment.
At some point, Jack’s three favorites idea must have worked because I woke up to an alarm going off, my phone still clutched in my hand.
After silencing the noise, I blinked groggily until my screen came into focus. And there, at 4:48 a.m., after I’d failed to reply to Jack’s request for my three favorite GIFs, he’d typed his final message.
Jack: Good night, Clyde. Sleep tight.
six
BONNIE
By six thirty the following afternoon, I was dragging.
My late night—or early morning, however you wanted to look at it—had caught up with me, and no amount of coffee could help. But I couldn’t bail on bowling league tonight. It had been my idea initially—before my divorce—to form a team with my family and friends.
I’d asked Larry to participate, but my cousin had said there was no way we were getting her to put her feet into shoes that were still warm and moist from someone else’s body. Apparently, bowling was a hard no for her, even when I’d suggested she buy her own bowling shoes like I did.
Becca, our newest resident of Kirby Falls and my cousin Will’s fiancée, had a knitting group on Wednesdays and couldn’t join us. And Chloe, my good friend who worked at Grandpappy’s, had other obligations keeping her busy.
So our team became the Orchard Sisters with just me and Mac, and then my best friend, Candace, and her older sister, Joan, both of whom were Brady’s sisters and worked at the apple farmacross the street from Grandpappy’s. We met every two weeks for league night down at the Lucky Strike Lanes.
I wasn’t a skilled bowler on the best of days, but tonight’s performance was sure to be in the gutter, literally. I’d mostly wanted to start a team for the social aspect—something fun to do with my friends and family that wasn’t just book club once a month.
Looking back, I could see that I’d been lonely in my marriage. And then that marriage had fallen apart. Now, ironically, socializing was one of the last things I wanted to do. Mostly due to the fact that Danny also participated in a bowling league with his coworkers and friends from down at the garage.
The Begley Auto Boys were currently at the opposite end of the alley, thanks to Jemma, who worked behind the counter and handled league night. She’d greeted me tonight and called Danny a “fuckface who deserved the shittiest lane in the place.”
It had been nice of her. Better than being asked how I was doing every five minutes.
“How are you doing?” Mac asked suddenly, holding out a plastic container of nachos. The cheese was violently orange.
I shook my head at the offered snack and kept entering our names into the score-keeping software. “I’m good.”
