“This is going to be a blood bath, isn’t it?”
“You aren’t competitive, are you, Lou?”
“Oh, very,” I say, registering his surprise. “You didn’t expect that?”
“Not in the least.”
“We may be here all night,” I say. “Or until I beat you at least once.”
“You can try,” he says with all the confidence in the world.
It turns out, Grady only knows how to throw strikes and for the first several rounds, all I throw is gutter balls. I lose. A lot. The laughter is as abundant as Grady’s high score. By the time I admit defeat, my sides and face hurt from it all.
He fed me cheap beer and fries with unnaturally yellow cheese sauce on top, which we ate with forks. “There’s no way to know how many fingers have been in those ball holes,” he’d said.
The best part of the evening was how often he touched me. Giving me high fives when I managed to hit a pin or two, placing his hands on my body to help me perform better, he even picked me up and spun me around the one and only time I picked up a spare.
I’d have let him spin me for hours, his arms around my waist, mine around his neck. It could have only been better if his lips met mine. I wanted that several times tonight. Several other times, I thought he did too.
The way he’d pause whatever he was doing, simply to look at me, or how he’d walk backward so he could stare longer. There’s a longing there that matches my own, easily recognizable because I know it so well.
“I demand a rematch,” I say when we reach my truck.
“I do like a demanding woman,” he says in my ear, his front to my back.
“Do you?”
“Make another demand and see for yourself.”
Fourteen
Grady
“What is the opposite of two? A lonely me, a lonely you.”
Richard Wilbur
I’ve been hard all night. Every pin she struck was accompanied by a celebratory shimmy, her arms in the air, breasts bouncing. It alone would have driven me wild. But that, compared with her smile and that god damned addicting honey scent, had me wanting to strip her naked and lick her clean for hours.
When I spun her around after her spare, I craved her long legs to lock around my waist. I want to be over her, under her, inside. So deep that I’ll never forget the feel of her. I want to fuck her so thoroughly she’ll only ever crave me.
As much as I hate that sociopathic asshole she lived with before, I understand wanting to possess her. It’s a primal instinct deep down to claim her as mine.
The difference is, I’d want her to lay claim to me in return. Balanced scales, an equal partnership. One where I could hear that laughter every day. The one that she does when she experiences something new.
I want to witness every new thing with her. Every time she grows another petal on her bloom, I want to be on the sidelines taking it all in.
It’s too soon to be as into her as I am, but I can’t help it. She pulls me in with her magnetic smile, her timid braveness, that quiet strength she’s finding within herself. When she forgets what her life has been like, she’s easygoing, up for anything. Free.
A song came on while we were bowling, something old that I wasn’t familiar with. She refused to roll another ball until thesong was over, opting to, instead, dance and sing along. Half of the other bowlers stopped to watch, a few other women even joined in at their own lanes, pulled in by that natural charisma she hides away so often.
“Kiss me,” she finally says, trembling in my arms. I bury my head in her hair, finding the nape of her neck and dotting it with my lips. She moans softly. “That’s not how I meant.”
Spinning in my arms, she faces me, her head tipped up. Without hesitation, I drop my mouth to hers.
Honey. Sweet, woody with a hint of spice. She gasps, my tongue plunges in, sliding against hers as I pull her closer with an arm wrapped around her back. Her hands that were settled on my hips, glide down to my ass, holding me just as tight as I hold her.
Louisa isn’t timid, now. She takes, and I give. Another minute or two of this and I’d give her anything.
