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And consequences be damned, I wanted him to make sweet love to me.
I just wanted to feel that again. I needed to feel that yearning and that sense of completeness. I needed that emotional and physical connection with a man again. I felt guilty for acknowledging those needs, but there they were. And I knew that Ed would want me to move on.
But I couldn’t with Gary. It was just too risky.
Chapter Five
Gary
“Strike!”
I heard Max yell behind me so loudly it almost startled me into jumping out of my formation as I watched my bowling ball collide with the pins and take them all down in one big crash. I loved that sound so much. Bowling was one of those past times of mine that I had never let go of. Ever since I was twelve and my dad taught me the basics of the game, I had fallen in love with hit. For a bit, I was even interested in pursuing it as a full time career, but I never really had that level of talent and ball mastery.
But I still played at least twice a week, and often much more.
Tuesday nights were our bowling league night. Max, Richie, Shawn, Charlie, and I would go to Jack’s Bowlarama and take on team after team, week after week, and drink a few beers along the way. It was a fun, leisurely activity that we enjoyed whether or not we actually won, which
it was about a fifty-fifty split on that.
“That’s it,” Richie said. “That’s the game. Good shot!”
I high fived my friends and we shook hands with the guys on the other team. This game had been a real nail biter, and somehow at the last minute I had pulled a strike out of somewhere and we had achieved victory. I felt good. The stress of the week was slowly melting off my shoulders. The crew had already responded to two nasty fires this week so far and I was hoping that the rest of the week might go much more smoothly. Of course in both fires no one was hurt, and we were able to salvage most of the property, so it could have been far worse.
“Good job,” Charlie said. “That’s how it’s done.”
“Well, it all wouldn’t have been down to me if you had actually pulled your weight this week,” I teased him. “You bowled a one twenty. That’s lame, dude.”
We all averaged over two hundred per game, especially Charlie. He was usually a great bowler. Tonight he had been off his game. I thought he might have been hung over at first, but I could see that wasn’t it. There was something going on though. It wasn’t like him to have such a bad night.
“I told you, I tweaked my wrist last night,” Charlie said.
“Doing what?” I asked.
“Do we even want to know?” Richie joked.
Charlie gave him a mocking, laughing face. “I was helping my dad move something out of his garage. I guess I didn’t notice he stopped lifting because he got a back spasm, and the weight of this damn thing toppled back on me and I barely got out of the way before it dinged my wrist completely. So, cut me some slack.”
I laughed and shook my head. Charlie was always getting into something weird and having uneventful things happening to him. He was a fun, entertaining guy to be around, but his life was full of all sorts of weird antics and crazy stories.
“Ok, I’m sorry,” Richie said in a very condescending voice. “We didn’t know…”
We all shared a laugh. Charlie sighed, disgusted. “You guys suck.”
“We know this,” I said. “It’s part of our team motto.”
I grabbed my ball off the return and placed it in my bag. Then I sat down to change my shoes. Charlie sat down beside me. “So, what are you doing this weekend?”
I tried to think. “I thought I might go skydiving, or maybe hop on a plane to Niagara Falls, but nothing is set in stone, yet. Why?”
He ignored my jokes. “The Cubs are playing the Braves. I got an extra ticket. Wanna go?”
“Sure. That sounds good.”
“Awesome.”
“Why do you have an extra ticket?”
“A date I had fell through.”
