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Stepping up to the lane, I try to not focus on the squidgy feeling under my toes in the rented shoes and concentrate instead on the elusive ten pins. This time I’ve just got to keep it out of the gully. It shouldn’t betoohard.
I swing the ball and give that little jump, curtsey thing that Freddy makes look so easy. The ball glides down the middle of the lane, and I have a split-second moment of satisfaction watching it go the right way. Then my right foot steps over the black line and I slip, my feet flipping high in the air as I fall onto my arse with a painful whack.
The whole place is silent as I lie on my back, staring at the ceiling. The bright lights glare down, blinding me. If I could die right now, that would be just about perfect.
Freddy falls to his knees at my side. At first, I think it’s an act of concern, but then I feel him shaking with laughter next to me. “Come on, Amber.” He pulls me up by my hands until I’m sitting with my legs sprawled at awkward angles. “The good news is you got four down that time.” I glance down the lane and see that I have in fact knocked down four pins. “Do you want to take the other shot?”
“No, I want to go home,” I grouch.
“Come on, I’ll help you.” He straightens up, wincing slightly as he puts weight on his right leg.
“Oh, don’t do the whole,I’m so injuredthing with your leg. I just had a smack down in the middle of a packed bowling alley.”
“It’s true! My spinal cord damage is nothing compared to that, what was I thinking?” His grin flashes wickedly and I pull a very unattractive face in return.
He grabs my hand and holds the ball for me to take. “Just relax and lean into me,” he says directly against my ear.
I fit my back into the curve of his chest. It still feels as firm as it did ten years ago. A ripple of excitement runs through me. It’s just a shame I’m not as firm as I was ten years ago.
“Ready?” Moving my arm along with his, he guides me with his hand, his body pressing into mine as he leans me forward. His legs fit tight into the back of my thighs.
When I release the ball, it slides perfectly down the lane before slightly curving to the right and taking down the remaining six pins.
“See, you can do it.” He doesn’t move away from me. His lips brush along the skin on the back of my neck.
My heartbeat kicks up a notch and then another as he plants a kiss at the place where my swept-up hair meets the top of my neck. A shudder of pleasure tingles down my spine. “Fancy getting out of here?” he whispers.
“No, I’m really enjoying this. I think we should book another go.” I spin and face him.
“I’m going to have to take you off that Saint pedestal I’ve had you on. You’re actually a pain in the arse.” His hands slide along my shoulders, firm fingers running down my arms.
“Is the older me more of a challenge?” I add a tone of defiance into my voice, goading him on. “Can’t you cope?”
He laughs and lifts one single finger to tilt my chin until my eyes meet his and his mouth is millimetres from mine. “Oh, I can cope, Amber. That won’t be a problem.”
I wait for him to kiss me, but he doesn’t. He stares at me, reading me, looking for something. The same way he did when we were young, and I was never sure if he found what he was looking for. I guess for the last ten years I figured he hadn’t. Now, I’m not so sure.
“Come on,” he says with a tug of my hand. “Let’s go and eat. I’m starving and I think this game could take a while!”
Laughing, he leads me away from my disastrous attempt at bowling, and I breathe a serious sigh of relief; hopefully that’s the humiliating part of the evening over.
“So.”He leans over the table and wipes a smear of spare ribs sauce off my chin.“You haven’t been bowling much while you’ve been gone?” This is what he does. He talks about my absence like I’ve been gone months not years. In some ways it makes me feel better, in others it makes me feel a whole lot worse.
“It’s hard to go bowling with a baby when you don’t have a babysitter.”
His eyes flash with something, but he doesn’t say anything. He nods his head in agreement, popping another chopstick load of noodles into his mouth.
‘Why did you choose bowling tonight?” I try to deflect the conversation away from me for a while.
He thinks as he chews, mulling it over. “I guess I’ve had some time to reflect on the months we spent together.” He starts to load his chopsticks again. I just try to get mine to sit right in my hand. “I realised we never really did any of the normal date stuff. It was kind of aBAM!situation.”
I nod. There is nothing to disagree with in that statement. After I left and while I waited for Isaac to arrive, it was all I could think of. I ran over the few months that Freddy and I spent together over and over in my mind. All I could work out in the end, was that it was as he said the day we broke up. It was too much, too fast.BAM! The fact I couldn’t face going home to tell him about Isaac was yet more evidence that it wasn’t meant to be. Well, that’s what the eighteen-year-old me worked out, anyway.
Freddy continues, “Guess I figured as I was getting second chances then I should do something different.” A mischievous smile flashes. “Obviously, if I’d known how rubbish you’d be at bowling, I would have taken you to the cinema and we could have made out in the back row.”
“I guess the other girls you’ve dated were better at bowling?” I give up with the chopsticks and pick up the china spoon meant for serving the rice and use that to shovel food into my mouth.
His eyes hold mine. It’s another long look. Then he grins. “Now, Amber, is this when we have that conversation?” I flush crimson when I realise what he’s talking about. The memory of the first time we had ‘The Conversation’, floods back and smacks me straight in the face. We’d only been dating about a week the first time, and if I remember correctly, I came off looking the worst. He told me he’d only been with one person before.
