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Why did this feel so awkward? Was it me? Was it her? Was it us together? Was this some sign from the universe that I should cut and run?
We hadn’t actually spoken that much on Thanksgiving and this date had been largely (read: entirely) engineered by Chase. And, for whatever reason, all of my usual small talk and—dare I say it—charm, had spontaneously abandoned me.
Lindsay’s blue eyes darted to the box under my arm, expectation lighting them up, and I realized I’d made a miscalculation agreeing to pick her up while holding a gift for someone else. Of course she thought it was for her. But it was too late to do anything about that now, so I just smiled, again, and made out like I was admiring her sparsely furnished apartment. It was little more than a large armchair, a couple of beanbags, and what looked like a camping table.
“Nice place,” I lied. It wasn’t that bad, but it also wasn’t what I’d been expecting.
“No it’s not,” she said with a small laugh. “I mean, it’s fine, it was better. We had a third roommate, but he moved out and took most of the furniture with him, even the stuff that wasn’t his. Anyway, can I get you a drink?”
Being still wasn’t a good option for me right now. The nerves were making my skin pull tight over my bones, restless energy buzzing with the need to move, to do. “How about we grab one there?”
“Sounds good. I’ll just get my coat.”
I went back to the door while she collected her things and I ignored the churning in my gut. I should not have agreed to this date. I didn’t date. I had mutually beneficial physical encounters, which, overall, I was perfectly happy with. Or I had been.
I didn’t want that with Chase, I wanted a whole lot more than that with Chase. But there was probably a better way of going about it than a double date with a woman I wasn’t interested in. There was that slight twinge of guilt again, because I was pretty sure that I was using Lindsay. It certainly wasn’t my intention, but the result was the same nonetheless. I’d be lying if I said there would be another date with just the two of us.
“All ready?” I asked as Lindsay appeared and I offered my elbow—because I wasn’t a complete dick and acting like a gentleman, even when you weren’t, never hurt.
She smiled, slipping her arm through mine. “Let’s do it.”
Bronco Bowl was less a bowling alley and more a bar and venue that happened to have some bowling lanes in it. Once upon a time it had been a full bowling alley but, after a fire over ten years ago, it was abandoned until Bronco Bowl opened and breathed new life into the old building. They’d done a good job, too, maintaining all the vintage charm of the original bowling alley then adding a full bar and kitchen, a small arcade at one end, and a stage for live music at the other. And, yes, as the name suggested, there was also a bucking bronco.
The sounds of bowling pins being toppled greeted us as we walked in and a wave of nostalgic familiarity washed over me. It wasn’t necessarily pleasant, but I remembered the first time I’d been taken bowling. Carmel, my nanny when I was around eight or nine, had brought me along to a family birthday party because my mother had refused to give her the day off. It was a peek inside another family and I liked it, but it also made me pine for brothers and sisters closer to my own age.
The unpleasant loneliness from that day wrapped itself around me now and the hairs at the base of my neck prickled through a spontaneous cold sweat.
But then I saw Chase seated at the bar and the tension in my muscles drained away as a smile tugged at my lips. It didn’t matter how I was feeling, seeing her had the power to make it better. It had always been that way, since that first day of freshman year she walked into the girls’ bathroom. She was a light. A sometimes grumpy, foul-mouthed light, but a light nonetheless.
Brady, who was facing the door, waved as he saw us approach and I had the urge to smack him over the head with one of the bowling pins. I didn’t blame him for so obviously wanting Chase, she was incredible after all, but it didn’t mean I wanted to sit back and watch him paw at her either. If he tried to pull some ‘let me show you how to bowl’ bullshit I might make good with one of those pins. Or, more likely, Chase would. Unless she’d changed her mind about him? The thought had my stomach bottoming out like I’d just gone over the crest of a roller coaster. It wasn’t an option.
My palms started to sweat as we drew closer, the box under my arm now a dead weight, nerves swirling with nausea. If I’d ever felt this way before, I couldn’t remember it.
“There you guys are!” Chase said, hopping down off her stool. Her smile was comical, her eyes wide, it was her bat signal and I had to cover my laugh with a cough, but it didn’t help to distract from the way my pulse had also sped up.
She was in a short skirt, the same color as the filling of her favorite pie, and it showed off the toned length of her legs. Her usual black, shit-kicker boots were on her feet and a black leather jacket hung over the back of her stool. Then there was her shirt. Her sheer shirt. I didn’t claim to know every item of Chase’s closest—I wasn’t a fucking creep—but when you see a person six, and sometimes seven, days out of seven you learned what was in their wardrobe. And that shirt … I had never seen that shirt before. It was black and sheer with the exception of the little black spots all over it which were doing nothing to obscure my view of the two black triangles that covered her breasts. Jesus Christ, how was I going to keep my mind on bowling? Or my own date, for that matter?
There was a round of hellos and kisses before Lindsay said, “Are we all ready to bowl?” She sounded like a game show host. Chase shot me another look, but this one saiddon’t fucking laugh at your date. And yes, thefuckingwas very much communicated in the glint of her eyes and slight crease of her nose. I winked and she glared a little harder.
“Let’s do it!” Brady said with an equal amount of enthusiasm, and the color drained from Chase’s face because it was time. She needed to part with her beloved boots and put on a pair of shoes that had probably seen more action than an eighties porn star.
Her panicked look had me swallowing another laugh and I handed her the box. She took it and her look morphed into one of curiosity and mild suspicion as she gave it an experimental shake.
“Just open it, Cheese. We’ll see you over at the desk.” I pressed a hand to Lindsay’s lower back and steered her away. I was retreating as fast and as far as I could without fleeing the actual building in an effort to look casual, just one friend giving another friend a gift.No big deal. We do this all the time. Totally natural. I didn’t want to walk away. I wanted to stand there and watch her face as she lifted the lid.
“You brought Chase a gift?” Lindsay asked as I dropped my elbows onto the blond timber desk. She was trying to sound casual, but there was an edge to her tone that betrayed her.
“It was either that or we’d lose our competition,” I said with an easy smile. When her brow pinched in confusion I nodded at all the shoes in front of us and added, “Chase has a thing about the shoes. Flat out refuses to wear them. We tried to go bowling in high school and she got all of us kicked out after getting drunk and then trying to bowl barefoot.”
“Oh my god.” Lindsay laughed, her eyes clearing. “What’s wrong with the shoes?”
“They’re disgusting,” Chase answered as she stepped up beside me. “And I wasn’t barefoot, I had socks on.”
“The result was the same.”
“It was,” she conceded, her eyes swinging up to meet mine. “Thank you for the shoes.”
I nodded and tried not to look like my heart was going to beat out of my chest. “You’re welcome, will you actually be bowling today?”
