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She took a deep breath, leaning back a little.
She was blinking rapidly. I reached over to a Kleenex box and grabbed a bunch for her.
I eased back onto my stool, watching Jess the whole time.
Breaking down in front of someone? I had no idea she had it in her. I was honored it’d been with me. I reached over, touching her arm. “Sorry for that.”
She laughed, letting out a few more tears. “No. I’m—it’s me. You said that about Sunday night, and you know. Sunday nights were our night. They still go?”
I nodded. “Every Sunday night. Jimmy comes in, wins the first game, and he’s started to just walk out. His mom brings back his shoes and pays now.”
She laughed, wiping at the corners of her eyes. “No more mentions of pop and pizza parties?”
“Nope. He now mentions that he’s going to go to the next WrestleMania event with Kelly, and then the whole walking-out thing. Those are the new routines.”
“Maria and Dax stay after?”
I nodded, my throat swelling up because I remembered a time when they were acting, well, not sane. “They, uh, they pretended to bowl for Kelly and Justin one night.”
“What?”
“Jimmy had left. I noticed they were pretending to hand off the bowling balls to people who weren’t there, and then pretending someone had bowled. They put up fake scores too.”
“Really?”
I nodded. “I cried the whole time when I saw that. Kicked everyone else out, which was like Bob and Monica, some of the regulars. They knew that I knew what they’d done, so they sat, and all of us pretended to have a drink with Kelly and Justin.” A few more tears slipped down my cheek. “It was one of the best nights of my life, drinking with ghosts.”
“I wish I’d been there.”
I checked my phone, saw the time. “They’re probably arriving right now. We could get there in time to witness Jimmy’s victory walk off.”
“That sounds epic.” She quieted. “It is Sunday night.”
We shared a look.
She said, “Your life could be in danger. I mean, if you’re looking for the person who owns a bowling alley, there’s probably a good chance she’d be at the bowling alley.”
“Um.”
“I have a gun.”
“Um.” Oh, boy. I could already hear Ashton railing into me.
She added, “I know how to shoot a gun.”
“Uh . . .”
“At this stage, you might be immune to gunfire. It might not faze you anymore.”
“Oh, boy.”
Her eyes danced. “I know we shouldn’t go. I know it’s stupid, but I want to go for two reasons. One, Kelly. She’d love it. She would already be changing and planning for the nightclub after.”
Kelly would so be doing that already. “She called me before they left.”
She went still. “What?”
“The night they left. Or before they were going to leave. She called me at the bowling alley. She said goodbye and asked me to watch over you because despite your stubbornness, you do need a friend to check in on you. She said it’s kinda like how you check in on your mother.”
She was blinking again. “I’m surprised she didn’t ask you to send pigeon videos to Sal.”
“She did that too.”
“No!”
I nodded. “She did.”
“That was her. Thinking about everyone else before they left.”
“That was her.”
We fell silent until Jess choked out, “I really miss her.”
I reached over and took her hand, and I held it while she cried some more.
“What was the second reason you want to go?”
She smiled, already standing from her seat. “To piss off Ashton. He deserves some payback.”
“Oh.”
She held her phone up. “How about this? I’ll call Trace. He’ll okay it, but he doesn’t need to tell Ashton?”
I sighed. “I’m going to get in so much trouble.”
But we went bowling, and I was hoping some ghosts would join.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
MOLLY
“Is that supposed to say closed?” Jess asked from her car.
The sign said CLOSED. Easter Lanes was closed.
I growled. “I’m going to take a fork and stab my cousin. I’ll keep stabbing him, little cuts, over and over again, until he’s bleeding out and he can’t move. The slowest and longest death possible.”
I was fully aware I was saying this in the presence of an ex-law enforcement worker, and that she was giving me a look as if, “Do you know who you’re saying that to?”
I didn’t care. Sunday was always a decent day for work, and he had closed my place! Also, I felt the switch starting to turn. It wasn’t just my dad who could flip it. It was family in general.
I turned to Jess. “I guarantee you that my cousin is still in bed, hungover from wherever he went last night, and if I find out that he closed early last night, I will blow a gasket.”
She stared at me and blinked once. “What’s his address?”
God, I loved my friends.
I gave it to her, and she programmed it in and took off. “Do you want to call Ashton?”
