He was here.
Sunday nights at Easter Lanes was our jam: me and Kelly. I was a pain up people’s asses all week long. Friday and Saturday were given to pouring drinks and hoping none of my parolees violated at my second job, but Sundays were ours. Night off. We loved Molly Easter. She’d become a friend from doing a pottery class with Kelly, and when she’d told us she was taking over her dad’s old place but going to make it better, we were here. Every Sunday. We showed up. We supported how we could, but in the meantime it became a sanctuary to our group.
When I bowled, I was a whole different person.
No worries. No rules. I could come in wearing a mustache on my face, dressed as a trucker if I wanted. No one cared. They loved our bowling outfits, and everyone should bowl in an outfit. Serious business with a side of fun. Also, Sunday nights were not date nights. Those people never understood the mission of dressing for bowling.
I ground to a halt coming into the door, seeing him there. He was in a back booth, alongside the wall with another guy across from him. There were only a few booths on that wall, set across from the bar. I stopped and stared. I couldn’t help myself, and Kelly walked into me.
“Hey, what are you—ooh.” She breathed in. “Who is that?!”
“You a cop?”
The condemnation from him as he asked that question, how cold he’d been.
I shivered now, remembering, but more remembering from the warmth I’d felt a second earlier.
As if feeling my gaze, his eyes turned my way.
I waited, expecting shock. There was none, and that spread shock through me.
I frowned, but then I was just sucked in by his gaze because he was all-consuming. I felt burned from the inside out. God, he was gorgeous. He’d been in a business suit at the hockey game, but this time he was in a white shirt, a leather jacket, and I knew without seeing that his jeans were some serious quality. He leaned forward, those clear eyes never wavering from me, and then he drew back. His drink in hand and still holding my gaze, he raised the glass to his mouth. His throat moved as he took a long drink, and god, I hated how pretty he was.
My heart was pushing out into my chest, trying to get free.
This guy. I didn’t know him, and I made up my mind. I did not want to know him, ever.
“Jess—” Kelly’s voice tore me out of whatever spell I’d been in, and I wrenched myself around, forcibly walking in the opposite direction. It took a second before I comprehended I was going straight to the arcade game area, but dammit, I gritted my teeth and kept on. I needed to be away from him, so I was committing, going to the bathroom in the back. I needed a breather, because even walking away from him, I could feel his gaze on me.
I pushed through to the bathroom. Two teenage girls were in there, and both jumped at the ferocity of me.
“Get out,” I said.
One squealed. The other started to glare. “Who do you think—” She cut herself off, grimacing as her friend grabbed her arm and yanked her behind her. She rushed out as Kelly was stepping inside. She held the door for them, watching them run out before letting the door close and coming in farther behind me.
I was at the sink, glaring at the mirror, watching her warily because there was no way that response from me was going to go unspoken about.
She was cautious, moving to the sink beside me. “Uh . . . you going to fill me in? Who was that guy?”
“The asshole from the hockey game.”
Her eyebrows pinched down. She took a moment, and then understanding dawned. “Him?! That’s the dude who’s pissed you’re a cop?”
I was gritting my teeth again because it didn’t matter. “Why the fuck is he here?”
“Let’s go ask him.” Her voice was upbeat, and she was all smiles now.
“Why are you smiling?”
Her grin turned more Cheshire, and she leaned back, getting settled as she folded her arms over her chest. “Because that guy, my friend, wants to bang the fuck out of you, and you’re going to let him.”
“What? No!” Yes!
She snorted. “I took him in for only a few seconds, and I could tell right away that that is not a dude who comes to Easter Lanes for bowling. He’s here for you. He totally knew you were coming, and that means he asked around about you.”
I was shaking my head. “No way. That’s—”
“Totally what’s going on. He wants you.”
“I’m a cop. That’s an issue for him. I don’t want to fuck someone who has a problem with that.”
Kelly snorted again and turned on the water. After wetting her fingers a bit, she turned it off, took my shoulders, faced me toward her, and then began running her fingers through my hair.
I knocked her hand away. “What are you doing?”
She ignored me and went right back to shifting through my hair. “Giving you a little bit of a ‘wet’ look. Guys love that shit.”
“Agh.” I twisted away from her.
He came here. Here. I was always happy here. It was my happy place, and he had invaded it. I was in the bathroom, stewing and avoiding him, and that wasn’t me.
Kelly took my groan the other way. “Totally. You go out there and show him who’s boss. Just make sure that extends to the bedroom, and”—she lowered her voice because I was opening the door, and whispered loudly—“tell me all about it in the morning.”
I shook my head because none of that was going to happen. Raising my hand up, I gave her the middle finger over my shoulder. Kelly just laughed. When we went back out, bypassing the arcade section, I saw the two girls that I’d barked at hadn’t left. They stood off to the side, whispering with each other, and had joined a whole other group of teenagers. Boys and girls. A few of them looked like future delinquents, but maybe that was just my profession coming out of me.
I refused to look at his booth, even though I felt his attention as soon as I cleared the teenager section. Yep. Totally refusing. The back of my neck was getting hot, but still refusing.
I marched up to Molly, who was behind the counter tonight. Five five. I would’ve classed her weight at 116. To me, she was tiny. A few freckles on her face. Strawberry-blonde hair. Wide blue eyes. Molly was so pretty, but it was almost wasted since she took care of this bowling alley with most of her time. I knew there was bad blood between her and her dad, but we weren’t the type of friends who shared that kind of personal stuff. It was mostly bowling, lighthearted laughs, though Molly was a kind soul. There were stories about how she could overreact. Her staff called it “the switch.” But I’d not seen that side of her. Sometimes she manned the bar; tonight it was the bowling section. She took one look at me, and her eyebrows shot up to her forehead. Her gaze trailed behind, and she asked Kelly, “Do I want to know?”
“No,” I answered.
Kelly came up to the counter beside me and breathed, excitedly, “Yes.”
“Now I really want to know.”
“It’s so exciting.” From Kelly.
I was going to ignore both of them, except I pointed at my usual shoes. “Please tell me you haven’t rented those out to anyone this week?”
Molly didn’t move at first. She stood back, her hands still holding on to the counter, and her gaze went from me to Kelly, who I could tell from the corner of my eye was nodding her head, and Molly sighed, reaching back for the shoes I always wore, the ones I bought specifically for me. She placed them on the counter. “You know I wouldn’t. These are yours. I just hold space for them.”
“I want mine too!”
Kelly’s exuberance was getting on my nerves. I knew this was how she’d react, the ever romantic she was. She also just really liked sex, and good sex. I heard porn sounds coming from her room on a regular basis, and I was pretty sure she just had it as background noise sometimes.
Molly was chuckling and shaking her head to herself as she set us both up. We’d play four games. It was our usual number, but I was tempted to say we’d only do two tonight, but then Kelly nudged my elbow. “Our bowling friends are here.”
It was time to bowl.
