“Who’s the one doing the stalking now, Styker?” He grins, his palm going to rest on the counter.
I look over at Misha who’s been watching the whole thing. She rolls her eyes but picks up her phone and walks to the other side of the counter. Deciding to go about her business.
I step closer to Lucas but make sure to keep a safe distance. After what I said to him, I don’t have any right to assume I’m allowed to stand as close as I want.
“I…uh—I had to talk to you.” I clear my throat.
He arches his eyebrow. “That so?”
My eyes start searching around for his date yet again, even though Lucas technically isn’t mine so I can’t shoot daggers at said girl but man do I want to.
“Where’s your date?” I can’t help but ask.
Lucas raises his eyebrow because he knows that I’m definitely not supposed to have that information but he doesn’t ask how I got it either.
Lucas glances back over at the group of men he was with. “Tell you what.” He pulls a five dollar bill from his wallet, slapping it down on the counter and motioning for Misha to come back over. “We can talk but only if you can beat me at my own game.”
This isn’t at all what I was expecting when I came here but I’m not complaining. “You’re on, Callahan.”
It doesn’t take long after I lace up my bowling shoes for Lucas to introduce me to the Alley Gators. I laugh at the name and Lewis, one of the league’s members, tells me he was rooting for Gutter Dusters and I completely understand why the team did not go with that name.
Tonight, the guys are just playing a friendly game amongst themselves so they were split into teams already. At some point, the game turns into half the guys rooting for me and the other half rooting for Lucas.
“This is the tie breaker, Denise. You got this.” Charles, the coolest one of the bunch in my opinion, pats my shoulder and I smile up at him.
“He’s the one that’s gotta worry, Charlie.”
He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and I’ve quickly learned that’s his way of saying good luck. I narrow my eyes in Lucas’s direction to see him already watching me. He’s sitting, leaning back in his seat, legs spread apart and arms folded over his chest.
He winks but I don’t have time to be distracted by butterflies in my stomach, so I look away and reach down to grab a ballbefore waking up to the lane. I take a deep breath and position myself to roll.
Lucas made a strike this frame, leaving his team with one hundred and eighty-five points. My team is behind by almost ten points and during my first roll of the frame, I only managed to knock down four of the ten pins. Leaving us at one hundred and seventy-nine points. Which means I need to knock down the remaining six pins.
The red bowling ball hits the floor with a loud thud. I stand up straight, watching it roll with urgency toward the end of the lane.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
The bowling ball brushes past the last pin, causing it to wobble. I hold my breath and the guys remain silent behind me, waiting but the pin remains standing. I just made our team lose by one goddamn point. Lucas’s team shoots up from their seats, clapping and cheering.
I turn toward Charles and my team with a wince. “Sorry guys.”
They smile and shake their heads, some patting my shoulder and telling me I did good. As cool as these guys are, I’m more torn up about losing my shot to talk with Lucas.
Lewis slings his arm over Lucas’s shoulders, going on about how he has to join the league and that they’ll even get a shirt made for him.
Lucas laughs. “I’ll think about it.”
His gaze lands on me, Lewis’s eyes following. He gives me a thumbs up before patting Lucas’s shoulder and stepping back toward the other guys.
Lucas and I both meet halfway.
I don’t want to go back home without talking to him but I can’t force him to listen to anything I have to say. I’m going to just have to accept defeat and sit with the fact that Lucas is standing right in front of me, yet he feels out of reach.
“Come on.” He grabs my elbow. “Let’s talk somewhere quieter.”
“But I lost.”
He shrugs. “I won’t hold it against you.”