Probably both.
Yeah, probably both. Seven work?
Seven works.
I put the phone down and looked at the egg sandwich.
Bowling. That was safe. It was loud, chaotic, and involved rental shoes and primary colors. It was the absolute antithesis of a quiet kitchen sink. There was nothing loaded about bowling.
I picked up the sandwich and took a bite.
It wasn't bad, actually.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Madison
Cedar Falls Bowl was exactly what it looked like from the outside—loud, slightly sticky underfoot, and permeated by that universal smell of rented shoes and old popcorn. There were neon lights, the rhythmic crash of pins, and a pop song from three years ago playing through speakers that had seen better days.
Lily stood in the entrance, taking it all in with wide eyes.
"It's loud," she said.
"It gets louder," Jack said.
She looked at him. Then back at the lanes. Then she straightened slightly, the way she did when she'd decided something was going to be fine, and walked in.
Jack caught my eye over her head. Something in his face that was almost a smile.
We got our shoes. Lily’s were red, a color she approved of with a single, sharp nod. Mine were two sizes too big—a universal bowling alley experience I’d learned to accept as my lot in life. We found our lane at the far end, safely distanced from a rowdy group of teenagers who were taking up three lanes and doing very little to improve the ambient noise level.
Lily examined the scoring screen with great seriousness. "How do you get a strike?"
"Knock all the pins down in one go," Jack said.
"Has anyone ever gottenallstrikes?"
"A perfect game," Jack told her. "It’s rare. One in a million for most people."
She considered the pins at the end of the lane. "I'm going to try for that."
"Lily, it’s your first time bowling," I pointed out.
She looked at me, her expression entirely flat. "So?"
Jack made a sound behind me. It was a low, huffing noise, and I was fairly sure that was him suppressing a laugh. I ignored him and selected the lightest ball available, a pale pink six-pounder that Lily immediately claimed as her own. We negotiated a diplomatic system where she got the pink one and I took the eight-pound blue, a choice my wrist was already beginning to regret.
Lily went first. She lugged the pink ball toward the line with both hands, her jaw set with the intensity of someone approaching an important task. She released it. The ball didn't so much roll as it did wander, eventually losing interest and drifting directly into the gutter.
She turned around, expression blank.
"The floor is slippery," she said.
"It is," Jack agreed, entirely straight-faced.
She went back, picked up the ball, and tried again. This time it curved wildly to the left and took out two pins on the edge, which she accepted with a nod like she'd planned it.
Jack went next. He didn't spend time choosing a ball; he just grabbed a heavy black one, stepped to the line without any ceremony, and let it go. It was a clean, thunderous strike. Thesound of it echoed off the back wall, loud and final. He turned around, looked at neither of us, and sat back down to pick up his drink.