Once Vice got behind the wheel, I fastened my seat belt and looked over at him. “You look nice.”
He chuckled. “‘Preciate it.”
The drive took us further into the city, and the closer we got to downtown, the more I tried to figure out where he was taking me, but I refused to ask. When he finally pulled into a parking garage and I recognized the building, I looked over at him.
“Bowling?”
“You got a problem with bowling?”
“No. I just wasn’t expecting it.”
“What you expecting?”
“I don’t know. Another restaurant.”
“We can eat here.”
I laughed. “Okay.”
The place was nicer than the bowling alleys I remembered going to when I was younger. Music played throughout the building, the lights were low, and a full bar ran along one side of the room. Toward the back were private lanes with couches instead of the hard plastic seats I remembered, and I looked around as we followed an employee through the building.
“Okay. This is nice…” I said.
Vice nodded in agreement and placed his hand against the lower part of my back as we followed the employee toward our lane. The touch was barely anything, but I felt it the entire way.
Once we got settled, I sat down to change my shoes while Vice ordered food and drinks. When the server walked away, I looked up at him. “What did you order me?”
“Margarita.”
“What if I don’t like—” I threw my hands up, not trying to sound ungrateful or anything. “Thank you.”
“You like ‘em.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And how do you know?”
“You ordered one the other night.”
I paused with one shoe in my hand. I had to bite down on my bottom lip to keep from blushing as I looked away. He remembered that.
The first game started with Vice talking entirely too much shit for somebody who claimed he didn’t care whether he won. After he knocked down nine pins on his first throw, I leaned back against the couch and narrowed my eyes at him.
“You bowl often?”
“Nah.”
“Liar.”
Vice turned around. “Why I gotta be lying?”
“Because nobody who doesn’t bowl stands like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you know what you’re doing.”
He picked up his ball again and winked at me. “I know what I’m doing with most shit.”
I stared at him for a second. “That sounded exactly how you meant it to sound, didn’t it?”