by Debra Doxer
I turned to look at her. Nothing she’d said so far surprised me, except the last part.
“You want to know what I mean, don’t you?” Her smile turned sly.
I shrugged, feigning disinterest. “I guess, if you want to tell me.”
She laughed. “He pays attention to you is all I mean. He’s tuned in, anticipates when you need something, watches you when you’re not looking, glares at other guys when they look at you too long. I’ve never seen him do that with another girl. Like the time he followed you to the bathroom at the diner when your friend Theo got sick. He tried to stay in his seat, but he got all restless and kept worrying if you were okay. That’s when I knew someone had finally gotten to him.”
She thought she was making me feel good, telling me those things, and she was. But she was also poking at my regrets, making them fester.
“It’s not like that anymore,” I said quietly.
Her lips pressed together. “It could be. If he had his way.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“No, but I can see it.”
I made a noise of disbelief and turned to see what she was watching. After we’d both silently stared at Futurama for a while, Heather used the remote to turn down the volume.
“Jonah told me about Theo.” She glanced at me from the corner of her eye. “I was really sorry to hear that about him.”
My throat automatically tightened when I thought of Theo. All I could do was nod.
“I liked meeting him. He was funny, and kind of cute too.”
I smiled to myself, knowing he’d have loved to hear that.
“Does he have a girlfriend?”
My head slowly turned in her direction. “No. Why?”
“Just curious.” She shrugged.
When she looked back at the television, I decided I preferred coffee to Futurama and got up to make myself some.
“You could give him my number,” Heather blurted. “He could text me or something if he wanted to.”
I turned back to look at her, and she was picking at the chipped polish on her fingernails. “You want me to give him your number?” She’d thrown me, and I was hesitant to do it.
When she nodded, I cleared my throat and glanced toward the bathroom, wondering if Jonah was going to be back soon, hoping for an interruption.
“Is there a problem?” she asked.
“No,” I replied carefully. “You do know what he’s going through, right?”
“Yeah. I thought maybe he could use another friend.”
“A good friend? Yes. One who will bail when things get rough? And they will get rough. Not really, no.”
She scowled, offended. “Do I look like the bailing type?”
“No one looks like the bailing type until they’re actually bailing.”
Heather gave me a hard look, but it didn’t last long. “Look, I don’t think I’m going to bail. All I know is ever since that night at the diner, I’ve been thinking about Theo. And not because he’s sick, but because he’s him.”
Her words put a hesitant smile on my face. “Really?”
“Really.” Her tone was resolute.
I found myself reconsidering. Besides, Theo was a big boy. He could handle himself. “I guess everyone could use more friends. Give me your number and I’ll pass it on. I hope you know what you’re getting into. He tells the worst jokes ever, and he gets all cranky if you don’t laugh.”
Heather grinned, and the tension between us lightened. I hardly knew her, but I liked what I knew so far, and I wondered what Theo would think. With everything going on, would he even remember her?
Jonah reappeared, this time dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. The clean smell of my soap clung to him as he walked into the living room.
Heather leaned her head back to look at him. “Is the show over, Magic Mike?” She elbowed me, giggling.
Jonah stood over her and shook out his wet hair, spraying us both with water like a dog would.
Heather screeched, pushing at him as he laughed at her.
I chuckled at them, using my pajama sleeve to wipe the drops off my face. As the laughter faded, Jonah sat down in the chair across from us and settled his gaze on me. His eyes roamed over me as a wistful smile grew on his face. That smile did something to me. It made me feel warm and a little lighter. But his smile faded too quickly.
“I just spoke to my father. He’s giving you the weekend to tell me. If you won’t, you’ll have to tell him.”
Heather surprised me by grabbing my hand. “Don’t tell them anything if you don’t want to,” she said to me before glaring at Jonah. “Candy didn’t do anything wrong, and you’re treating her like she’s a criminal too.”
He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “She made a deal with him. She can’t go back on it. You know how that works.”
“I told you,” I said. “I never said anything to him.”
“You told me so that I’d tell him. I tried to warn you off.”
“You still shouldn’t have told Victor she agreed to the deal,” Heather said.
He shot her an annoyed look. “She only agreed to it so she could help her father. How exactly would that happen if I didn’t tell him?”
“Like Victor is going to help anyone but himself.”
“I already told her not to expect much.”
Frustration pushed me to my feet. “The Hoyts told me nothing, okay? It was a complete dead end. Tell your father that. I’m going to take a shower.”
“After the way you ran from him from last night, he won’t believe it,” Jonah said.
“She probably ran because your father is scary as hell.”
Grateful for my unexpected ally, I ignored the way my stomach rolled at the thought of Victor, and smiled at Heather before spinning and walking away. In my wake, I could hear them arguing about me, but I peeled off my clothes and stepped into the shower, wondering if just running away was my best option after all.
I ruminated on the idea. Did anyone know about Lorraine’s house besides my father? If things got too heated, that was where I would go. I could be safe there for a little while, and I felt less terrified knowing I had at least one option at my disposal.
***
“We’re going out,” Heather announced from the living room.
“Okay,” I said absently as I sat on my bed, staring at Alison Hoyt’s contact information on my phone. She’d made sure to give me her cell phone number before I left in case I needed anything. What I needed was the information for Theo, but I’d only asked her last night. It was probably too soon to start hounding her. Since the information I got from Lorraine led nowhere, Alison’s help was all the more critical now.
“No, I mean we’re going out, as in you’re going too.” Her voice was much closer, and I looked up to find Heather standing in my bedroom doorway.
“What?”
“You need a break from all the crap going on, and hiding in here so you won’t have to talk to Jonah is no way to spend the weekend. He promises not to bring anything up for the rest of the day. Besides, he couldn’t talk in front of your friends anyway.”
“My friends?”
She grinned, looking pleased with herself. “They’re coming too. We’re going cosmic bowling.”
Bowling? I made a face.
“You can bowl, right?” She eyed my hands.
Looking down at my fingertips still covered in Band-Aids, I considered using them as an excuse not to go. But it wouldn’t be the truth. I could probably hold a bowling ball.
“You’re telling me Jonah wants to go cosmic bowling?” I asked, having a hard time picturing it.
“He agreed to it.” She shrugged. “Come on. It’s better than sitting here all day. You can think about stuff until your head explodes when we get back later.”
I put down my phone. “Who’s going?”
“Oh, you know, the usual crowd from your school. I found that Ethan guy’s contact info in Jonah’s phone, and told him
to ask everyone.”
Groaning, I shook my head, but Heather wasn’t taking no for an answer. When she opened my closet door and began recommending outfits, I stood and nudged her out of my way. If Jonah could go bowling in the midst of my crises, I supposed I could too. Besides, waiting around for the weekend to pass while I thought of something feasible to tell Victor was already making me want to jump out of my skin. A distraction might not be a bad thing.
Splitz Happen was in the same shopping plaza as the pet store Jonah took me to the other day. There weren’t many things to do in Glenn Valley, but it did have a movie theater and a bowling alley I’d never been to before.
When we walked inside, blue and red strobe lights bounced around the walls and ceiling, and “Hey Mama” played loudly on the sound system. Between the music, the lights, and the crashing of balls hitting pins, cosmic bowling was giving me a case of sensory overload, and I hadn’t even gotten past the doorway.
As we walked inside, I spotted Parker and Ashley, which came as a not-so-pleasant surprise. I figured they’d think they were too cool for bowling. But since they’d obviously decided cosmic bowling meant they could wear nightclub attire in the middle of the afternoon, they’d shown up in their little black dresses. Parker’s dress hugged her curves and showed off her Playboy figure perfectly. In comparison, Ashley looked like a shapeless flagpole, which was probably how Parker liked it.
Nearly everyone else was in jeans, including Lea, Ethan, Jonah, and Malcolm. Malcolm’s girlfriend was there, making me believe she’d forgiven him for taking her to the Tiki Theater. Marta didn’t do jeans, from what I could tell. She wore her usual black leggings and a black sweater, which was exactly what I was wearing. All black. It suited my mood. Although unlike Marta, my eyes weren’t heavily lined in black and my lips weren’t blood red. Marta’s sweater was big and shapeless, while mine was a wraparound style, crossing low in the front and tying on the side. I was glad I’d gone with classy since slutty and dumpy were already taken.
After sizing everyone up, I counted the seconds in my head, wondering how long it would take for Parker to sidle up to Jonah. I didn’t even get to ten when she approached him. First she managed to touch his arm as she spoke. Then she laid her head on his shoulder and laughed about something. He politely ignored her, and she pretended not to notice. Same story. Different day.
Lea spotted me and came right over, looking like she wanted to tell me something. “I called Gregory,” she said, not bothering with hello or any other greeting, which was kind of her thing, I realized.
“Gregory?” I asked, drawing a blank.
“I know you wanted to fix me up with Drew’s friend, but I thought about what you said and decided you were right. I needed to stop waiting for something that was never going to happen, and find someone nice who would appreciate me. It was like a light went on in my head that Gregory could be that guy.”
I grinned. “Is he who you went to the homecoming dance with?”
Lea nodded. “I know I said he was boring but I was comparing him to Ethan, which wasn’t fair. Maybe he’s just nice, and I don’t know what nice looks like.”
“So you’re giving him another chance? That’s great.”
I thought of that first conversation I had with Jonah at the diner about what turned me on. I’d said nice guys, and at the time I thought he might be one, although he denied it. Turned out, he could be both nice and not so nice.
“We reserved a couple of lanes,” Ethan said from behind us. “How do you want to split up? Guys against girls?”
“That’s sexist,” Parker said, predictably not liking the idea.
Ethan turned to her. “No, it’s not. Saying guys are better at bowling than girls is sexist. Splitting us up by gender isn’t.”
Ignoring him, Parker scanned our group. “How about me, Ashley, Jonah, and Ethan against all of you?”
My eyes narrowed. She was so transparent.
“Wait a minute,” Heather said, looking at Ethan. “Is that what you actually think? That guys are better at bowling than girls?”
He put his hands up in mock surrender. “I just said it to make my point, although it is a statistical fact.”
Heather scoffed. “Where did you hear that?”
Jonah came up beside Ethan. “Probably where most people get information that’s based on little or no factual evidence. The Internet.”
Heather and I both chuckled, and my gaze locked with Jonah’s. He was smiling, looking happy. The sight of it made my heart skip. Neither of us had genuinely smiled or laughed in a very long time.
“We can’t divide teams by gender,” Malcolm said. “Marta never bowled before, and I told her I’d teach her.”
“Never?” Ashley asked, looking at Marta like she had two heads.
Marta made a face back at her, and Malcolm quickly decided they’d get their own lane.
“Perfect.” Parker grinned. “Me, Ashley, and Jonah in one lane, and the four of you in the other.”
Ethan tapped his finger to his chin. “I may be way out in left field, but I’m getting the feeling you want to bowl with Jonah.”
Parker put a hand on her hip with a sour expression.
“Should we ask Jonah what he thinks?” Ethan gave Jonah a pointed look.
Jonah shrugged. “I think I’d like to actually bowl at some point today.”
Ethan grinned. “Okay then. It’s settled. You get Parker and Ashley, and I get these lovely ladies.”
I rolled my eyes at Ethan as I wondered why Jonah hadn’t taken the opportunity to get out of bowling with Parker, who was looking very pleased with how things turned out.
We all rented our bowling shoes and then gathered at our lanes, which were side by side. After deciding Heather would keep score for our team, we finally started bowling.
Ethan was really good, which was no surprise. So was Jonah. Lea and I were both average to awful, and Heather was absolutely terrible.
“This doesn’t mean guys are better at bowling than girls,” Heather was quick to say. “It just happens to be true with this sampling of the population.”
“Uh-huh,” Ethan responded, laughing under his breath.
Each time Jonah took his turn, I couldn’t help watching him. My eyes drank in his long, lean form, but I wasn’t his only admirer. Besides Parker and Ashley, it seemed a lot of girls turned to look each time he was up. When he sat down again, Parker was always there in the seat beside him, taking every opportunity to brush against him or press her leg to his.
“Jonah thinks you don’t want to be around him,” Heather said by my ear. Obviously I’d been caught staring. “I’m pretty sure that’s why he didn’t object to bowling with those two.”
Knowing he was waiting for an answer from me, I had avoided him for most of the day, so I could see why he might think that. It didn’t look like he was reciprocating any of Parker’s over-the-top flirting, but he wasn’t brushing her off either.
My turn came and “Shut Up and Dance” by Walk the Moon came on at the same time. Parker and Ashley got to their feet, whooping loudly as they danced in their alley. Apparently they liked this song and were taking at least half the lyrics seriously.
They tried to get Jonah to join them but he shook his head, although he did watch, and their suggestive moves were putting a small smile on his lips. That smile reached right inside my chest and squeezed.
Trying to ignore the party going on beside me, I reached down to pick up a ball and glanced over my shoulder in time to see Ethan’s eyes go wide. When I turned to see what he was looking at, I spotted Parker straddling Jonah, who was still sitting in his chair. She’d stuck her chest in his face and was about to put her mouth on his.
Pain exploded in my fingers. I yelped, jerking my hand back as I realized I’d left it resting on the bowling ball when another one came shooting up from the ball return. My fingers had been caught between them.
Lea jumped to her feet. “Are you okay?”
Nodding, I
cradled my hand to my chest.
“Are you sure? You look like you’re about to cry.”
I was, but not over my fingers. “I’m fine,” I lied. “I’m going to the bathroom.”
“Want me to come with you?”
Embarrassed, I shook my head and left the bowling area, purposely not looking at anyone. I was seconds away from tears.
When I found the bathrooms at the other end of the building, I walked inside the dimly lit ladies’ room and the music faded to a dull roar. I released a heavy breath, thankful for the quiet.
One of the stalls was occupied, but otherwise I was alone as I grabbed a tissue and wiped at my eyes, sniffling softly. My fingers throbbed with each movement, but the pain dulled quickly to a pulsing ache. If this had happened to anyone else, it might not have hurt at all. But my fingers were like open wounds sometimes. If I hit them just right, it felt like fire shooting up my arm.
The toilet flushed, and a tall girl came out of the stall. She flashed a smile in my direction and washed her hands. When she left, I took a deep breath, wondering if everyone had seen what had happened. Had Jonah seen me rush off? Probably not, since he’d been occupied at the time.
I was sure I looked like an idiot to anyone who saw, running away like that. The last thing I wanted when I walked out of this bathroom was for Parker to think she’d chased me off. It didn’t matter, though, because I was finished bowling. I only needed someone to take me home now. Maybe Lea would do it since Heather and I had ridden with Jonah in his Jeep.
I pulled on the bathroom door and walked out into the small hallway, straight into Jonah.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice laced with concern.
I closed my eyes, searching for calm. “I’m fine.”
“What happened back there?”
Sighing, I took a step away to get some distance from him. “My fingers got squeezed in the ball return machine. It was stupid.”
“Let me see.” He held his hand out, waiting for me to place mine in it. I hesitated a moment before laying my fingers over his palm.
