As I head back to our lanes, I look for Mia, wondering what she’ll make of Alison being here. I find her kneeling in front of Parker, tying his bowling shoes. She’s comfortable right in the middle of the chaos.
For the moment, Rhett’s got the boys in some semblance of order, so I sit next to Parker. Mia glances up, catching my eye for a split second, before she turns back to her double knot.
“Everything okay, Parker?” I ask.
“My mom forgot to double-knot my bowling shoes even though I told her three times to do it but it doesn’t matter because they feel like they’re too big anyway,” Parker says. Then he does this exasperated exhale thing that makes his red bangs float up for a second.
“You want me to get you a smaller size?” Mia offers.
Parker shakes his head quickly.
I smile, remembering how it feels to be that age. A pretty girl already makes you mute, though it’s years before you realize why.
“My dad, Shep?” I begin, thinking of a story that might help me get Parker past his reluctance to bowl. “He owns an alley in Colorado, where I grew up, and—”
“Tyler told me,” Parker interrupts. “He said you learned to shoot goals there. In a bowling alley.”
I smile. This is a good sign. Parker was my main motivation for putting this night together. He’s been coming to practices, but he hasn’t joined in yet. He’s only watched, which is also what he’s been doing tonight. Or so I thought. Tyler’s my ringleader, and if he’s starting to talk to Parker, accept him, then things are looking up.
“Yep,” I say. “That’s true, but back to my dad. He thinks too many people rush through their approach—the steps you take just before you bowl. He says when you’re wearing shoes that are too big, you have to slow down so you don’t trip. He has this theory that most people end up bowling better in big shoes.”
Parker is quiet for a moment, staring at me with too much intensity for a kid.
“Is it the same thing with soccer?” he asks. “Would big shoes help? I mean big cleats?”
“Help what? Score lots of goals? Kick with lots of power?”
I sense Mia smiling in my peripheral vision. I want to look at her, but I don’t dare break eye contact with Parker. He’s listening to me. He’s finally hearing me.
“Power,” he says. “I want to kick hard and far. Like you do.”
I cross my arms and gaze across the lanes like I’m thinking about it. “How about adding accuracy to that list?” I ask. “Power and range don’t mean much if you can’t kick where you’re meaning to.”
“Yes,” he says before I’ve even finished speaking.
“All right, sure,” I say. “I can teach you that. No special shoes required. But you’ll have to keep coming to practices. You’ll have to participate. Not just watch. And you’ll have to work hard.”
It’s not the most rousing speech I’ve ever given, but fancy words aren’t what he needs. If I’m right, Parker just needs to believe that I won’t make him promises and then disappear—and that he has a place in the Dynamos that’s his, no matter what.
“Fart Knocker?” Rhett yells, breaking the little cocoon that’s surrounded us. Rhett squints at the scoreboard, then looks around. “Guys, listen up. Hey, guys! Does anyone know who Fart Knocker is?”
Parker jumps up. “Gotta go.” He stops at the ball return and turns around, locking eyes with me. “But yes, Coach. Okay.”
Mia straightens and slips into the seat Parker just vacated. She’s wearing a smile on her face—I feel it even without looking at her.
“You look mighty proud of yourself, Coach Ethan.”
“Yeah . . . I like that kid.”
“Is he your favorite?”
“If by favorite you mean that he’s the one I think about the most, then yes. He is.” That definition would also make you my favorite girl, I think. Then I mentally beat the crap out of myself. “Parker’s just had a tough time, you know?”
Mia shakes her head, her curly hair shifting over her shoulder. “No. What happened to him?”
I lower my voice, though there’s no chance anyone’s going to hear us with the noise. “His dad walked out on him. On them,” I say, nodding to Raylene. Only then do I see that Raylene is sitting with Alison. Two glasses of white wine sit on the table in front of them. It’s like I’ve stepped into an alternate dimension.
“That’s sad—poor guy,” Mia says, her brow creasing with concern.
My eyes drop to her lips, to the soft pink shine of her lip gloss. It’d be so easy to just bend down and taste her. My willpower disintegrates when I’m this close to her, so I lean back a little and focus on my bowling shoes. “I can relate to him, in a way.”
“I thought your parents were together,” Mia says. “You told me they’re still crazy about each other.”
“They are,” I say, noticing that she remembers the things I say almost verbatim. I wish I hadn’t noticed. Knowing that isn’t going to make my life any easier. “I just meant that I know what it’s like to have someone you trust disappoint you in a big way.”
Mia blinks at me. “What?”
“Nothing . . . Never mind.” I don’t want to bad-mouth Alison—especially since she’s here. I grab Mia’s hand and pull her to her feet. “You’re up, Ms. Hubba Hubba.”
Her eyes lift to the scoreboard above. “Hubba—what? That’s not me. One of the boys entered that.”
I grin. “Wonder which one.” I tow her out to the lane, stopping to grab her bowling ball on the way.
“Ethan, I’m allergic to sports,” Mia says, as she tries to squirm out of my grip. “I told you this! I even carry an EpiPen.”
“Just try it. It’s not going to kill you.” I hand her the bowling ball, which tips her forward as she absorbs the weight.
The boys have all stopped what they’re doing. They stand in a line, as still as they’ve been all night. Then Milo catcalls, “Coach Vance is touching his girlfriennnnd,” and suddenly they’re all snickers and nudging elbows.
“I’m serious, Ethan. I could gravely injure you.” Beneath her smile, I can tell she is actually concerned. “I break windows when I try sports. I break bones.”
“It’s okay. You’re in the hands of a professional.” I fix her grip on the ball. “You’re going to bowl a strike, right here, right now.” I take her hips and turn them a bit. Then I walk around her and adjust her arm, then pull her shoulders back. The boys start chanting, “Mi-a! Mi-a!”
“Are you done?” she asks, looking miserable. “Can I go now?”
“No, you’re all crooked.”
“You just put me in this position!”
“Yeah, it didn’t work. Relax, Curls. We got this.” I step behind her, thinking I’ll help her the way I learned, with my dad guiding my motion. But the instant my body lines up with hers, I know I’ve made a mistake. A big one.
Her incredible violet smell invades my nose and throws my body into immediate chaos. Heat shoots through me, and I’m suddenly doing everything I can to not think about how good she feels against me.
“You hold it this way.” I wrap my hands around hers to show her how to hold the ball, but less than one percent of my mind is still thinking about bowling. I’m getting hard for her right here, with people everywhere, but I can’t talk my goddamn dick down when I’m pressed against her ass. There’s just no way it’s happening. I keep talking, because what the hell else can I do? “Swing straight back and straight forward. You’re going to want to let go right when . . .”
“Ethan,” she says.
Just that. Just my name, but it’s like a plea and a demand rolled into one.
“Yeah?” I say, my voice sounding hoarse and deep. There’s something so familiar about this. About her pressed against me this way.
“What are we doing?”
She’s turned into a statue in front of me. A statue with soft curves that are driving me insane.
“Not what we want to be doing,” I answer.
The words spill out of me at the speed of truth.
Mia darts away like I’ve stung her and chucks the bowling ball. It lands in the gutter with a crack and bounces into the next lane, where it begins the slowest roll imaginable. Eventually, it makes it to the end of the lane and disappears.
The boys fly into hysterics, but Mia looks up at me. I hate the hurt and anger in her green eyes. It sends me crashing from the high I was on moments ago, with her body against mine. I get the feeling I should apologize, but I’m not fucking sorry. What just happened felt too good for me to regret it.
Without a word, she hops off the lane and heads over to Rhett—who’s standing with Raylene.
I can’t go after her right now, so I force myself to get back into coaching mode. I spend the next hour trying to keep the boys from breaking fingers and toes, with the occasional success of actually sending a ball down the lane.
My mind never completely bounces back though. I keep thinking about the hurt look in Mia’s eyes. Since that night at her parents’ place, I’ve fought off desire for weeks. Tonight, desire fought back and it kicked my ass. By touching her the way I did, I violated the understanding we had—the one I championed—to be friends and coworkers, and nothing more.
Yeah. Regret just showed up after all. Bastard.
As seven o’clock approaches, I gather the boys to say a few words like I always do at the end of practice. Past the elbowing, fidgeting boys, their parents stand in a semicircle. Mia is there. She doesn’t seem angry anymore, which loosens the tension that’s been coiled in my shoulders for the past hour. It’s only then that I remember she wanted to ask me something earlier, just before Alison showed up.
Alison is back there too, holding the baker’s box, and Rhett stands next to Raylene. My eyes snag on them for a second, seeing the unmistakable signs in their body language, and my mind makes a calculation. Rhett plus Raylene equals whoa . . . How did I not see that coming?
I lean on the ball-return machine, bringing my attention back to my team. “So, guys. What did you learn today?”
“I want to have my tenth birthday party here.”
“The pizza here is so good!”
“Mr. Butts bowled two strikes!”
“Okay, okay,” I say. “Anything else?” I look at Tyler, praying the kid will give me a break.
“Yeah,” he says. “Being on this team rocks. But I already knew that.”
“It’s a good thing to learn again, isn’t it?” I ask. “A good thing to be reminded of?” A few of their heads bob, telling me I’ve got them where I want them. “What do I always say about being on this team?”
“That it’s less about me and more about we,” Cameron offers.
“That’s right. You guys play as much for each other as you do for yourselves. I think we did a good job of working on we today. What do you boys think?”
A chorus of shouts rises up around me. “All right. Good job tonight, Dynamos. Go see Alison before you leave for a cupcake and remember to say thank you.”
Usually it’s a jailbreak at this point, with kids stumbling over anything in their path to get going, but no one moves.
“It’s all paid for, boys,” I say. “If you turned in your shoes, you’re free to go.”
Milo, who’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, reaches into his soccer bag and pulls out a ball.
A soccer ball.
He rolls it my way across the shiny floor. I know what they’re going to ask me before I trap it. As usual, Tyler speaks for the group.
“I asked my dad to talk to the bowling alley owner, and he said it was okay. That you could do it. But just once and just you.”
I look at eleven faces, trust radiating from their eyes. As much as I don’t want to do this here, in this place that’s so much like home but isn’t, there’s no way I’m disappointing them.
I hear a few squeaks of excitement as I bring the ball to the foul line and back up.
As I check in with how natural this used to feel, recalling the right amount of power, the right pin to aim for, quiet falls over the lanes around me and then farther, until all I can hear is the pulsing beat of a Rolling Stones song piping through the speakers.
I have an audience, but that doesn’t rattle me. It never has.
I explode forward and drive my foot through the ball. It sails down the lane, and in an instant, nine pins go flying into the backstop. The number ten pin does a slow, teetering spin, and for a second I think I’ve blown it. But, finally, the pin topples over and the boys go ballistic behind me.
A perfect strike.
And it felt awesome.
I turn, looking for Mia, smiling before I even find her. But I don’t find her because she’s not here. Mia is gone.
Chapter 37
Mia
Q: Are you generous with your friends?
I wind my way around tables at Maxi’s Café and slide in next to Beth just as Skyler takes the stage. The crowd hoots for her, and she flashes a smile and gives her cello a twirl before settling onto a stool, fluffing out her long butter-yellow dress, and resting the instrument between her thighs.
Usually, I love this moment before Sky starts to play. People look at her and see your typical manic pixie dream girl, with her babydoll bangs and willowy frame. They don’t expect what they get: a musical beast with a ferocious percussive style that shakes the windows.
Tonight, though, I can barely settle into my chair, and my pulse roars like the ocean in my ears.
I ran away from Ethan, away from the truth of what he said and the deeper truth of his hands on my body. He put his arms around me on the lane, his taut body pressed against my back, and a flood of memory rocked me to my brown-and-black bowling shoes.
We’re wet—I still don’t know why we’re wet. But he’s behind me, lifting my dress over my head, flinging it off somewhere. We’re in his kitchen, lights off and laughing, my whole body weak with it and with one too many shots at Duke’s.
I brace against the cool stainless steel of his refrigerator as his hands come around me, cupping my breasts, thumbing the silk of my bra. He brushes aside the heavy curtain of my wet hair and breathes warmth against my neck. His lips move over me, his fingers slip down my body, heating my chilled flesh. The contact makes me shiver, a slow delicious shudder.
I feel like I could dissolve on the spot. My molecules feel like helium, like embers shooting off a sparkler. I press back against him, wanting to turn, to feel his lips on mine, but he holds me there, one hand firm on my stomach, his tongue teasing my skin, lips moving down my shoulder. He’s so hard against me, the feel of him scoops my insides, turns me to liquid.
“That’s not fair,” I say, and my voice feels like it’s drifting down from a far-off cloud.
“What’s not?”
“You’re still dressed.”
And that’s when I pulled away and slung my bowling ball into the other lane like I was throwing a softball pitch.
After that, I couldn’t get away fast enough. I hate that I didn’t say goodbye to the kids or to Rhett, but I just didn’t have it in me. I couldn’t have those images looping through my mind, couldn’t stay there, so close to him. But not with him.
Skyler fires up her drum sampler and launches into a powerhouse version of “Purple Haze,” her blond hair swinging forward and a look of pure joy lighting her face.
Not what we want to be doing.
Ethan’s words ping-pong around in my brain. It’s true. What I want to be doing starts with a replay of that snippet of memory and ends with him naked in my bed. What I will be doing is forcing it into my own thick head that I can’t have that. Even though he slipped tonight, he’s made his feelings clear.
And he’s got Alison now, thanks to me. Which is okay because I have Boomerang and the Vegas trip in just a few weeks. I have my film and my friends and family. That’s plenty, I tell myself.
Really.
Skyler launches into a bossa nova “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” her bow flying over
the cello, hands slapping at the fingerboard to create this beautiful chop that’s her signature sound. She’s on fire, and her passion incites me.
I’ve seen so many friends graduate with no idea who they are, really, or what they want. Nothing drives them. So they drift, shifting their discontent from low-wage job to low-wage job.
I’m lucky enough to know—to have always known—where I’m meant to be. I have to stop taking that for granted. I have to attack it the way Skyler attacks that cello. I have to find out who I am and dive deep.
And I will.
For the next hour, I watch my best friends: one of them onstage, transported, in love with what she’s able to do; the other here with me, wearing an avid expression that tells me she’s dreaming of her own turn in the spotlight. I want to thank them both for the awesome gift they give me every day. The gift of being kickass beautiful girls.
Skyler starts in on “Seven Nation Army,” my favorite, and the music lifts me. I want to thank her for giving me that, for dragging me out of my self-pity into a place of inspiration and gratitude.
A mental light bulb pops to life. At the break, I dig in my purse for my cell phone and find the phone number for Brian, my Boomerang date from the other night.
Mia: Hey, want to meet an amazing girl?
Brian: Another one, you mean?
Mia:☺ Maybe THE one.
Brian: You bet.
Mia: Maxi’s Cafe. Half hour?
Brian: See you there.
“What’s got you all smiley all of a sudden?” Beth asks.
I drop my phone back in my purse and give her a smile. “You’ll see,” I promise. And for the first time in a few weeks, I feel certain I’m right.
Chapter 38
Ethan
Q: Are you good at facing the music, or do you dance away?
What are you saying?” Rhett jerks the steering wheel, almost hitting the car to our right as he pulls into a parking spot in the underground garage. He cuts the engine and the blasting A/C shuts off, leaving a coating of frost on my dress shirt and tie. “I know I didn’t hear you right.”
Boomerang Page 18
