Dylan coughed and leaned against the counter. “What’s your shoe size?”
“Seven.”
He shouted my answer to the woman. She nodded and threw a pair of tattered bowling shoes onto the plastic-coated surface. Something inside me recoiled at wearing shoes that had housed thousands of sweaty feet before mine.
Luma of the Munchkin Feet asked for a size five. She carried both pairs of shoes as we followed Dylan past a lot of colorful people. By colorful, I mean their tattoos. Their clothing was mostly black, which highlighted the colors swirling on arms and legs, peeking from the necks of shirts, and creeping up to decorate places where hair used to be. I wanted to stop and study, turn up the lights so I could see everything better.
I stared so much that Dylan put his arm around my waist to keep me moving. He leaned down to admonish me. “Lacey, people don’t like to be stared at.”
“But it’s so pretty. I think I’m a little turned on.”
He stumbled, taking me with him, but he recovered for both of us. “I have a tattoo.”
My full attention snapped to him. I’d seen him shirtless and in shorts, but I hadn’t seen any body art. “Where?”
A shit-eating smile curled the corner of his mouth. “Secret.”
Oh, Lord. Do not tell me he has ink on his dick. I’m not sure how I feel about that. “Did it hurt?”
“Of course it hurt. It’s a tattoo. I’m thinking of getting one on my arm. Something cool to ring my bicep.”
It took an act of will to not drool. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen what I want. I might design it myself.”
“I meant the one on your ass.”
He grinned. “I never said it was on my ass.”
“Upper thigh?”
His grin didn’t go away, but his arm tightened around me, and he feathered his fingers along my hip. I noticed the move, but I didn’t draw attention to it. “I said it’s a secret. You’d have to see me naked.”
Luma snorted, reminding us we weren’t alone. I walked dangerously close to the edge by flirting with Dylan.
I removed his hand from my hip. “Some other time, then. Can you tell me what it is?”
He also dropped his coy demeanor. “It’s a rosebud, and it has my parents’ initials in it. Daisy has a matching one. We got them when our parents died.”
That’s so sweet. I wondered if he also had something to commemorate his late wife.
We finally made it to the lanes they’d reserved. Gavin threw me an ugly button-down shirt. “You’re on Dylan’s team. Luma and I are going to clean the lanes with your sorry asses.”
I hadn’t known there’d be teams. Monty was also on our team, as were three people I didn’t know. Four additional people—all strangers to me—rounded out Gavin’s team. The twelve of us had two lanes.
Dylan shrugged into a shirt matching the one Gavin tossed me.
“I programmed your names into the scoring machine already,” Gavin said. “You’re late, so we used up your practice shots.”
“Hey,” Luma protested.
Monty cruised up to the table, put down a huge plastic cup with a red-and-brown swirl of frozen soda inside, and leaned on Dylan’s shoulder. “You snooze, you lose. If you hadn’t shown up now, we’d be fighting over who got to take your turns.”
I looked to Dylan for confirmation. He shrugged. “It’s true. Put on your bowling shoes, ladies, and prepare to lose.”
“We’re on the same team,” I reminded him.
“Oh, right. In that case, hurry up. It’s your turn.”
I truly did not want to put those shoes on my feet. Dylan must have interpreted my expression to mean I’d be in the bathroom all night washing my hands if I had to touch them. He knelt on the floor, removed my shoes, and replaced them with the rented ones.
For ten full seconds, I seriously considered switching from washing my hands incessantly to washing my feet.
Because he was so close, I leaned forward to say something without anybody overhearing. I caught the scent of his spicy aftershave mixed with whatever he’d used on his hair.
“Dylan?”
He still had my foot propped against his knee. Without glancing up, he said, “Yeah?”
“Thank you for putting all that business behind us. I like having you as a friend.”
His hand paused on my ankle, and he lifted his gaze to meet mine. I expected an apology, but all I got was a bit of a cocky smirk.
“I haven’t put anything behind me. This thing you have with Thomas will never work out. You’re from different worlds. You have very different interests and very little chemistry. There’s nothing holding you together but your stubbornness and his discerning eye. You’re a very beautiful woman, definitely arm-candy material.”
I gaped at him, stunned. “I have feelings for Thomas, and he has feelings for me.”
He shrugged. “You like him, but that’s all. It’s very platonic.” Then he leaned closer, and his lips almost brushed my ear. “I notice everything about you, Lace. The way your breathing speeds up when I’m this close to you. The way you undress me with your eyes. One day you’ll figure out you can’t fight fate.”
With my palm planted firmly on his chest, I pushed him away. “I don’t believe in fate.”
That was not a lie. If fate existed, I must have done some pretty horrible things in a past life. Dylan finished with my shoes, but his superior look didn’t diminish.
We began bowling, and I performed as expected: two gutter balls in a row. I was off to a rocking start. Monty shook his head, and Luma outright razzed me. The seven strangers didn’t comment, which was good. They didn’t know me. It was polite to wait until I was out of earshot before denigrating my character.
The next time my turn came around, Dylan went with me. He walked me through the approach, what to do with my arms, and how to aim. His demeanor had reverted back to friendly, and I was grateful. I could almost pretend he’d never said those things to me. After knocking down my first pin, I whiffed the second attempt.
Gavin poured me a beer from the community pitcher. “Here. This might improve your aim.”
I accepted the cup. “It certainly can’t hurt.”
It took a few frames, but I did eventually manage to hit one or two pins consistently. Once I even got nine, but I’d stumbled at the line and fallen on my ass, so that score was due more to providence—not fate—than the emergence of talent. The two cups of beer I consumed on an empty stomach were likely a factor as well.
I ended the first game with a score of 45. Luma got 98. Gavin and Dylan both came in over 135, and Monty bowled 203. Dylan had said the kid was going to win.
As we waited between games for people to raid the grill and get refills on the beer, I sat next to Dylan and willed my head to stop spinning.
“I need to eat.”
“I know. I sent Luma and Gavin over to get you something. Why didn’t you tell me you hadn’t eaten?”
I shrugged. “I wasn’t hungry.”
My lips felt tingly. I knew it was from the alcohol, but with Dylan sitting next to me looking and smelling so invitingly masculine, I had trouble convincing my mouth it didn’t want to be connected to Dylan’s. He isn’t right about my relationship with Thomas, I told myself. He can’t be.
As I wrestled with the demons of attraction, I noticed a man a few lanes down. Medium height, tubby in the middle, ink-covered arms, and yellow button-down shirt. The shirt drew my attention. He was the only one in two lanes, and his friends hadn’t left in pursuit of food and beverages; they’d never been there. He was playing both lanes himself.
As I watched, he held the ball in his hands and brought it close to his face. Then his lips moved. He spoke to it, whispering who-knew-what. Then he puckered up and smacked his lips right on that ball.
“He’s kissing his balls.”
Dylan looked at me funny. “What?”
“That man.” I indicated without pointing or looking dire
ctly.
It took Dylan a few moments to cull him from the crowd. “Yellow shirt?”
“Yep. Watch him. He kisses his balls.”
Sure enough, he did it again. I giggled. I couldn’t help myself. Dylan tried to suppress his laughter, but the more I pealed, the harder he had to fight. I laughed so hard that people stared, and I almost toppled onto the floor. Dylan grabbed my arm to keep me seated.
Monty returned. He gave me the same look Dylan had. “What’s wrong with her?”
I motioned him closer. What I had to say needed to be whispered. “That man is kissing his balls.”
First he looked at me like I was crazy. Then he turned to find I was speaking the truth. He snorted. “Lacey, you’re funny. I like you. When you and the old man here get married, I’m going to hang at your house a lot.”
That sobered me. I looked to Dylan for an explanation, but he merely flashed that same cocky smirk and shrugged. I was on the verge of telling him to set Monty straight when my phone rang. As it was my mother, I picked up.
“Hey, Mom. What’s up?”
The sound of balls hitting pins, the laughter and chatter of patrons, and the music blaring over the speakers made her impossible to hear. I couldn’t make out what she said. Everything seemed garbled. Immediately my anxiety level went through the roof.
“Hold on, Mom. Let me get to a quieter place.” I looked around, but there were people everywhere. Quiet bowling alleys were found only on ESPN.
I hurried toward the entrance and stepped outside. I hoped to hell she’d called to convince me to have German chocolate cake with her and not tell John. “Okay, go ahead.”
Not garbled. She was crying—sobbing and hiccupping. “It’s John. He went to take a nap. We walked three miles this morning, and we were both feeling a little tired. When I woke up, he was cold. Lacey, John died.”
Strength drained from my knees. My joints turned liquid. Everything turned liquid. My mother must be in shock because normally she breaks bad news to me gently. John was the love of her life. She had to be devastated. She needed me. I needed her. I couldn’t move or speak.
I looked up to find Dylan and Luma standing over me. They said things I couldn’t hear. Luma disappeared. So did my shoes.
I have vague memories of Luma and Dylan loading me into a car, but that’s all. When I woke the next morning, I was in my old room at my mother’s house. Mom was asleep next to me. The two of us were crunched into a twin-size bed. I was a little sore, but I wasn’t sure why.
Rolling gently so I could leave without waking my mom, I took stock of my aches and pains. The pounding in my head and my stuffy sinuses indicated I had cried hard. I didn’t remember. This hadn’t happened to me since I was little. I used to cry a lot for no reason, mostly in my sleep.
“Lacey?”
Oops. I tried to apologize, but sounds wouldn’t come out of my mouth.
“Where are you going?”
I pointed at the door to the bathroom.
“Okay, sweetheart. I sent Luma to your place last night. She packed a bag for you. We were thinking you should stay here for a little while.”
John had been everything to us. In the dark days after that whole thing with my father, he’d saved us both. First, he’d been my counselor. I’d played in his office every day, never speaking a word.
To my mother, he’d been the man who swept her off her feet and saved her daughter’s sanity. He was the one who’d renamed me. Until him, I’d been Alice. One day when he was making lunch for us, he said, “Lacey, would you like to try this Asian sesame dressing on your salad?”
I said, “Yes.”
It was a stunning moment for everybody. I hadn’t uttered a sound in two years. Most people had stopped talking to me. They behaved as if I were deaf as well as silent. Not John. Never John. He talked to me every day, included me in everything.
From that moment on, Alice was dead. I was Lacey. Always and irrevocably Lacey.
Later, John confessed to my mom that he’d misspoken. But in tripping over his tongue, he’d made me a new person, and gave me another chance at life.
And now he was gone.
My heart was broken.
I couldn’t speak, but I knew I would. I had to. For him.
I nodded at my mother. Staying at her house would enable me to be there for her. She’d lost her husband, the only man she’d ever loved. Years ago, she’d confessed to me that her relationship with my father had been a fling. Conceiving me had been an accident—one she didn’t regret, but not something she’d planned.
But John? He was the real deal.
The moments of the day sifted through my consciousness, seeming to last forever and be over much too quickly. People visited. Some of them hounded us to eat. We weren’t hungry.
Later that evening, after the people had gone, I sat in the living room with Mom. Sadie lay curled on the sofa in John’s spot, waiting for him to scoot her to the side so he could sit too. Neither of us sat in his place. I know we both hoped he’d walk in at any moment, and we’d awaken from this nightmare.
“Mom? Why did you wait until after eight o’clock to call me? You said you guys had taken a nap.”
She blushed. “Well, we worked out a bit before taking a nap, and that exhausted us. I slept until about seven thirty.” Her eyes took on that faraway look, only laced with pain. “I tried to wake him. I was going to tease him about sleeping so late.”
Tears tracked down her cheeks. She’d held them in for most of the day, being strong because she didn’t like to cry in front of others. “Lacey, how am I going to live without him?”
I didn’t know how to answer that.
The next morning, Daisy and her family came over. Audra and Monty cleaned the house. Mom wanted to have the wake here, but neither of us had the energy to focus on a specific task. Daisy helped Luma and Jane make the phone calls my mom wanted made.
Dylan didn’t leave my side. He sat on the sofa next to Sadie and watched me as I paced or talked to people. He was a sentinel when I froze, staring into space as if I could find John between molecules of air. He didn’t say much, but having him here helped.
Thomas came that evening. I didn’t recall talking to him or texting him about John’s passing. He took me in his arms and held me for the longest time.
“Jane said you weren’t in a good state.”
All things considered, I thought I was doing okay. Except for that first morning, I hadn’t lost my ability to speak or interact with my surroundings.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m doing better.”
I don’t know when Dylan left, only that when I looked up next, he was gone.
Chapter Sixteen
THE FUNERAL WAS BEAUTIFUL. Daisy, Audra, Luma, and Jane decorated the chapel at the funeral home with collages of John. I spent hours studying the board with pictures of him as a child, and then I got stuck on the pictures he’d taken when he and my mom first got together.
I looked so haunted, a ghost of a child who neither smiled nor spoke. I had mittens on my hands to keep me from washing the skin off. I remember wanting so badly to die. If I could’ve rewound time to make things different, I would have. Then, I would have. Not now.
Because John had come into my life, I learned that fathers weren’t evil. I learned that I didn’t have to be glued to my mother’s side at all times to feel safe. I realized life was worth living, and I was not the worthless piece of shit my father had labeled me.
Grief made my bones weak. I rocked forward, and a strong arm came around my waist to prop me up. “Let’s get you settled. They’re going to start the service in a few minutes.”
I leaned against Dylan, soaking up his strength because I’d used my reserves.
The service was long. My mother had a minister there to give the sermon, and then she opened the floor for anybody who wanted to talk about John. We were there for three hours. I listened to people, some of whom I’d never met, talk about John’s generous nature and loving so
ul. Some of them addressed my mom and me directly. Others sobbed as they spoke.
I wanted to go to the dais and tell everybody what he’d done for me. It was something we’d kept private, a process only my mom and I were privy to. Now I wanted the world to know how extraordinary he was.
The minister, a woman who appeared to be around my age, helped me up the two steps and positioned me behind the podium. She hovered nearby, and I had to wonder if I looked that bad. Why did people keep thinking I was going to keel over?
I saw Thomas sitting in the row behind mine. Dylan and my friends from the band sat on the other side of the aisle. All the chairs were filled, and people lined the back and sides of the room.
“I can see by the sheer number of people here today that John touched many lives. He was a wonderful man and a remarkable person. There was nothing he loved more than helping people. He was a one of those rare people who gave of himself to everybody.”
I paused to sniffle, and I had to wave the minister away. No doubt she hadn’t realized the service was going to take so long.
“When I met John, I was a mess. Bad things had happened in my life, and I’d withdrawn from the world. I couldn’t speak, and I wouldn’t interact with anybody but my mom. I wanted to die.”
One deep breath to banish the images that threatened to overwhelm me, and I continued.
“John helped me see it wasn’t my fault. He helped me accept what happened and how it had changed me. He made me see that life was worth living, and that I deserved to be loved. I put that man through a lot—him and my mom—but he never blamed me for it. He never made me feel like a burden. I never called him ‘father,’ because he was so much more than that to me.”
By the time I finished, my mom was at my side. She held my hand tightly, and I stayed there with her while she talked about losing her best friend, her lover, and her husband.
Flecks of blood dotted the backs of my hands, and I turned them over to reveal smears where I’d tried to wipe it away. I looked up at the people who still milled around after the service, and I knew I was the only one who could see it. Nonetheless, I excused myself to the bathroom.
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