“Nice world,” Cal said, “that moves a little slow this time of year.”
“Umm,” was her agreement as she took a minute bite of the point of her narrow triangle of pizza. She closed her eyes on a sigh. “It is good. I was hoping, being bowling-alley pizza, it wouldn’t be.”
“We do okay. Gino’s across the street is better, and has more selections.”
She opened her eyes to find him smiling at her. “That’s a lousy thing to tell a woman in the middle of a lifestyle change.”
Cal leaned on the counter, bringing that smile a little closer, and Quinn found herself losing her train of thought. He had the best quick and crooked grin, the kind a woman wanted to take a testing nibble of.
Before he could speak, someone hailed him, and those eyes of quiet gray glanced away from hers toward the end of the counter. “Be right back.”
“Well.” Jeez, her pulse had actually tripped. “Alone at last,” she said to Fox. “So you and Cal and the as-yet-absent Gage Turner have been friends since you were kids.”
“Babies, actually. In utero, technically. Cal’s and Gage’s mother got together with mine when my mother was teaching a Lamaze class. They had a kind of roundup with the class a couple months after everyone delivered the packages, and the deal about the three of us being born on the same day, same time came out.”
“Instant mommy bonding.”
“I don’t know. They always got along, even though you could say they all came from different planets. They were friendly without being friends. My parents and Cal’s still get along fine, and Cal ’s dad kept Gage’s employed when nobody else in town would’ve hired him.”
“Why wouldn’t anyone have hired him?”
Fox debated for a minute, drank some of his beer. “It’s no secret,” he decided. “He drank. He’s been sober for a while now. About five years, I guess. I always figured Mr. Hawkins gave him work because that’s just the way he is, and, in a big part, he did it for Gage. Anyway, I don’t remember the three of us not being friends.”
“No ‘you like him better than me,’ major falling-outs or your basic and usual drifting apart?”
“We fought-fight still-now and then.” Didn’t all brothers? Fox thought. “Had your expected pissy periods, but no. We’re connected. Nothing can snap that connection. And the ‘you like him better than me’? Mostly a girl thing.”
“But Gage doesn’t live here anymore.”
“Gage doesn’t live anywhere, really. He’s the original footloose guy.”
“And you? The hometown boy.”
“I thought about the bright lights, big city routine, even gave it a short try.” He glanced over in the direction of the moans coming from one of the Alley Cats who had failed to pick up a spare. “I like the Hollow. I even like my family, most of the time. And I like, as it turns out, practicing small-town law.”
Truth, Quinn decided, but not the whole truth of it. “Have you seen the kid with the red eyes?”
Off balance, Fox set down the beer he’d lifted to drink. “That’s a hell of a segue.”
“Maybe. But that wasn’t an answer.”
“I’m going to postpone my answer until further deliberation. Cal ’s taking point on this.”
“And you’re not sure you like the idea of him, or anyone, talking to me about what may or may not go on here.”
“I’m not sure what purpose it serves. So I’m weighing the information as it comes in.”
“Fair enough.” She glanced over as Cal came back. “Well, boys, thanks for the beer and the slice. I should get back to my adorable room.”
“You bowl?” Cal asked her, and she laughed.
“Absolutely not.”
“Oh-oh,” Fox said under his breath.
Cal walked around the counter, blocking Quinn before she could slide off the stool. He took a long, considering look at her boots. “Seven and a half, right?”
“Ah…” She looked down at her boots herself. “On the money. Good eye.”
“Stay.” He tapped her on the shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
Quinn frowned after him, then looked at Fox. “He is not going to get me a pair of bowling shoes.”
“Oh yeah, he is. You mocked the tradition, which-if you give him any tiny opening-he’ll tell you started five thousand years ago. Then he’ll explain its evolution and so on and so on.”
“Well, Christ,” was all Quinn could think to say.
Cal brought back a pair of maroon and cream bowling shoes, and another, larger pair of dark brown ones, which were obviously his. “Lane five’s open. You want in, Fox?”
“Sadly, I have a brief to finish writing. I’ll rain-check it. See you later, Quinn.”
Cal tucked the shoes under his arm, then, taking Quinn’s hand, pulled her off the stool. “When’s the last time you bowled?” he asked as he led her across the alley to an open lane.
“I think I was fourteen. Group date, which didn’t go well, as the object of my affection, Nathan Hobbs, only had eyes for the incessantly giggly and already well-developed Missy Dover.”
“You can’t let previous heartbreak spoil your enjoyment.”
“But I didn’t like the bowling part either.”
“That was then.” Cal sat her down on the smooth wooden bench, slid on beside her. “You’ll have a better time with it tonight. Ever make a strike?”
“Still talking bowling? No.”
“You will, and there’s nothing much that beats the feeling of that first strike.”
“How about sex with Hugh Jackman?”
He stopped tying his bowling shoe to stare over at her. “You had sex with Hugh Jackman?”
“No, but I’m willing to bet any amount of money that having sex with Hugh Jackman would, for me, beat out the feeling of knocking down ten pins with one ball.”
“Okay. But I’m willing to bet-let’s make it ten bucks-that when you throw a strike, you’ll admit it’s up there on the Thrill-O-Meter.”
“First, it’s highly unlikely I’ll throw anything resembling a strike. Second, I could lie.”
“You will. And you won’t. Change your shoes, Blondie.”
Five
IT WASN’T AS RIDICULOUS AS SHE’D ASSUMED IT would be. Silly, yes, but she had plenty of room for silly.
The balls were mottled black-the small ones without the three holes. The job was to heave it down the long polished alley toward the red-necked pins he called Duck Pins.
He watched as she walked up to the foul line, swung back, and did the heave.
The ball bounced a couple of times before it toppled into the gutter.
“Okay.” She turned, tossed back her hair. “Your turn.”
“You get two more balls per frame.”
“Woo-hoo.”
He shot her the quick grin. “Let’s work on your delivery and follow-through, then we’ll tackle approach.” He walked toward her with another ball as he spoke. He handed her the ball. “Hold it with both hands,” he instructed as he turned her around to face the pins. “Now you want to take a step forward with your left foot, bend your knees like you were doing a squat, but bend over from the waist.”
He was snuggled up right behind her now, his front sort of bowing over her back. She tipped her face around to meet his eyes.
“You use this routine to hit on women, right?”
“Absolutely. Eighty-five percent success ratio. You’re going to want to aim for the front pin. You can worry about the pockets and the sweet spot later. Now you’re just going to bring your right arm back, then sweep it forward with your fingers aimed at the front pin. Let the ball go, following your fingers.”
“Hmm.” But she tried it. This time the ball didn’t bounce straight into the gutter, but actually stayed on the lane long enough to bump down the two pins on the far right.
Since the woman in the next lane, who had to be sixty if she was a day, slid gracefully to the foul line, released, and knocked down seven pins, Quinn didn’t feel like celebrating.