Page 144 of Collided

“Of course he won’t, babe. Relax.” He rubs her shoulders in assurance.

Heath groans. “Way to kill the vibe, Bash. If I remember correctly, it was fucking fun, and you were laughing your ass off.”

A smile splits on Sebastian’s face, but he stifles it when Marie stares at him wounded. “It won’t happen again, Marie. I promise. You can always trust me.”

Marie grins and turns to Heath. “Hah! You heard him.”

Heath turns to me. “What are you afraid of?”

I stiffen.My dad.

Of course, I can’t say that.

“Um…spiders…lizards and mice,” I tell him.

“Why?”

“Uh, because when they see you, they come at you,” I say as if it’s pretty obvious.

“She’s so right!” Marie adds quickly.

Heath’s stony face breaks and a tiny smile dances on his lips. “That doesn’t fucking happen.”

“It does,” I argue.

“You have it fucking wrong.”

“No. She’s right.” Marie jumps to my defense. “Also, Hope and I both have a curfew so we should start playing. I don’t want to leave without beating you.” She sends me an apology.

“I’m not losing to you, Blondie,” Heath replies, confident as ever.

Before they can talk further, Sebastian steers her toward their lane that’s a few lanes down from us.

“Looks like it'll be us.”

“You okay with that?” I ask, looking up at Heath.

At the same time, he looks down at me. “Why wouldn’t I be? You’re not half as annoying as others.”

A laugh bursts out of me. Only Heath would compliment me this way.

“Only half? I thought I’d be more than that since we spend so much time together.”

He rolls his eyes and starts walking toward his best friends. “Don’t get ahead of yourself now, Rose.”

Rose. He’s called me that eight now and each time the butterflies in my stomach have soared.

“Let's go.”

The chances of us losing are high considering I’ve never been to a bowling alley before. There’s no way I’ll be able to land a perfect strike—it’s just impossible.

With low spirits, I trail behind him like a kid lost in the crowd.

We stand at our assigned lane and Heath takes a black ball—no surprise, black is his favorite color. Getting in stance he throws the ball in one smooth move and straightens. I watch as it hits the pyramid of pins and knocks down every single one of them.

“That was perfect.”

“I know.”

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