Page 16 of The Way We Were(wolf)

“I’m not sure what just happened.” Lucy sat on the plastic chair next to their assigned lane.

“Kids happened,” he answered with a chuckle. The happy-go-lucky guy she knew was back, his face as animated as ever. “You mean to tell me you never got the urge to see if you could fly?”

“Well, no.” Her upbringing didn’t allow for such recklessness. While most of her friends were walking to school every day, she wasn’t allowed to cross their street. Danger was everywhere, but her trek down Bad Memory Lane was getting away from the point. “I mean…that boy’s leg…it was broken.”

Eric turned back to where Stephen’s family was sitting as he danced to the latest banger from the ‘80s that boomed through the sound system. “I don’t know.” He turned back to Lucy. “I don’t think he could walk if he had a broken leg.”

“No…before. His leg… Eric, it was bent in half!”

He chuckled softly. “Ah, maybe it just looked that way. His shoe had come half off his foot when it hit the floor. Made the whole situation look wonkier than it was.” He rose from his chair and fiddled with the settings on the electronic scoreboard.

Oh, there was definitely something wonky about the situation, but what? It all happened so quickly. Was it possible what she’d seen was just an illusion? An awkward angle that played tricks on her? That was a lot more plausible than Eric putting the kid’s leg back together. Now that she thought about it, that was actually ridiculous.

“What’s that look?” Eric said as he turned to face her, his smile sparkling like the disco ball that slowly spun overhead because, of course, a place this eclectic had to have a disco ball.

“Nothing. I was just thinking maybe it’s time for me to get some glasses.”

“Well, let’s hope your vision is good enough for bowling.”

“Don’t worry. My eyes are—”

She paused as the entire bowling alley went dark.

“Bowling Bonanza!” a loud voice boomed over the speakers. “Are you all ready for cosmic night?” Footage of the moon landing showed on every television hanging from the ceiling, and Lucy mentally marked the sixties off her list of decades accounted for at one establishment. In fact, she was pretty sure she’d just gotten a bingo.

“That’s not…is that live? It’s not a full moon tonight, is it?” Eric asked, so close now his warm breath caused a family of goosebumps to dance to…was “Tutti Frutti” playing now? Gosh, Lucy hadn’t heard this song since her great-grandmother was still alive.

“No. That’s Neil Armstrong.”

“Oh. Yeah. Of course,” he said as the black lights in the alley flickered to life. Though her vision was a tad compromised by the lack of light, she saw a sheen of sweat glistening on Eric’s forehead. Antsy about a full moon but calm, cool, and collected about a child leaping through the air and crashing to the ground?

She’d never been very good at reading people—something her parents had constantly reminded her of.And as much as she fought to tamp down those thoughts that poked up through the cracks in her confidence, it was hard to argue with them sometimes. Especially when she’d both lost a job and a boyfriend, both happening because she’d let down her guard.

Eric’s words from earlier echoed in her brain. Maybe the person she needed to trust the most was herself, not people who made assumptions or thought they knew her better than she did. But old habits were hard to shake when you’d heard the same things over and over your whole life.

She lightly shook her head, hoping this sudden unwelcome stream of thought would dry up, which must have thrown her off balance, because she suddenly felt a bout of vertigo coming on.

Or was it because Eric was taking off his shirt?

“Do you mind?” he asked as he unbuttoned the top two buttons of the flannel shirt he wore. A dusting of dark hair played peek-a-boo behind the striped fabric, and something about that made her swallow hard.

“I’m sorry,” she said, immediately averting her eyes anywhere that didn’t make her cheeks burn brighter than the cardboard neon sun that glowed under the black lights. It was only a matter of time before the handsome man called her out about her constant staring.

“No,” he said, his hands paused mid-button. “I just meant is this okay—me taking this heavy top off? I think I got a little overheated earlier.”

“Yeah. Uh, sure…have at it,” she stammered. She wished her brain would have used more energy to help her form complete sentences instead of sending it to her extremities, as her hand flapped about like a one-winged bird attempting to take off.

“I have a shirt on underneath.”

“That’s great. Good news.” It wasn’t. She mentally smacked herself for even thinking about a shirtless Eric bowling with her. That was against the law, for heaven’s sake. She bent to re-tie her shoe to give herself something else to think about, and she was not at all prepared for what she saw when she looked up.

Not that she’d noticed, but she was sure the bowling alley had aNo shirt, no shoes, no servicesign somewhere near the entrance. Probably no mention of skintight undershirts during cosmic bowling nights.

And they should have.

“Ready when you are,” Eric said so nonchalantly Lucy would have burst out laughing if people wouldn’t have thought she was cuckoo. Ready for what, exactly, she wasn’t sure. Ready to render every female in the building breathless? To make every man at the alley feel guilty for skipping arm day at the gym? And chest day? Was forearm day a thing? Eric obviously thought so.

He strode to the tiny computer, hitting thestart gamebutton, and she saw the flex of his muscles even as he did that. Eric didn’t skip traps day either.

---