Page 21 of Ready to Score

Maybe this was why she resented Lim so much. The other woman didn’t seem to have nearly as much baggage as she did. In Jade’s eyes, she floated through the world unbothered, unhindered by all the expectations and by apprehension. Jade figured that the way she’d been going about it was the right way—the only way. To see Lim fall so quickly into trying to team-build with her, instead of viewing her as competition, was confusing. Had the woman been lucky enough to sidestep all the bad parts, or had she just been better at handling them? It made Jade wary.

It made her jealous.

Lim toed at a pebble, rolling it under the sole of one of her checkered Vans. Jade could practically hear the little stone being ground into dust.

“I don’t know how well that rugged individuality is going to go for you this time,” Lim said. “Especially if you get what you want. You’ll need people you can depend on, people who know your weak spots and can make up the slack.”

Jade crossed her arms over her chest tightly, immediately defensive. She didn’t appreciate being talked to like she didn’t know anything. Like she hadn’t spent the past ten years of her life preparing for this.

“You seem to think I don’t know exactly what I’m doing.” She sniffed.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You might as well have.” Jade took a couple of steps closer to Lim until she was in the other woman’s face. “I don’t know you, and I don’t need your advice. All I need is for you to get the fuck out of my way.”

Lim’s dark eyes found themselves on Jade’s chest for a moment before they caught hers again. The woman wasn’t smirking now. Her mouth was a straight line, and Jade could see the spot in her left cheek where her tongue was trying to press through.

She looked like she was holding back words.

Good. Because Jade didn’t want to hear them.

“You know,” Lim said, taking several steps back, looking cooler and more casual than she had any right to. “I don’t think I will. If you want to sit there and act like a little brat, I figure it’s time for me to turn the heat up on you.”

“Lim, you’re so lukewarm, I don’t think you could turn the heat up on me if you tried with everything in you.”

“Lukewarm?” Lim snorted. “Look, Jade, I know you think you’re, like, the first girl to ever look at a football or something, but you have no idea what type of shit I’ve had to eat to be here.”

Jade’s eyebrows went up to her hairline. “No idea? When Landry announced that he’d hired me for a coaching position, they called a town hall meeting. I sat there in a dusty-ass room in the commonwealth building and listened as people of this town—menandwomen—stood at a podium and yelled about how the boys would never listen to me, how I was ruining the sport, how I was going to drag this team to hell. To this day, every time Greenbelt loses even a game, it’s my fault in their eyes. There’s been a fire under my ass from the second I decided to do this. This thing.You.It’s nothing in comparison to all that.”

“It’s interesting… You’d think going through something likethat would have made you more open to sharing the space with someone who knows how it is. I could have your back if you let me.”

“I don’t need you at my back just so you can turn around and make everything harder for me,” Jade gritted out. “I just need yougone.”

Lim shrugged. “Well, that’s too damn bad, because I’m not going anywhere. Not until Landry himself tells me to get lost.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“That fire under your feet ain’t going nowhere. You’re not going to eat me alive, Dunn. I won’t let you.”

Jade wanted to protest and spit. But she didn’t want to give Lim the satisfaction of a reaction. She’d won tonight, and she had every intention of going out on a high note. She didn’t need the last word to do that.

So she opened her car door and slid in, pulling out before she even had a chance to put on her seat belt, leaving Lim standing there. The entire drive home, she pictured the other woman still in the middle of the street, her face contorted in frustration and worry. Skin glowing in the moonlight, beautiful as ever, but with her boldness turned to dust like the pebble under her foot.

Except the image didn’t make her feel as good as she wanted. Instead, her stomach sank, and her throat constricted. The constant buzzing energy of anxiety welled in her chest, telling her that something wasn’t right. She told herself it was just good old-fashioned worry—even though she knew that was a lie.

8

Franny walked into Lucky Leagues Bowling Alley with a shiny new ball and a pair of truly silly clown shoes on Sunday. Despite her slight humiliation during the team’s bingo night and her confrontation with Jade, she was determined to be in good spirits.

There was a lesbian bowling team that met at Lucky Leagues in Greenbelt every other week. Franny had found out about it while scrolling through a local LGBTQ+ events Facebook page. She’d been looking for a way to make new friends that didn’t solely involve nightlife activities. As much as she loved the surprisingly good bar scene in Greenbelt, she craved some weeknight platonic companionship too.

As always, Barb and Stella were already at their reserved lanes. They’d been married for twenty-five years, their relationship so lived-in that they practically dressed the same.

“Hey, y’all,” Franny offered as she slid into one of the hard chairs, immediately going about changing her shoes. Everyone else rented a pair each time and laughed at her for insisting on buying her own. She was unmoved, though. Whatever the kid behind the counter sprayed in those things couldn’t be nearly enough to disinfect them.

“Hey there, girlie.” Stella gave her a grin as she sucked on something out of a Styrofoam cup.

She threw a look at Barb, who was sitting up close to the automatic scorer with her nose in a notebook. The woman kept meticulous records, had done since she and Stella had started their small bowling team a decade ago. She kept hers and her wife’s scores, and it was deeply adorable to watch Stella—who clearly wasn’t as into the numbers as her wife—take special pains to look after the notebook at almost all times.

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