Birding with Benefits

Chapter 9

Celeste tightened her waxy shoelaces as the musical clattering of pins rang through the bowling alley. Her phone buzzed on the plastic bucket seat beside her, threatening to shake its way onto the floor.

JOHN:Just arriving. You here?

CELESTE:Sure am. Hope you’re ready to bowl.

Celeste skipped to meet John at the entrance, where she spotted the wide build of his body framed by evening sunlight in the doorway. Yes, he’d do just fine as a dating decoy. “Hey!”

“Hey.” John looked past her, seeming wary. “I know I said this via text, but I’d like to repeat my hesitance about this particular duty. When you said you wanted a date at a work thing—”

“I know.” She interrupted him with a wave of her hand. “I know, you thought happy hour, something totally typical and boring. But this is okay, right? Who doesn’t like bowling?”

“It’s not that I don’t like it. I’m just not particularly good at it. And I know you like to win.”

She did, always. But she’d also calculated that showing off her new boyfriend was worth the risk of losing this round. “Don’t worry.” She looped her hand easily through his arm.

They’d established some ground rules over text, making sure they were both comfortable with the PDA of their fake dates. Hand-holding, arms around the waist and lower back, and other small touches in the course of interacting were all deemed acceptable.

But the fingers curled over John’s ample bicep hadn’t received the “fake date” memo. They wanted to squeeze and, dammit, even stroke the curve of his muscle with her thumb.

Before her hands crossed the line, Celeste tugged John across the ugly carpet to get his shoes, unlooping herself from him while he discussed his shoe size with the tattooed woman behind the counter.

Over at lane twelve, everyone was assembled. Her middle school’s eighth-grade humanities faculty battled the math and science teachers at this midtown bowling alley once a month; the winners got bragging rights and free donuts in the teachers’ lounge the following Monday. Celeste’s team had been on a winning streak as of late, but her coworker Arnold had picked this week to marry the man of his dreams in Napa, and while she was very happy for him, it had messed up their numbers. When Andrea had threatened to cancel that night’s bowl, Celeste had been pleased to tell them she’d already secured their extra member.

“Wait. A boyfriend?” Andrea’s face had squished into its tightest squint when Celeste told her about John. “You’re not dating. You’ve told me that a million times, Celeste. Because you know I really want—”

“To introduce me to your cousin. I know, Andrea,” Celeste had told her, pouring bad coffee into her travel mug before the first bell that morning. “Things with John just sort of happened…” She’d launched into the story she’d invented, adding further embellishments when they fit, like the breeze in her hair and the call of the bird.

“You met bird-watching?” Andrea had sighed and patted Celeste on the back as she turned to head to her art class. “Can’t wait to meet him.”

And now she was, shaking his hand as Celeste made introductions, suddenly apprehensive about this mixing of worlds she had arranged. Most of her work pals, especially those as dedicated to the bowling rivalry as she was, were loud and rambunctious—harassment and heckling were all fair game. Not exactly John’s style.

But then John turned his glance to her, an expansive smile on his face. The harsh neon lights of the bowling alley dulled the red tint in his beard, but they didn’t do anything to diminish the handsome cut of his jaw, or the friendly glint in his eyes as he exchanged easy greetings with the teachers.

She slid her fingers into her shiny purple bowling ball. “Okay, everybody, leave my date alone. It’s time to bowl.”

He hadn’t been lying. John was a terrible bowler. When his ball didn’t end up in the gutter it lazily knocked into pins at the edges of the lane with the same polite softness he’d used when gathering up a caterpillar from an exposed part of the trail to move it to safety.

But he was a wonderful sport, simply smiling and shrugging through frame after terrible frame, clapping as their teammates racked up pins, and even earning a high five from Andrea when his ball made an unexpected turn at the end of the lane, miraculously taking out eight pins. As others bowled, he listened in on the chatter between Celeste and her friends, following along but not inserting himself. He was attentive and friendly, even if he did spend most of his time consorting with the enemy, talking science shop with Layla about the unit on owl pellets she was doing with her students the following week.

As Andrea stared down the pins before starting her throw, John leaned his shoulder into Celeste and nodded up at the screen that showed their score. “You’re a very good bowler.”

She answered his lean with one of her own. “Thank you for noticing. I bowled a lot as a kid. My dad and I would wake up early on the weekends, get breakfast, and go bowling while half the town was asleep.”

“We didn’t have a bowling alley,” John said with a small laugh. “Or much of anything, really. Even now, the closest bowling or movies are still sixty miles away.”

“That sounds either incredibly peaceful or incredibly boring. What did you guys do for fun?”

John entwined his fingers, stretching his arms in front of him. “I sat outside, collected ants, read a lot. My brother played a lot of baseball and I played some, too. My middle brother, Jake, and I were both well suited for growing up in a small town, I think. It gave Jake a place to shine and me a place to think. It was harder on our little brother, though.”

“John, you’re up,” Andrea called as she strutted back to them. “We’re within striking distance of those nerdy bastards, so maybe you could, you know, not throw it in the gutter?”

“Come on!” Celeste protested, standing alongside John. “He’s doing his best.”

John smiled and shook his head as he and Celeste approached the ball feeder. “She’s not wrong.”

“Oh, please.” She put her hand on his back as he bent to get the ball, more to comfort him than to put on a show. His muscles tensed for a moment under her fingers, and he leaned slightly into her touch. She cleared her throat and eyed the lane. “How about this? Let me give you a couple of pointers. I don’t think you’re a lost cause. You just need to loosen up a little.”

John held the ball gingerly as he nodded and walked toward their lane. Celeste stood next to him, shoulder to shoulder.

“The problem you’re having, I think, is that you’re too gentle. You’re putting the ball down like it’s a precious egg or something. But it’s not gonna break.”

She thought back to the John of the week before. Birding John. He was relaxed, at ease on the trail, shoulders loose and arms limber.

But the man before her was wound tight, staring at the bowling lane like it held secrets he’d never learn.

“Okay.” She stepped behind him and put a hand on each of his sturdy shoulders, rising to her tiptoes to speak right into his ear. “Pretend you’re birding.”

He shook beneath her hands as he chuckled.

“I’m serious,” she continued. “You’re doing this like it’s a chore. You need to relax. Have fun. Really be in your body.” She squeezed his shoulders, pressing them down. “Just imagine the bowling ball is your pair of binoculars, and all you want to do is point it right at that bird out there.” She lifted one arm next to his head, gesturing to the waiting pins.

“And, John”—she ran both palms down his upper arms, tracing the muscles like so many small streams—“you’ve got strength here.” And he really did, hard and smooth under her fingers. “Don’t be afraid to use it. Give the ball a little power. I promise no one will get hurt.”

She released him and forced a step back, fingers tingling.

He was still for a breath, then took a few determined steps before swinging his arm back, the marbled blue ball glinting in the fluorescents. One foot kicked behind him as he launched the ball across the line. He froze in his follow-through, legs slightly bent, head erect and watching. The ball spun down the lane with more power than his previous throws, straight and true, striking gold at the sweet spot between pins one and three. Only when the ten pins were all down and spinning on their sides did Celeste realize she’d been holding her breath.