Chapter 13
“Tell me again… Why are we going bowling?”
In the driver’s seat of the car Thursday evening, Connor looked in the rearview mirror. “Because.”
I waited, but he didn’t elaborate. I almost hadn’t believed Jade when she texted me a half hour after practice ended to get ready, because half of the Top Tier was going bowling.
Bowling. Better than an arcade, not quite as bad as mini golf, but in the same ballpark.
At least, Jade would’ve thought so. Should’ve thought so. Except she almost looked excited as we drove to Allen’s Alley. “Why?” I asked her, with a slightly different meaning. Sure, Connor wanted to go bowling… but why were we?
“Connor, Reed, Cindy, and Landon are going. Reed brings a girl, but Connor doesn’t bring his girlfriend? People would think we got in a fight.” Her voice was light.
I blinked. “And?” It wouldn’t have been the first time they faked a fight to get a Babble article. Publicity, Jade always said. It’s good to stay at the top of the gossip mill.
Now, though, she said, “We wouldn’t want that.”
In the rearview mirror, I saw Connor’s expression twist.
Jade caught it. “What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it. What?” Jade turned sharply in her seat to face him. “What, you’d rather we stayed home?”
Connor sighed. “It could’ve just been a boy’s thing—”
“Except Reed invited Cindy,” Jade cut him off. “And you can’t hang out with other girls without me.”
“It’s just one girl.” Connor took a hand off the steering wheel to massage his temple. “You’re only coming on the off chance there might be someone from Brentwood. Someone who cares about Babble.”
“Everyone cares about Babble,” I chimed in from the backseat.
Connor’s eyes locked on mine through the rearview mirror. He didn’t look amused.
Bickering had become a bad habit they’d picked up last year. They were the definition of toxicity, in my opinion, and even though they both would’ve been happier separated, the pros of sticking it out outweighed the cons for now.
Peak in high school behavior if you ask me, I thought somewhat bitterly.
Of course, thinking about my label had my thoughts traveling to a certain quarterback. It’d been a full forty-eight hours since the last time I’d spoken to Logan, and my insides felt like a plant unwatered.
After we went to the escalators on Tuesday, he’d turned to me. “So this is it?”
I’d nodded. “This is it.”
Logan had stuck his hand out between us, awaiting a shake. Like we were partners in business instead of crime. “If you ever need another therapy session,” he’d said softly, wistfully. “You know where I am.”
Forty-eight hours. I wasn’t sure I’d make it to forty-nine. In fact, I’d been on the brink of putting on my shoes before Jade had texted me earlier, not to go bowling—but to go to Expresso’s.
“Why isn’t Landon bringing her?” Jade asked, though she sounded more glad than anything else.
Her was most definitely Lacey Churchill, the girl Landon introduced us all to as his new girlfriend this morning. Girlfriend. Kyle had said on Tuesday that they’d gone out on a date, but here they were, two days later, already having made it official.
A drastically different forty-eight hours than me.
“She didn’t want to come.” Connor wrinkled his nose. “With how warmly you greeted her this morning, it’s no wonder why.”
Jade didn’t even listen. “He picked a girl like her over you,” she said, turning around in her seat and smirking back at me. Even if she was annoyed with Connor, she could tease with me. “That must sting, huh?”
It hadn’t, at least not until she said it. “Honestly, it’s not that big of a deal. We all know he’s just dating her because of his label.” I forced my voice light. “They both get voted most likely to stay single, and then start dating a day later? Yeah, because that’s not obvious.”
Connor’s gaze flicked up at me in the mirror again, and I didn’t miss the judgment in that quick glance.
We pulled into Allen’s Alley’s parking lot, and I unbuckled my seatbelt as Connor found a space. Reed had parked a few cars down, and he and Landon climbed out. Cindy, the girl Reed had been talking to, appeared from the passenger side.
“You’re so going down,” Reed called, no doubt speaking to Connor.
“Took the words out of my mouth,” Connor fired back, with far more amusement than I thought he’d have. I caught him checking his reflection in the reflection of his car window. “A six-year-old is a better bowler than you.”
Landon grinned at his friends. “Admit it,” he said to Reed. “You are really bad at bowling.”
Reed gave a mock gasp. “The slander!”
Connor and Jade linked hands as we walked inside, and by a glance, no one would never have guessed they’d just been at each other’s throats in the car.
Cindy was a chatterbox, and Jade humored her by smiling and nodding, but I knew she wasn’t really listening.
It was the sort of mask Jade wore around anyone not in the Top Tier.
Polite, feigning interest, but checked out.
She’d explained it to me once. “We want people to think we’re likable without feeling like they know us.”
“Don’t we want people to feel like they know us?” I’d asked.
“You’re less interested in someone the more you know them.”
So I copied her in the lukewarm shoulder she gave everyone outside of the Top Tier. Polite, but not overly friendly.
The full parking lot translated into a full bowling alley, with nearly every lane occupied by couples or families.
There was a restaurant attached to one side of the alley, and the tables were filled.
The clattering of bowling balls and cheers filled the air, and I sidled up closer to Jade, feeling completely and wholly out of my element.
Not the first time that had happened recently, but I didn’t have Logan at my side to make it fun.
“You should’ve just let people think you were fighting,” I told her under my breath.
Jade’s eyes were scanning the space, almost as if searching for someone. “You know, Mads. How crazy would it be if we ran into—oh, you’re kidding.”
The sharp turn in her tone, and her twisting lips, had me turning. I followed her line of sight, wondering who could get Jade to show her frustrated side so blatantly in public, and for a brief, horrifying moment, I thought she saw Logan.
But then I saw her. Camped out at lane ten was none other than Maisie Matthews with her group of friends.
Reed’s sister, Rachel, a girl with pink hair—what did Reed say Babble Girl’s name was again?
—and a boy that I knew was Maisie’s boyfriend.
Everyone but Maisie stared at us almost starstruck, and I could see the girl with pink hair typing something on her phone.
“That’s the girl who runs Babble,” Jade said to our group.
“Ava,” Reed supplied, sounding irritated.
“Whatever.” Jade gripped Connor’s hand tighter. “Told you. Best behavior, everyone.”
“Best behavior,” Cindy echoed, whereas none of the boys even bothered with a reply.
And out of all the lanes in the alley, the only open one was directly beside Maisie’s.
My stomach dropped as I carried my shoes over, steps heavy. Connor, though, sauntered right up, happily calling, “Hey, Bobcats. What a coincidence.”
Weirdly enough, the way he said it had me thinking this wasn’t a coincidence. Connor glanced over at Maisie’s table, far more jovial than he had been out in the car. Jade was too absorbed in texting someone to notice.
Landon, inexplicably, sat down at their table beside Ava. She latched onto him animatedly while we all put on our shoes, and, at the table, Maisie looked on with a slight frown.
It was strange being at a bowling alley with Maisie, but not with her at the same time. As kids, almost every one of her birthdays, we’d end up here. I couldn’t remember if she was good at it—I’d been horrible, even with bumpers, but it’d been fun just because we’d been together.
Thinking about her birthdays had me thinking about my birthdays, and how she and Jade never got along at them. That was proof, wasn’t it, that those worlds couldn’t mix? Shouldn’t mix? Wasn’t that, among everything else, even more proof that I needed to dodge Logan at all costs?
Or was that the peak in high school talking?
“Who are you texting?” I asked Jade, needing a distraction from my own thoughts.
“Riley.”
I should’ve guessed. “Why didn’t she come?”
“Busy.”
With Ashton, probably. I didn’t pry further, though, because their absence—along with Kyle’s—was a reprieve I so needed.
“You’re up first, Mads,” Connor said as he stepped around the back of Jade’s chair, hesitantly putting his hands on her shoulders. He really was putting on a show for Babble. Was Ava the one he kept looking at?
Maisie and I both ended up at the ball return at the same time, and I had the sudden urge to turn around. Our gazes locked as we both reached for the same orange ball. “Hey,” I greeted, nothing short of awkward.
Maisie swiped up the ball first. “How are you?” she asked, but it was one of those throwaway phrases—one she didn’t care about the answer to. Instead of waiting for my reply, she walked up to the lane, lining her aim.
I bit my lip, grabbing a random ball that was too heavy before heading to my own lane. The brush off didn’t matter. It meant nothing. Maisie… meant nothing.
Is that peak in high school behavior?
I shoved it all out of my mind, but I couldn’t shove away the feeling.
Without bumpers, I was hopeless. Two gutter balls later, and I was doing the walk of shame back to my seat beside Jade. “Better luck next time,” Reed said, hopping up for his turn.
Landon came back to our table then, easing himself down onto a chair. “What was that about?” I demanded, lowering my voice. “What did you have to talk to her about?”
“Lacey,” Landon answered, reaching up and touching the backs of his fingers to his freckled cheeks. They looked pinkish in the low alley lighting. “I figured… Babble would want to know.”
“You want the publicity?” I asked, dubious.