Chapter 13 Bowling Night
Bowling Night
Istared at myself in the bathroom mirror. We were in a bowling alley on the edge of campus. Josh and Kellan were paying for the lane while I was pulling myself together in the restroom.
Don’t make a big deal out of anything, I told my reflection.
Your friendship with Grey is on the line.
The pressure of the night had weighed heavily on me even while making the plans with Grey.
I didn’t want to overreact and, next thing I knew, Josh and Kellan would be telling me to drop my “new” friend.
Which would be a lot easier if She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named weren’t also coming tonight.
I pooled water in my hands, stared at it for a moment, then splashed it in my face.
You’ve got this, Ethan. Don’t make it fucking weird.
That should be my new mantra: Don’t make it fucking weird.
Taking a deep breath, I left the restroom.
The bowling alley was surprisingly empty for a Friday night, but then, it was still early.
As I made my way past bowling lanes to arrive at the one Josh and Kellan had rented for us, the butterflies in my stomach swarmed with a vengeance, but they calmed down when I saw that Grey and Carina still hadn’t shown.
“I got you shoes.” Kellan passed them to me.
I took them wordlessly and pulled them onto my feet. I was distracted even doing such a simple task. My eyes kept darting toward the entrance in anticipation of Grey’s arrival.
Josh noticed. “You seem a bit tense.”
I bit my tongue, knowing full well that I couldn’t vent what was going through my mind.
They would at best judge me for being stressed, and at worst, they would tell me it was a sign that being friends with Grey was impossible and I should just let him go.
Well, I wouldn’t accept that now that I had a way of having him in some capacity, so I would just have to grin and bear any discomfort that keeping him involved.
“I’m just worried about you two meeting him for the first time,” I finally said. It encompassed the truth, even if it shrouded my true fears underneath.
I really was worried they wouldn’t like how I acted around him or how he treated me.
I was also worried that they simply wouldn’t like him.
Not to mention I was simultaneously stressing about how I would react about Carina being there with Grey.
I’d never had a conversation with the girl, and I wouldn’t exactly say that I had the urge to change that.
But since Grey and I were friends now, I had to get over that hurdle sooner or later, so it might as well be now.
“What’s there to worry about?” Kellan leaned back in his chair. “I’m a goddamn delight.”
Josh let out a sarcastic laugh, and I couldn’t suppress a groan.
There was no time to continue the conversation because, at that moment, the front doors opened, and Grey and Carina entered the building.
Nausea twisted in my stomach, then I noticed that they weren’t alone.
A third person followed who I vaguely recognized as being in Dreamscape—the one who’d picked up Grey from the party last week.
Dae, I reminded myself. Dae was his name.
Grey looked amazing, of course. He wore a black button-up with pale-gold stripes, dark jeans, boots, and a leather bracelet. His hair was doing its usual messy middle part with a strand darting across his eye. And his eyes met mine from across the room.
I took a steadying breath to reclaim the wind that had just been knocked from my lungs. This had to go well.
“Is that him?” Josh asked.
“Definitely him,” Kellan responded. “Look at how Ethan is acting.”
“Just behave,” I pleaded with my friends through gritted teeth as Grey paid for rental shoes.
Josh and Kellan laughed then pulled themselves together right as the trio approached.
“This is Kellan and Josh,” I said, hating how my voice sounded oddly formal. “Guys, this is Grey, Carina, and…” I paused, a sudden wave of doubt fumbling the introduction.
Thankfully, Grey stepped in. “This is my best friend, Dae.” He gestured to his friend. “He’s also in my band and asked to tag along.”
Something in Dae’s expression made me seriously doubt he was there out of his own desire. I wondered if he’d been dragged along to this, much like I’d dragged Kellan and Josh.
“Well, I for one am ecstatic to meet you all.” Kellan got to his feet and held out a hand to everyone. “I’m Kellan, by the way. Ethan didn’t do a great job introducing us.”
When he got to Grey’s hand, I noticed a twitch in the corner of Grey’s eye. Looking at their clasped hands, I could see Kellan was squeezing harder than necessary. Grey, for his part, seemed determined not to show any signs of weakness.
After a small eternity, they broke free.
“Let’s bowl,” Josh suggested.
“Please,” Carina said breathily, obviously thankful for an escape from awkward introductions and friends sizing each other up in odd displays of masculinity.
We all went to choose our bowling balls and entered our names into the scoreboard, then Dae was up first. He managed to get a strike and sat down, looking pleased with himself. Had I been here to win, I already would’ve been feeling pretty sorry. I sucked at bowling.
Then went Kellan, Josh, Carina, Grey, and finally, me. I stepped up to the line, praying that I wouldn’t make a total fool of myself. My first ball went into the gutter. I cringed as I watched it make its way oh so slowly to the back, where it harmlessly passed the pins.
“Do we need to get out the gutter bumpers for you?” Kellan called from his chair.
I shot him the middle finger in response and approached with my second ball. This one was a bit more successful, knocking down three pins. It wasn’t much better. I glanced up at the scoreboard. I was already in last place.
“I’m going to get a couple of beer pitchers,” I announced. “Anyone want to come with me?”
Josh and Kellan exchanged a glance that told me they didn’t think adding alcohol to the situation was a good idea. While they might be right to worry, things had been fine so far, so I didn’t share their concerns.
When no one else volunteered, Grey got to his feet. “I’ll go.”
Josh’s and Kellan’s looks of concern deepened, but they didn’t say anything.
I blinked. I had expected anyone but Grey to volunteer. “Great,” I said, trying not to sound flustered.
We made our way to the bar and ordered.
“Thank you for inviting us tonight,” Grey said while we waited for our pitchers. “I was worried that we’d say we were friends then never talk again.”
“I’m glad you came,” I said. “I honestly wasn’t sure you’d say yes when I asked.”
“I meant what I said about us being friends.” Grey gave me a strange look, his eyes darting up and down as if to take me all in.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked, suddenly self-conscious.
“No reason,” Grey said. “You look nice tonight, Ethan.”
Warmth spread across my cheeks. “And you’re breaking the rules.” I grabbed the pitchers as the bartender set them down. “No flirting, remember?”
“It’s not flirting. It’s a statement of fact,” Grey said, but he thankfully dropped it as we headed back. “Why’d you choose bowling if you clearly suck at it?”
“First of all, I don’t suck,” I said loftily.
He raised an eyebrow.
“Okay I suck, but it seemed like a safe choice where everyone could have fun,” I said right as we arrived at the table.
Carina was just finishing up her turn with a spare, and I knew I would lose the game.
“Your turn, babe,” she said, giving Grey a kiss on the cheek before sitting down with the guys.
Josh’s eyes bored into me as he inspected me for a reaction, but I refused to have one. Instead, I sat and divided up the glasses, pouring beer for everyone at the table.
Despite alcohol’s tendency to make tenuous situations worse, it somehow didn’t ruin the night.
Everyone drank, bowled, and had a blast. I played the worst out of everyone by far, coming up fifty points behind the second-to-last-place person—Carina.
It didn’t matter, though. I was just happy to hang out with everyone, especially Grey.
Nothing could ruin my mood, not losing, not Carina’s gentle touches on Grey’s knees or the kisses she gave him on his cheek.
It was all easy enough to ignore with witnesses in the room.
Even Josh and Kellan had a good time. Josh discovered pretty quickly that Dae was premed, and they had a lot of overlap in coursework, so they began chatting about terms so foreign to me that they might as well have been speaking another language.
Meanwhile, Kellan and Grey began chatting about video games of all things, and when they weren’t talking, Kellan was more than happy to keep me distracted.
Everything was going great, and the night was coming to a close when Grey and I stood at the same time, needing to go to the bathroom.
I paused for an awkward beat. “I’ll wait,” I said. “You can go first.”
“Don’t be silly.” Grey looked at me through the hair that had fallen over his eye. “The bathrooms have stalls.”
Rather than stay or speak and make things even more awkward, I headed to the bathroom with Grey.
I imagined that I could feel Kellan’s and Josh’s eyes on me the entire walk there, and I hated to think that this would be the reason they gave me not to see Grey again. The night had been flawless until now.
We entered the restroom together, and Grey immediately posted up at one of the urinals, looking back at me expectantly.
Not tonight. I went straight for a stall, locking it behind me. We were the only two in the restroom, and I was just buzzed enough to worry that I would make a mistake. What mistake that could be, I didn’t know, but I was terrified of proving Kellan and Josh right.
We can be friends, I thought. We can be friends. We can be friends. Over and over, I repeated those four words, hoping they would get lodged in my psyche.
I took longer than necessary to give Grey enough time to finish up and go back out with everyone else. But when I left the stall, I found Grey standing at the sink, looking at himself in the mirror. His hair hung by the sides of his face in curtains, waiting to be tucked behind his ears.
“Is everything okay?” I stepped up next to him to wash my hands.
Grey chuckled and looked at me in the mirror. “Everything is clearly fine,” he said in a tone that verified everything was not fine.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Just relationship stuff,” Grey said. “Carina didn’t want to come tonight, and she says I’ve been ignoring her.”
“But you haven’t,” I said, confused. “You’ve only talked to her and Kellan all night.”
Grey shrugged. “Reality isn’t always the reality in relationships.”
Whatever the fuck that meant. Still, I felt as though I should comfort him. I dried my hands before reaching out to touch his shoulder—gently. Like a friend would. “It’s okay. Maybe she’s upset right now, but she’ll get over it.”
“I just want to hang out with people without my girlfriend having to ‘get over’ things all the time. It’s exhausting.”
That I didn’t have an answer for, and anything I could say felt too much like me manipulating the situation to get what I wanted from Grey.
So I settled with playing it safe. “Maybe just talk to her. That’s how relationships are supposed to work, right?
I mean, look at us. We were feeling weird about life, and now everything is fine. ”
“Right.” Grey’s voice was sour. “Everything is fine.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.” I couldn’t keep the frustration from seeping into my voice. This is what he wanted, isn’t it? This is why he cornered me in the cafe and convinced me to agree to this ill-advised arrangement, right?
“Nothing.” Grey shook his head. “Everything is fine.” He grabbed me by the shoulders. “Thanks again for inviting us.” He turned and left the restroom.
I gave him a few seconds’ head start before leaving as well. By the time I got outside, he had left with Carina and Dae. That was fine. I didn’t want to process our conversation in front of everyone anyway. I approached Josh and Kellan, who were waiting by the shoe drop-off.
“Everything good?” Kellan asked.
I beamed. “Actually, everything is great. Still don’t think we can be friends?”
“I hate to admit it,” Josh said as I began untying my bowling shoes. “But you just might be able to pull it off.”
A warmth spread in my chest. I hadn’t let myself think about the future beyond this night.
I’d been so worried that things would explode on me.
But now that it had gone so well, I allowed the idea of Grey and me as friends to really take root.
Yeah, he’d been weird in the bathroom, but that was his thing and had nothing to do with me.
“Told you so.” I laughed.
“Whatever,” Kellan said. “How come you didn’t tell us his friend was hot?”
“Uh, what?” I set my shoes on the counter. “You think Dae is—”
“Well, Josh seemed pretty into him,” Kellan said.
“Shut up.” Josh’s ears turned pink. “We just talked about school.”
“Riiight.” Kellan crossed his arms over his chest, a mischievous gleam in his eye as he peered at Josh.
“Wait,” I said, the realization dawning on me. “Are you into guys?”
Josh’s ears went from pink to red. “I’m not into many people, okay,” he said. “But sometimes, guys and girls can pique my interest equally.”
“So, basically we’re all bisexual disasters.” Kellan laughed.
“Speak for yourselves,” Josh said with a sniff. “Anyway we should go home. I—”
“Have homework,” Kellan and I said simultaneously.
“You two are so annoying.” Josh whipped around and marched toward the door, leaving Kellan and me no choice but to follow.
On the way to the car, I couldn’t help but think about Grey in the bathroom. He’d looked so sad, so… small. I wondered what had happened between him and Carina. Is it anything beyond what he led me to believe? Are they having actual issues? Why am I thinking about it?
Just a friend, I told myself again. Until he comes to you, it’s not your place to worry.