55. Holden #2
The first end is the loudest end ever played in a sport built on calm and quiet. It’s one hundred percent Milo’s fault. He winds up like a pitcher, lets fly, and the wood curves out on its bias, misses the jack by a yard, and dribbles into the trench with a soft, final plop.
“BALLS OF FURY, BABY!”
Thirty heads turn. The woman in the visor narrows her eyes the way you do when a toddler screams in a library.
He makes his way over to the ditch, staring down at the fallen wood. Placing a hand on his heart, he delivers a eulogy that vows vengeance.
The retirees appear at best amused, at worst utterly horrified.
That about sums up Milo.
Micah ends up being quietly, infuriatingly good—he sends three down that curl in to kiss the jack and doesn’t celebrate a single one, just walks back and sits and waits. I’m mediocre, managing to avoid any trips to the gutter.
Walt Brennan is not. The man is a shark. He lays three around the jack like he set them there by hand and smirks at me each time.
Yeah, yeah, laugh it up grandpa.
Knox doesn’t understand the game at all.
He grips the bowl and sends it down the green with enough force to qualify as assault. I wince in sympathy, then straighten as it curves late, clips one of Walt Brennan’s bowls, and somehow ends up inside the cluster near the jack.
Milo loses his mind.
“YES! SMASH THE RETIREES! brEAK THE PATRIARCHY!”
“Lower your voice,” the visor woman hisses without looking at him.
Milo mutters something about her being lucky he only kills criminals, but if she’s going to keep spoiling his fun he might rethink his morals.
Luckily, I’m the only one close enough to hear it.
Knox stares down the length of the rink like he can bully geometry into obedience. “It curved.”
“Yes,” Eli says from the far end, patient in that strained, overcareful way. “That’s the point.”
Knox nods once, as if he’s making a mental note.
Eli’s a disaster.
For a man who’s normally so planned and careful, he overshoots the jack by ten feet, twice.
On the third, he fires one flat and hard down the rink like he’s trying to hurt it.
The bowl scatters the head, sends the little white jack skittering into the trench, and earns a tut from the visor woman that could curdle milk.
“You good, boss man?” Milo asks, after that one.
“Fine,” he grunts.
“You bowled like you’re trying to crack the jack in two.”
“I’m fine, Milo.”
“Cool. Cool cool cool. Just checking. Just doing welfare. Just being a concerned member of team Balls of Fury.”
Eli sits, jaw tight. Milo sits beside him, says something low. Eli closes his eyes. Milo squeezes his shoulder and gets up to bowl, and Eli stays put, head down.
“Beer run,” I tell him. “Come with.”
He looks at me.
“Now, Eli. That wasn’t a suggestion.”
He gets up with a huff and follows me.
The clubhouse bar is older than sin and the speaker system crackles with Pat Benatar. I order a round of beers and carry them to the end of the bar, where the others can see us but the room can’t hear us. Then I hand Eli his and wait.
He drinks, watching me over the glass.
“What did you do to her last night?” I ask, breaking the silence.
He looks down, swiping his thumb through the condensation. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said, Eli. She was hurt. You did it. And unless you want me for an enemy, I suggest you start explaining. Our girl has been through enough hurt to last a lifetime. Fucked if I’m letting you add to it.”
He takes a long drink and sets the glass on the coaster.
“I simply told her the truth,” he says. “And then I left.”
I let the silence sprawl. Let him think about whether I’m going to let it rest. I watch him dredge up the muscle for another swallow, the way the beer goes down like ball bearings.
“You finished it? Or are you waiting for her to fight for you?”
He shakes his head. “Stop playing offense, Holden. I’m not the villain here.”
“No, you’re just the one who walks when she finally stops running—leaving the mess to the rest of us.”
He flexes his jaw. “I told her what she needed to hear,” he says, finally. “She’ll hate me for it, but at least she’ll be safe.”
“Safe from what, exactly? From us?”
He looks up, and for a second, it’s like he wants to hit me. “No, Holden. From me. The rest of you are all too busy thinking with your dicks to realize setting her free is the right move. She isn’t one of us. We shouldn’t be dragging her into the dark with us.”
I smile without humor. “Setting her free. That what we’re calling gutting her and leaving her bleeding on her own kitchen floor?”
His nostrils flare. “You weren’t there.”
“No. I got there after. Saw enough.”
“You saw the aftermath of something that needed to happen.”
“Bullshit.” I lean on the bar, close enough that if he wants to swing, he won’t have to reach. “You needed to dump your crisis on somebody and she was there.”
His eyes go flat. Dangerous flat. “Careful.”
“Or what?”
He says nothing. That’s answer enough.
I laugh once under my breath. “I’m going to say something, and I want you to hear it before you walk off. Can you do that?”
He glances over. I take it as a yes.