I opened my mouth with the intention of explaining that it did, in fact, say Escalade up there, but not Anaconda, when the words died on my lips. Anaconda was listed on the screen right below Escalade.
"Kat is Escalade because she has a big front end and a big bumper." Josh motioned toward his non-existent pectoral muscles, where my breasts would be. "You're Anaconda because we all know that's what you have in your pants," he said, matter-of-factly. He gestured toward his crotch then, but the look on his face made it seem like he thought we lacked the common sense to understand his reasoning.
Tristan laughed, not seeming to be bothered in the least bit by Josh's explanation, but I was dying. A felt heat build up across my face, giving away my blush. It wasn't because he was talking about my tits and ass, but because I, in fact, did not know he had a beast hidden in his pants. The wink Josh gave me when I looked away from Tristan to gain my composure told me he did it on purpose. The bastard winked and mouthed "BFF" to me like it was supposed to make sense.
Josh and I went up to start our first game, and he owned my ass on the first frame when I knocked down six pins total against his pickup of spares. Tristan gave me a high-five on my walk back and leaned in close to my ear. "I used to play in a league."
He'd told me he wouldn't lie to me a couple of times by that point, but after the first and second ball both made it to the gutter with gusto, it was obvious he just had.
On his walk back, he held his hand up for me to give him a high-five and I did, but I was laughing. "I thought you said you played in a league!" I smirked. "You were talking about little league, weren't you?"
Tristan scowled at me, amusement written all over his face before pushing me in the direction of the lane. "Shut up. I'm warming up."
By the end of the first game, Tristan ended up with a whopping score of 35, and I was at 130. Josh and Leo, his friend, were whooping from their side as they claimed how our asses got handed to us and things of that nature. I sat in my chair with my arms crossed over my chest, staring at the two lovers while they did a horrific chest bump.
"Suck it, Josh!" I screamed at him.
My blonde friend pointed at Leo with wide eyes. "That's what he said!"
According to Josh, a gay guy couldn't say, "That's what she said!" So, he put his own gay-appropriate spin on it. I swear, all of my friends were their own form of idiot, but I loved them anyway.
One game turned into four, one beer turned into three, and our two lanes made more noise than the rest of the bowling alley put together. When I started going up to bowl, Josh would run up and slap my ass as hard as he could— which wasn't very hard at all‚ but it still scared the shit out of me each time and caused me to drop the ball. Leo showed us that he could do the moonwalk when he got a strike. Tristan finally warmed up enough to the point in which he was actually knocking down pins, and then making these really horrible R2D2 noises afterward to celebrate.
Two hours later, we were on our last frame. By some miracle, we'd tied, and I could have thanked the beers that made Josh giggly because they made him play crappy. He did horrible, only knocking down about six pins, while I got nine. All we needed to win was for Tristan to not suck completely.Ha.
He leaned his head toward me when I tugged at his shirt, so he could hear me over the loud music. The smile he'd had on his face over the last two hours was tremendous, I was sure he could have lit up a city with it. He stood so close to me I could taste his soapy scent down the back of my throat. "Don't blow it, okay? I want to win at least one game."
"If my little gold digger wants to win a game, we'll win a game," he promised with crooked, wicked smile.
Mary Magdalene.
Could friends have benefits?
Tristan brushed a hand down the length of my ponytail and walked backward to the lane. Of course, he got a gutter ball on the first turn while Leo managed to knock down four.
"Don't blow it!" I screamed before laughing at him.
He gave me another crooked smile when he went for his ball again, while James threw his ball, managing to only knock down three pins. I was squirming from foot to foot like the outcome of the game decided the fate of humanity, but I really, really didn't want Josh to walk around talking about how he'd won every game for the next month.
Tristan then did the unthinkable by somehow knocking down nine pins.
By the way we both screamed it was like we'd won the World Series. My tall, new friend, who wore a tight, soft, blue shirt that accented the perfectly flat abs and pillow-like pecs underneath, beelined toward me with his arms stretched out in front of him. I didn't even think twice about jumping into them and wrapping my own around his neck. He was warm and hard against me. His chest was like a solid wall of muscle and it was... ugh. Amazing.
At some point, I became aware that my feet weren't touching the floor anymore, but two more sets of arms wrapped around me about the same time.
Tristan stiffened before I felt his chest, which my face was pressed against, start rumbling in laughter.
"Which one of you just grabbed my ass?"
It was Josh, of course.
After saying goodbye to each other in the parking lot, we headed in separate directions toward our cars. Tristan followed me to my car, laughing and retelling me his favorite moments in the game; like when Leo stepped over the line, and then slid five feet across the lane. He had to crawl back to avoid busting his ass.
"Thanks for inviting me," he said with a big smile, when we were standing right in front of my car door. Covered in a thin layer of sweat, his face glistened just a little by his temples. "I don't think I've had that much fun since high school," he said, and I could tell he was being truthful.
His words made me burst at the seams. A majority of what he told me hinted at a lonely life, and I felt good that if that was the truth, my loved ones and I could change that for him even if it was only for a few hours. "I'll remind you when we play next month," spilled out of me.
Tristan nodded as he stepped toward me, wrapping a single arm around my shoulder to pull me in close for a hug. I wasn't sure where his other arm was, because I was so distracted by the fact that I was eye level with where his nipple should be, I felt his other hand rest on the small of my back. He was warm and smelled so good, my brain shut down for the ten seconds I was wrapped up in his hug, completely aware of the fact that his entire frame casually brushed against mine.
