“Let’s hope not,” I said, grinning as I glanced in the rearview mirror and that battered truck trying to push us down the country road. Someone’s in a hurry, I thought. I bet it’d be fun to show her how to take it slow. “I’m not the sharing kind.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
HELENA
“WHY DO you guys drive so slow?” I hopped down from the truck and jammed my keys and wallet in my pockets, regretting the tight jeans. “Jasper, was that you?”
“I was going the speed limit!”
“Yes. I was painfully aware of that. You can go five miles over. I mean, it’s ridiculous that a completely empty straight road was only thirty-five most of the time anyway.”
“So pass me.”
“But then I would be here by myself and—as you now know—I don’t even know how to bowl.”
“It’s not hard,” Jake said.
“I figured that, but still.”
“Jake hit a deer on a country road just like that one, so I am not going to drive like an idiot,” Jasper said, in a voice so on the edge that I could tell Jake had already been hassling him about it. I guess me and the asshole brother did agree on one thing.
The bowling alley was on the outskirts of whatever town this was, surrounded by a few cornfields at close range and some hills in the background. An old neon sign blared into the dusk, and the parking lot was reasonably full, but it was…what was it? Tuesday. It looked a little rundown and inside, a grease-tinged funk hit my nose. It was the smell of french fries, old carpet, and apparently, a lot of shoes.
“What size do you wear?” Jake asked.
“We have to wear those?”
“Damn. You really don’t know anything about this. Never heard of bowling shoes?”
“But why?”
“So your dirty boots don’t scuff up the lanes and junk.”
The old lady behind the counter gave me a faint, are-you-a-simpleton smile.
“She’s a baroness,” Jake offered, leaning an arm on the counter. “So she’s never been bowling.”
“Haha…that right?” The old lady looked at me like, yeah-and-I’m-Queen-Victoria.
“I wear eight and a half,” I said, just wanting to get on with it. I didn’t want to seem prissy, and it was definitely stupid to care about wearing nasty old shoes when my entire job was dealing with nasty old houses, but…hmm. I guess I was sensitive about what I put on my feet. The boots I was wearing had not been cheap either. When you leave your high-rolling lifestyle behind you’re allowed to keep a few indulgences, I’d say.
So I was a little reluctant as I tugged the laces on, but then my competitive streak lit up as the guys picked out balls.
“You just lob this thing toward the pins, right?” I said.
“Yep, like so.” Jasper held the ball to his chest and then took a couple low steps forward and slung the bowling ball out onto the lane. It sailed down straight but then got off track near the end and knocked over four pins.
“Warm up,” he said. His second roll got two more pins down.
“Move over,” Jake said. “I’ll show you how it’s done.” He flashed me a cocky grin before getting the ball going with more speed than Jasper. It wasn’t really the sexiest sport in the whole world, but considering how pent up I’d been, I was enjoying it heartily. Jake straightened out again, ready to pump a fist of triumph—only for his ball to make the exact same move as Jasper’s and take out the same four pins.
Jasper and I both had to laugh. “Twin balls!” I said gleefully.
“Bite me,” Jake said.
Jasper did get a spare on his second roll. I was watching carefully, determined to show them up, but I wasn’t sure if there was any trick to it.
“Your turn, show us what you’ve got, huh?” Jake said, giving my shoulder a brief clap that unexpectedly sent a jolr through me. His hand was so—manly. I mean, obviously. He was a man, who did manly things all day, and this just showed I had grown out of touch with what other people’s hands feel like.
I really do need a date, I thought. A real one. But it couldn’t be with these two. Or—one of them. It would complicate everything way too much. I just need to get laid.
I thought about the dream incubus again and…hmm.
I showed them what I had, which was a confident move that rolled straight into the gutter, twice in a row. Adding insult to injury, in the next lane over a small child had basically plunked her bowling ball straight down and it slowly rolled to the end and knocked over all but one pin at the same time as I was bombing.
“Shit! I can’t believe how stupid that was!”
“Well, you’ve never bowled before,” Jasper said. “So…no one expects perfect. We haven’t exactly been kings of the lanes either.”
“But a child could do this!” I waved at the next lane.
Jasper went again as I was talking and knocked over all the pins. “Strike” flashed on the screen. “And that’s how it’s done,” he said to Jake. They were mugging for my attention a little bit, I think. Or, then again, they might just be like this all the time.
“Well, at least I’m not the only one with a heavy competitive streak,” Jake said. “I’ll try to be a good sport while I watch Hel ponder if she needs bumpers in her lane.”
“Never,” I said. “And yeah, I’m competitive. I have five sisters and I’m number five out of six.”
Jasper whistled low. “So I’ve always wondered how you ended up doing this. In our eyes, you came out of nowhere at that one auction.”
“Oh, well, I grew up in old houses,” I said. “Our house in New York was big and grand but also needed a ton of maintenance. More than anyone could afford. You know, they build stuff cheap nowadays, but when they built those houses back in the day, I don’t
