For the first half of my shift, Lynsey lets me work the laser tag. The Summit is always at its busiest on a Saturday. The mornings are full of families as the young kids waste a hell of a lot of free change in the arcade, before battling it out over a game of intense bowling with the bumpers up and then finally finishing off their day in the restaurant. Then, as the afternoon fades into the evening, the kids are replaced by young couples on dates and older teens around my age. Luckily, I get to leave before they arrive. My shift finishes in fifteen minutes, and I know for sure that I’ll be clocking out on the dot. I don’t mind staying back and working longer if necessary, but on a weekend shift? Absolutely no way in hell. I’m out of here.
The second half of my shift has me back at the bowling lanes, behind the counter, spraying a row of bowling shoes yet again. It has made the past four hours go by excruciatingly slowly.
At the opposite end of the counter, Adam is working the register and assigning lanes. The bowling alley is so busy right now that customers have a ten-minute wait for a lane, so there’s a small crowd of people lingering around the counter, just waiting. Adam is fun to work with in the sense that he blatantly doesn’t care. He dropped out of college and has been here for a few weeks, though I don’t think he’ll be around much longer. He refuses to wear his name tag because apparently his name is no one’s business.
“God,” he mutters as he slams the register shut. There’s a break in the flow of people which he takes advantage of by abandoning his post behind the register and walking over to me instead, sporting a deep frown. I know he’s annoyed, but Lynsey wouldn’t be impressed if she saw his lack of enthusiastic customer service. “Those guys on lane twenty are taking forever!”
I stop spraying the shoes along the counter in front of me and glance up at the lanes. It looks hectic from over here, all twenty-four lanes occupied as the bowling balls crack against the floor and pins shatter every single second. It’s so loud. Over on lane twenty a couple are helping their two young kids push their bowling balls. I chuckle at his exasperation. “Their kids are, like, five. What do you expect?”
“I don’t know—faster bowling, maybe?” Adam shakes his head, his eyes narrowed while he scratches at his buzzcut. “All these people are gonna go crazy if these lanes don’t start freeing up soon.”
“That’s a Saturday shift for you.” I smile teasingly at him as I throw the empty can of odor remover down into the trash can by my feet, then swoop up three pairs of shoes and turn away from him. Thankfully, Adam returns to the register, so I head into the back room.
I love the back room. I think everyone loves the back room, no matter where they work. It’s a nice place to waste five minutes of my shift without anyone noticing. I wait for the door to fall shut before I pull out the small stool from beneath a desk and sit down, sliding my phone out from my pocket. I have a text from Mom asking me if I want dinner after my shift, and if so, what do I want? It’s a nice question to have her ask, because if she’s in the mood to cook, then she hasn’t been drinking. In my group chat with Will and Holden, there’s nothing interesting besides the two of them discussing with each other hours and hours ago what time they wanted to meet up at to go golfing. Will has an annual membership and I don’t know why, because he only uses it a couple times a year. I’ll catch up with them after I clock out and see what’s up, but I don’t feel like spending the evening listening to them argue over who is better at golf.
The door to the back room swings open and I quickly scramble to my feet, almost dropping my phone as I stash it back into my pocket. I grab the first thing that comes to hand, which is simply an empty cardboard box, and I hold it up, pretending to look as though I’m actually doing something productive with it. I breathe a sigh of relief when it’s only Adam who sticks his head around the door and not our boss.
“You’re not sly,” he tells me with a hint of smugness to his voice at having caught me slacking off. But it’s okay, because I catch him out way more often than he does me. “I don’t care, though. I just came to tell you that I need you back out front. You gotta hook people up with some shoes.” He shrugs and then leaves again, so I immediately toss the empty cardboard box back onto the floor and follow after him.
I push the door open and the very last person I expect to see the moment I step behind the counter is Jaden. What is he doing here? “Jaden?” I say. “Are you . . . here to bowl?”
He’s on the opposite side of the counter, blue eyes bright and smoldering as always. “I thought I’d take my grandparents out to do something fun for a change,” he tells me, his voice soft and deep. Slowly, he nods over his shoulder in the direction of the older couple sitting down on the padded benches behind him.
I’ve never met Jaden’s grandparents before. They still seem pretty young, perhaps in their mid-sixties. His granddad still has full, white, silky hair atop his head and a friendly smile as he watches me. Jaden’s grandma is much smaller and she’s awfully skinny too, but her cheeks are warm with pink blush, her eyes shining behind her glasses, graying hair perfectly permed. I offer them a tight smile back, lifting my hand to give them a small wave.
“That’s nice of you,” I say, shifting my attention back to Jaden. Why are his eyes so damn blue? They are pulling me straight in. “Where’s Dani?”
“She didn’t want to come,” he answers, shrugging beneath the black leather jacket he’s wearing. Underneath, he’s wearing a black T-shirt with black jeans and black sneakers. Jaden always wears black and he has done for as long as I can remember. It’s always been too drastic against his paler complexion and blond hair, but somehow it suits him. Or maybe I am just used to it. “Bowling is lame, according to her. Why . . . why don’t you join us instead?”
I blink at Jaden as he subtly leans forward over the counter toward me, though he seems anxious. His offer has come out of nowhere and I’m taken aback by it. A week ago we weren’t even talking, and now he is asking me to join him for a game of bowling? I’m just thankful that he is asking me in the first place, because it means he may be willing to give me a second chance. If he was furious at me, if he didn’t want to waste his time with me, then he wouldn’t have climbed into my car on Thursday night. He wouldn’t have to come to Cane’s with us last night. He wouldn’t be asking me to hang out with him now, but although I wish I could, I can’t.
“I’m working,” I point out with an awkward laugh, tapping at my name tag.
Jaden pulls back the leather sleeve of his jacket to reveal the silver watch on his wrist. He only glances down at it for a split second before he tilts his face back up to look at me. “But only for another seven minutes,” he says. “You do finish at six, right? That’s what you said last night.”
I stare back across the counter at him and the hopeful little smile that slowly creeps onto his lips. I hope he’s not going to pretend that it’s merely a coincidence that he arrived just as I’m about to clock out, because it’s pretty clear that he’s planned this. “Yeah, I finish at six.”
“Great!” he says, stepping back. He moves back down the counter toward Adam, who’s drumming his fingertips impatiently against the register, his eyes on the clock on the wall by his side. He still has six more hours to go, so he looks over at Jaden with the same old disgruntled expression, and I can just tell he’s holding back a groan when Jaden asks, “Can we add Kenzie to our game?” He pulls out his wallet and sets down a ten-dollar bill on the counter, exchanging a sideways glance with me. He’s still smiling, though his expression seems more pleading than playful now. “Just one game, Kenzie. That’s all. It’ll be fun.”
“One game,” I agree, and when I smile, I am not forcing it. Although being around him is still scary, it’s not as bad as I had imagined it to be. In fact, it isn’t bad at all. The only thing that makes it uncomfortable is my own damn guilt.
Just as Jaden’s adding my name to the list of players, Amanda comes strolling over to the counter, ducking underneath the latch. She’s here to take over from me now that my shift has come to an end, and she assures me I can leave five minutes early. I thank her, and then tell Jaden I’ll be back after I’ve clocked out for the day, feeling excitement fluttering in my stomach.
“Don’t take off,” he jokes, wiggling the pen at me, and although he lets out a laugh, I sense a hint of solemnness to his words. My chest pangs with guilt once more as I turn away from him, questioning whether Jaden believes I would actually make a run for it. I’m not surprised he might think that. All I’ve done since last August is run from him.
I smile at his grandparents again as I pass them. They’re sitting so patiently with those same warm smiles on their faces that for a second it breaks my heart. I’m not sure if they’re Brad’s parents or Kate’s parents, but either way they’ve lost a child, and yet—just like Jaden—they seem so happy, so normal. In my house, it has been anything but normal, and we have had four entire years to recover.
The staff room is empty besides some new guy at the table against the wall, staring at the ceiling in silence and eating a sandwich. Normally I would introduce myself to a new employee, but my head’s all over the place at the thought of bowling with Jaden and his grandparents that I simply ignore the poor kid. Instead, I grab my hoodie from my locker to disguise the awful red polo, and then, with two minutes to go until my shift officially ends, I waste the time by putting on some fresh makeup—trying to achieve the fine line between not wanting to look like I’ve made too much of an effort, but also like I haven’t just worked an eight-hour shift. Finally, at 6PM on the dot, I clock out and brace myself to go back out there with Jaden.
I spot Jaden sitting down next to his grandparents, still waiting for a lane to open up. Now that Saturday evening is underway, The Summit is getting seriously busy.
“I’m back,” I say, approaching Jaden from behind.
He twists around to look at me, and immediately the most perfect grin lights up his face. “Phew,” he teases, getting to his feet. He extends his arm behind me, placing his hand on the small of my back, and he nods down at his grandparents who are already staring back up at me with their friendly faces. “This is Kenzie,” Jaden tells them, his warm hand still pressed against me. “The friend from school who’s joining us.”
“The friend from school,” his grandfather echoes, his throaty voice laced with sarcasm as he quickly winks at Jaden.
All Jaden and I can do is share a laugh at the misconception. I’m lucky to have even been called his friend from school, because honestly, we’re not really friends anymore. And we’re definitely not anything more than that either.
“I’m Nancy,” his grandmother says.
“And you can call me Terry,” his grandfather adds, pushing himself up from the bench. “Now, Kenzie, how long until we get a lane? I’ll be as stiff as a board if we don’t start bowling soon!”
I scour the bowling alley, running my eyes over the lanes to try and gauge if anyone is finishing up, but my search is quickly interrupted when Adam calls, “MacKenzie!” from behind the counter. “You guys are lane twelve,” he informs us. “It’s all set up.”
“Great!” Terry says, clapping his hands together, the bright blue of his veins emboldened beneath his skin. “Let’s go bowl.” He reaches for Nancy’s arm and pulls her up to her feet, hooking his arm around hers and directing her over to the counter to collect their bowling shoes. This couple is adorable.
Jaden rolls his eyes after them and then stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket as we follow behind them a little more slowly, side by side. “Thanks for not shutting me down,” he murmurs as his arm brushes against mine for a fraction of a second. I move over slightly out of habit, increasing the distance between us, even though I like feeling his skin against mine. He’s already looking at me, the expression in his eyes thankful, yet teasing all the same. “That’s three times in three days. Progress, right?”
I’m surprised at how casually he talks about the fact that I’ve been avoiding him, looking down at the ground. But he’s right, we’re making progress. Or rather, I’m making progress.
The past three nights have shown me that Jaden Hunter hasn’t changed at all from the Jaden Hunter I knew last year. And that’s both a relief and a terrifying realization at the exact same time, because the Jaden Hunter I knew last year was the Jaden Hunter I was falling for.