Blackbourne Investigations 02 - Consequences

Chapter 32 - That's How We Roll

Can you believe it? It is a Lisa Murray update! I know, I can barely believe it myself.

For anyone who is still reading, thank you so much for sticking with me. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

No excuses. I'm sorry.

Huge thanks to AcademyRose for the picture. Absolutely adore it!

Enjoy.

We walked into the bowling alley, the familiar sounds of the heavy rolling and clatter of the ball smacking against the tenpins echoed around us. I hadn't been into a bowling alley since I had worked in a small cafe attached to one a few years ago. I, unfortunately, hadn't in my time there gotten any experience with bowling. I could only hope I didn't make a complete fool of myself.

I glanced to see Gabriel clear his face of a look of faint distaste and give me a wry grin. "You know how to bowl Sang?"

I shook my head in the negative. "Nathan said it isn't too hard though?" I asked hopefully.

He gave a careless shrug of his shoulders, "It's not too bad. You can always have the bumpers up if you're worried."

Bumpers were an option? I turned to Nathan eagerly, "Can I have the bumpers? That way I won't have to suffer the embarrassment of missing every time and achieving the eternal gutter ball."

Nathan chuckled in response, "If you really want. It's about having fun more than anything."

"That's what you say now," Silas muttered looking around the alley, the disco ball suspended from the ceiling sending flickers of light throughout the cavernous room, "It'll be a different story when I start whooping your *ss."

"And so it begins..." Gabriel sighed.

Their easy familiarity and the way they already seemed to be discretely sizing each other up clued me in. "Do you come here regularly?"

There was a silence. I don't think any of them wanted to answer that question.

"Not recently. Nathan went through a," Silas paused for emphasis, "phase during his early teens where he dragged us along every week. Haven't been here for years."

"Sure, blame it on me," Nathan retorted, "You were just as keen to get out."

Nathan turned to face me, "So you've worked in a bowling alley and you've never played? How did that happen?"

My mind whirled, trying to decipher how he knew I had worked at a bowling alley. Me. I had told him, tossing out an old bowling saying and him picking up on it. I was slowly but surely cracking open, revealing the pieces of me.

I nodded, "Yes I worked in the cafe, it wasn't like this one," I gestured towards the food counter to the right of the service desk, "it was a business attached to the side of the bowling alley . I didn't ever really come into the bowling section unless they wanted their food or drinks delivered to their lane."

"No games after your shift finished?" Silas moved in, his brow furrowed in thought.

I shook my head again. "They always put me down on the late shift, never finished before quarter past 11."

"Eleven?" Silas repeated, the word hanging in the air. "And then what? How did you get home?"

I tried to back-pedal, finally realising where this was going. "I always managed, but that's why I've never tried before. But it can't be too hard, can it?"

The conversation moved on, as if the last half of my sentence hadn't been uttered.

"D*mnit Sang. North is right, your guardian angel deserves a f*cking medal." Gabriel ran his fingers through his hair before clenching them into fists. "Just promise me that sh*t is over?"