Wild Love (Rose Hill, #1)(35)
It strikes me that she’s always been so committed to not letting anyone down that she may never have really learned to put herself first.
So that’s exactly what I tell myself I’m doing when I tag along to school pickup. Keeping her company, putting her first, and keeping the “perv dads” from getting the wrong idea.
Because Rosie might think she knows what our secret is, but mine is that I loved sitting on that dock with her even back then.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FORD
“My sister is babysitting for you?”
West sounds disbelieving as he turns the steering wheel of his truck with his palm.
“She’s not babysitting. Cora is twelve. And Rosalie offered. They’re having pizza and watching Legally Blonde.”
He snorts. “Rosie never offers to babysit for me.”
“That’s because one of your kids is feral and—” I stop what I’m saying, realizing I’ve stepped in it.
West just chuckles. “Don’t be weird. You can say it. One is feral, and the other doesn’t talk.”
“I mean, he talks to you and Mia.”
“Doesn’t much help a babysitter, though, does it?” His tattooed fingers rap against the steering wheel. “Fine by me. Smart kid. He’ll do it when he’s good and ready. Then we’ll all be wishing he’d shut up.”
Leave it to West to be totally nonplussed by his son’s selective mutism. Where I’d be giving myself anxiety and researching the hell out of every option out there, West just goes with it, following his son’s lead.
“Ollie is lucky to have you.”
West grins almost maniacally. “Nah. I’m lucky to have him. That kid has taught me a lot about life.”
And I don’t doubt it. Becoming a dad changed West. Put him on a different path. He and Mia may not have been written in the stars, but he and those babies were. I think they might have saved him, actually. It wasn’t until they came around that he stopped doing crazy, dumb shit.
“You missed the turnoff,” I say when we blow past the bar on the lake. The one that has a bowling alley in the basement. Arcade games. Pool tables and a restaurant upstairs.
West scoffs. “No, I didn’t. That’s where the tourists go. Rose Valley Alley is where Dads’ Night Out happens.”
Fuck me, this is cheesy. “Do you really call it Dads’ Night Out?”
“Yeah. What the fuck else would I call it? ‘Grown men who have children meet at a bowling alley one night every other week’?”
“Every other week?”
“Yeah, man. It’s a league. Ladies’ Night is one Thursday, Men’s Night is the next. We take a short break between seasons. This is spring season.”
“I thought it was once a month or something.”
“Dude, you’re lucky it’s not once a week. In a bigger town it would be.”
I gape at my friend. We’ve always stayed in touch and met up here or in the city. We may not have always been based in the same place, we may even be opposites, but West is my longest-standing friend. And absolutely my most loyal.
But this bowling obsession? I don’t know what to make of it.
“Lucky. Right.”
West laughs at my clear dread, and before I know it, we pull up in front of an old building on the side of the highway. Drilled onto the top frame, at the roof, is a large cut-out of two bowling pins and a bowling ball, creating an unusual silhouette against the setting sun and the mountains’ peaks. Neon signs flash out front, advertising everything from “OPEN” to “NEON BOWLING” to “WINGS N BEER.”
We park and follow a dock-like wooden walkway to the front door.
Inside, balls crash against wood and the sign out front didn’t lie—it indeed smells like wings and beer. A piece of cardboard taped to one post near the front desk proclaims, “Welcome to Men’s League,” and I can’t help but laugh.
This is so… small town.
“Weston, how ya doin’, pal?” a large man with pink cheeks and a bright smile calls out from behind the till.
I try not to stare at how the buttons on his striped bowling shirt look ready to burst.
“Just great, Frankie. Got a fourth for the team here. Can we do all the registration paperwork after?” West hikes a thumb toward the lanes, where people are milling about. “I’d rather get him introduced to the gang.”
“You bet. You’re on six tonight,” the man replies before shifting his attention to me. “What’s your shoe size?”
“Thirteen? Do bowling shoes fit differently?”
The man chuckles and pulls out a pair of shoes, tossing them on the countertop. “Here ya go, big fella. They should fit.”
I grab them and follow West farther into the alley, feeling like a nervous kid heading to a brand-new school. I think of Cora. Her fearlessness. If she can waltz into a new town and a new school and a new house with a dude she barely knows, I can join a fucking bowling league.
“Here we go.” West slaps my shoulder as he gestures me forward. “Guys, this is Ford.”
A man with close-cropped dark hair, a few streaks of gray in it, glances up from where he sits tying his shoes. He’s got dark eyes, an unfriendly face, and where he’s not as tall as I am, he’s got a bulk that I don’t. He looks like he hates me, and I haven’t even opened my mouth yet.