Page 77 of Road Trip with a Vampire

“Why can’t you believe it?” Peter turned to look at me, curious. We’d barely slept the night before but damn if that man didn’t look just as put together as always. Being a vampire must do wonders for under-eye circles. Or maybe it was all the sex.

“You don’t seem the bowling alley type,” I said honestly.

One corner of Peter’s mouth lifted in amusement. “You’ve visited enough bowling alleys to know whether someone’s thebowling alley type?”

“I’ve been to more than a few.” In fact, there’d been a stretch in the ’50s when I’d been part of a ladies’ bowling league. When you live for centuries, if you don’t find creative ways to spend your time, you risk getting bored. It turned out I was a natural at bowling, even without my magic. Which made being in a league much more fun than it had any right to be.

Peter seemed to consider his next words carefully. “If I’m not the bowling alley type, what type am I?” He drummed his fingers against the passenger-side window, eyes focused on me as hewaited for me to reply. My instinct was to treat the question as a joke, but the way Peter was looking at me said he really wanted to know.

“You’d rather go to the opera than to a bowling alley,” I said honestly. “You’re someone who prefers Shakespeare to a romance novel. The sort who watches a period drama, notFriends.” I winked at him. “You listen to Morrissey, not the Spice Girls.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw, but his expression didn’t change. I’d meant it all as a compliment, of course. Ilikedhow serious he was. But I couldn’t tell if my answer pleased him or not.

“Hmm,” he said.

“And what’s my type?” I asked.

Peter opened his car door as he considered this. “The type who’s full of surprises,” he said. “Just when I think I have you all figured out, I realize I had no idea.”

I winced. “That sounds exhausting.”

He held my gaze for a long moment. “Just the opposite.” He extended a hand towards me. “Either way, I apparentlywasthe bowling alley type. Or at least I came here once. Let’s go figure out why.”

Gary’s Bowl-A-Rama’s interior was just as depressing as its exterior. Terrible ’80s pop music blared into the space through tinny speakers, and there was a row of pinball machines along one wall, all of which looked broken. Other than a kid’s birthday party at the far end of the alley and a couple at the bar who might have been the parents of the birthday boy, we were the only ones there.

It reminded me so viscerally of places I’d visited when I’d bowled more often that I had to stop and remind myself of the current year. Peter’s scowl could have melted concrete. If I was unimpressed with this place, he was violently offended by it.

“Shall we get a lane?” I suggested, shouting a little so I could be heard over the Violent Femmes.

He stared at me. “What?”

“I said,shall we get a lane?” At his blank stare, I added, “Wearein a bowling alley, aren’t we?”

“We are,” he agreed. “I’d just assumed we’d spend a few minutes here, see if anything triggered my memories, and then leave. I didn’t think we would…bowl.” He said the wordbowllike it tasted like spoiled milk.

“Staying at the chicken restaurant for a while helped you remember things, didn’t it? I think that if you bowled last time, you should bowl this time. See if it jogs your memories.” At his skeptical look, I added, “See what I mean about you not being the bowling alley type? You’re too much of a snob.”

“It’s not that,” he countered. “I just think bowling is…”

“What?” I asked, teasing. “Beneath you?”

He looked affronted. “I was going to sayboring.”

“What’s boring about trying to knock things down with a sixteen-pound ball?” Suddenly I got an idea. “Why don’t we make a bet?”

“No.”

“Let’s bowl for one hour,” I continued, ignoring him. I held up a single finger. “The bet is that at the end of that hour, you will admit you had a good time.”

“I don’t agree to this.”

“Why not? Have something better to do tonight than bowl?”

“As it happens, I do,” he said.

I folded my arms across my chest, not buying it. “Like what?”

“I have…things,” he mumbled to his shoes.