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Laney was a terrible bowler.

She did the granny-bowl and still put more balls in the gutter than Shane and Dustin combined. She hardly ever hit any pins, and once she’d let go of the ball so late and at such a weird angle that it had flown straight up in the air and then landed in the next lane. But she looked so delighted he couldn’t even bring himself to make fun of her.

She’s fucking adorable.

Dustin actually wasn’t bad, considering his arms were like toothpicks and it was ten-pin.

Shane had six strikes and four spares.

She was drowning in a giant Mother Love Bone t-shirt, but she was still stealing all the attention in the room. Shane’s knuckles kept cracking involuntarily as he watched the guys in the bowling league two lanes down eyeballing her and muttering to each other, leering and laughing.

It reminded him of Halloween, everyone staring at her, and he wanted to break their ribs with his bowling ball. It stressed him out that even with no costume, no makeup, and literally swimming in her clothes, everything with a dick was staring at her.

He glared at the league, one of the guys elbowing another and nodding at him. They stopped laughing and looked away.

Good.

The image of Laney in that bikini had been floating around in his head all evening. It had left nothing but nipples to the imagination, three tiny triangular scraps covering her tits and the front of her crotch. The rest of it was dental floss.

She’d been so tan, her skin so smooth… He knew he’d seen Linette’s huge, bouncing breasts only moments before but he honestly couldn’t remember them. All he could think about were the lines on Laney’s stomach, the curve of her ass… God he wanted to unroll her like a sleeping bag and taste every freckle on her body.

If he’d known he’d be skipping Jenna’s for the weekend, he probably would have gone to see her the night before instead, to work off his frustration in preparation of forty-eight hours with Laney. As it was, he had seriously considered jerking off in the bathroom, just to take the edge off, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Am I that much of a pig that I have to go jerk off in the bowling alley bathroom at her kid brother’s birthday party?

Still, she was driving him up the wall with her constant stream of insults that made him want to grab her hair and make her shut up. He wished for the thousandth time that he wasn’t so attracted to her, thinking about how much easier all of this would be if he wasn’t picturing himself peeling that bathing suit off her with his teeth.

“Hi,” said a tall girl wearing a staff shirt and carrying a basket of wings. “The kitchen made extra, I thought maybe you’d like these?”

“Oh,” Shane said, “sure. Thanks.”

She smiled at him. “I’m Sarah. Is this your brother and sister?” she asked.

“No."

Her face fell. His tone wasn’t rude, or mean, exactly. But he felt no need to elaborate on his relationship with Laney and Dustin to a total stranger who was clearly just trying to find out if he was single.

In the technical sense, he supposed he was single. But in the literal sense, Jenna kept his body more than busy, and as much as he hated to admit it (and hated sounding like a cheesy motherfucker), his heart was Laney’s.

“Can I get you anything else? A beer, maybe?”

“No thanks Sarah ,” Laney said from behind him, her voice falsely sweet. “We’ll give you a shout if we need anything!”

Sarah eyed Laney with distaste, sizing her up. But as Laney seemed to grow taller, somehow, and as the girl took in her Penthouse-worthy face and petite, lithe body, she seemed to decide that the odds weren’t in her favour and left with a pout.

“Is it embarrassing for you, these girls throwing themselves at you all the time?” Laney asked, tossing herself onto his lap and picking up a chicken wing.

Shane shrugged. “Used to it, I guess.”

“I like that you don’t deny that women do throw themselves at you.”

“They don’t throw themselves at me. They show me they’re interested. And I show them I’m not.”

“Mm…” Laney said, her eyes twinkling. “Are you perhaps attracted to the stronger sex?”

“Only Jerry. Ours is a forbidden love.”

Laney snorted. “To forbidden love,” she said, raising her chicken wing.

Dustin bowled two strikes in a row.