Page 46 of Late to Love

“Me, too!” Amanda says, sliding up next to me with Agatha in tow.

I wince. “Was I supposed to bring you?”

Agatha waves my concern away. “Not at all. Amanda and I had some planning to do.”

Devon takes a sip of the drink Anthony slid to her. “Planning? Or plotting? Because I know your type, Agatha—and there’s always something going on in that head of yours that the rest of us have no clue about.

Beside her, Aaron laughs. “Isn’t that the truth.”

“You play the long game—and I should know,” Devon continues, looking at her husband with a knowing smile.

Agatha clasps her hands in front of her chest. “That sounds like a story I’d love to know.”

I lean in. “Same. Spill it, sister.”

Devon laughs. “Let’s just say that my grandmother made it her mission to get me and Aaron together, even though at the time I was traveling the country and had no plans to come home to Talladega.”

“But come home she did, and it gave me the chance I needed to prove she should be with me,” Aaron says, pulling Devon’s back to him and kissing her cheek.

“That’s adorable,” Amanda coos.

“Sounds like your grandmother is pretty amazing,” I add.

“She was,” Devon says.

After a beat, I clap my hands. “Okay, let’s get our bowling on, shall we?”

The four of us head to the lane closest to the bar and get situated, swapping out our shoes and picking our balls. I’m the only one who’s bothered to buy her own bowling ball, and of course it’s a cherry red, marbled through with streaks of pearl. We enter our names into the scoreboard, and as I glimpse Anthony behind us, I wonder for the first time if he’s always put us in this lane on purpose.

Nah. No way.

But…maybe?

Whatever. I’m being silly.

Halfway through our first game, I’ve just bowled a bucket, taking down the 2, 4, 5, and 8 pins, when Anthony walks out from the bar and comes over to us.

“Are you taking drink orders over here now?” Amanda teases.

She knows good and damn well that Anthony Hall would do no such thing. Which begs the question.

“You’re doing it wrong.” He nearly snarls the words, and then I realize he’s holding a bowling ball bag.

No way.

I point to it. “Do you…bowl?”

He gives me awhat do you thinklook, his lips flat behind his thick beard. “Yes.”

My jaw unhinges, but at the same time, of course he bowls.Of coursehe does. The man is a freaking onion, revealing layer after painstaking layer as slow as molasses in winter. And for as frustrating as it is—asheis—all it really makes me want to do is uncover more.

More. When it comes to Anthony Hall, I simply wantmore.

Agatha claps. “Are you going to give us a lesson?”

Devon’s eyes light up with mischief as she looks between Anthony and me. “Start now. Darcy’s got one more bowl. Maybe she needs some hands-on help.”

Amanda snorts behind me, but Anthony doesn’t so much as look at Devon. His eyes are glued to mine, and I have no idea what is happening right now.

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