Page 47 of When the Smoke Clears

“Ladies first.” He gestures to the lane, having already put our names into the computer.

My cheeks heat at the letters on the screen. Firecracker and Cowboy are playing.

The pink ball glides into the gutter. Defeated, I turn back and wait for the ball to make its trek through the return. The second attempt isn’t much better, but I manage to knock down two pins on the left.

Sutton stands, dragging his fingers along my side as he steps by to get his own ball. I plop down on the plastic chair. I have a feeling I’m about to get schooled.

Sure enough, Sutton has beautiful form and his ball direct hits the center pin, knocking them all down in one swoop. I cover my face with my hands and peek at him from behind my fingers as he returns, grinning at me.

“Well, that was hot.” I cock my head to one side, watching him.

The computer screen highlights my name again. When I approach the ball return, Sutton doesn’t sit. Instead, he leans his head down toward me and asks, more seductively than I would have thought, “Do you want a pointer?”

I turn my head to the right, toward his chest, but don’t look up. The tension is killing me and my breathing shallows. After a short hesitation, I nod.

He gestures for me to approach the lane but follows me this time. I prep the ball for release but don’t pull my arm back, keeping it cradled to my chest.

His warm hand presses against the underside of my arm. “Your follow-through is off.” I want to melt backward into his chest but force myself to remain standing still.

He glides his hand up my forearm, aligning his fingers over mine. “When you let go here,” he pulls my arm down to show where I released the ball previously, “your wrist is twisting. Like this.”

I’m a little disappointed when he releases me to demonstrate with his own arm. “Instead, you need to keep your hand moving upward. Like this.” He extends his arm higher than I did, as if reaching for the ceiling.

I nod, debating fucking up on purpose so I can have another hands-on tutorial. He retreats to wait near the ball return.

Focusing on the arm adjustment, I swing the ball forward. It rolls much closer to center, knocking down a middle section of pins. Elated, I spin around with a jump, immediately regretting the maneuver, which tugs at my healing wound.

Sutton smirks.

After the next frame, I manage to knock down all but one of the remaining pins. We get into a rhythm where Sutton gets a strike and I try for a spare each time. I’m only successful a few times, but I still manage to avoid the gutter more than not.

“Tell me about your dad,” he says as I walk back after a turn.

Oh yeah. “James showed up after my lunch with Stephanie. He saw us while we were out and thought it was time to address things. Long story short, he and Stephanie were stupid happy and eloped. When I was a few years old, his brother was killed in Ireland and he came clean that he has ties to the mafia. Stephanie freaked and ran away with me.”

Sutton and I stare at each other. The pins are reset and waiting.

“That’s not where I thought that was going,” he says, grabbing his ball.

“It caught me off guard, too. I really don’t know where we stand. Him showing up here was out left field.”

“He obviously wants to be in your life.” He takes his turn, earning another easy strike, and returns. “And he’s keeping tabs enough to know where you are.”

“Somewhat. He saw me the night I met Colt. He was surprised, said he knew it was me even though I never ran into him growing up. My family never mentioned him, although according to Randi, she and Nana tried to get him and Stephanie back together.” I roll the ball and return before I see what’s been knocked down. “There’s still a lot I need answers for.”

My heart aches for the years that were stolen from us, anger filling me at my mother’s inability to handle conflict. She always chooses to dismiss emotion because she can’t deal with the repercussions of it.

Maybe dealing with them hurt too much in some of her most important moments. Maybe that’s what she meant when she said I look like him and it was painful. I can’t forgive her for her treatment of me, but a part of me is at least starting to piece her together.

“I’d like to spend more time getting to know him. Our conversations have been very brief—he’s open and vague at the same time. I don’t know much about the club or his life, or what type of person he really is. I’ll never know for sure, but I think he would’ve been a good father. I think he was while it lasted.”

Sutton nods, looking over my face. “I think that’s fair. You just need to be careful. I’ve never heard anything bad or criminal about the club. A few bar fights, but that could be anyone around here.” He smiles gently. “Still, club life is a whole different ball game. And just because I haven’t heard of it, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.”

“I’ll be careful,” I promise.

He gives me a skeptical look I ignore, and I grab my ball for the final frame.

Chapter 16

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