Chapter 27: Just Friends... Right?

Chapter 27: Chapter 27: Just Friends... Right?

The group chat pinged at exactly 6:00 PM on Friday.

Audrey was sitting on the floor of her dorm, packing her camera bag for the weekend, when her phone screen lit up on the rug.

Jackson: Zoya wants a rematch.

Audrey frowned. She unlocked her phone just as three more messages popped up in rapid succession.

Leo: A rematch of what?

Jackson: Bowling.

Leo: You two went bowling?

Jackson: Long story.

Audrey looked up. Zoya was sitting on the living room sofa, filing her nails with a terrifying level of focus.

"You went bowling with Jackson?" Audrey asked.

Zoya didn’t look up from her nails. "He claimed he had superior hand-eye coordination. I had to publicly humble him."

Audrey’s phone vibrated again in her hand.

Leo: I’m coming.

Ten seconds later, Chloe burst out of her bedroom, already wearing a leather jacket and applying a fresh coat of lip gloss.

"Get up, Audrey," Chloe commanded. "We are going bowling. I require entertainment, and watching Leo throw heavy objects sounds hilarious."

"I have editing to do," Audrey argued, pointing at her laptop.

"You have a life to live," Chloe corrected, grabbing Audrey’s arm and hauling her off the floor. "Bring your camera. Bring your shoes. We leave in ten."

Audrey sighed, knowing it was completely useless to fight Chloe when she had made up her mind.

On the other side of campus, Leo was dragging a highly reluctant Mason out of the athletic dorms.

Suddenly, a quiet Friday night turned into six people meeting at a neon-lit bowling alley downtown.

Strike City smelled exactly like floor wax and stale french fries. Loud pop music blared from the overhead speakers, competing with the constant, thunderous crash of bowling balls hitting wooden pins.

They claimed two lanes right next to the arcade.

Audrey sat down on the curved plastic bench, unzipping her canvas bag to pull out her own pair of bowling shoes. She looked around the group.

Jackson and Zoya were already standing at the ball return, glaring at each other like they were about to step into a boxing ring. Chloe was forcing Leo to take a picture of her posing with a neon pink bowling ball.

Mason dropped onto the bench next to Audrey. He was wearing a plain white t-shirt and a dark jacket, looking massive in the cramped seating area.

Audrey realized something as she watched him lace up his rented bowling shoes.

There was no Coach Miller. There was no Mrs. Higgins. There was no campus confession page hiding in the bushes.

They weren’t here to pretend. They weren’t here for an internship.

They were simply... hanging out. Like normal people. Like friends.

It was a strange, entirely new feeling, and it made Audrey’s chest feel surprisingly light.

"Alright," Leo announced, clapping his hands together. "Captains first. Show us how it’s done, Calloway."

Mason stood up. He cracked his knuckles, looking completely confident.

"Prepare to be amazed," Mason said smoothly.

He walked up to the rack and selected the heaviest black ball he could find. He stepped onto the polished wood of the lane.

He was the captain of the football team. He was six-foot-two of pure, athletic muscle. Everyone expected him to absolutely obliterate the pins.

Mason took three long strides, pulled his arm back, and hurled the ball forward with the force of a center-back clearing a goal-line cross.

The ball slammed onto the wood with a deafening THUD.

It bounced once.

It immediately hooked hard to the left.

It dropped straight into the gutter, rolled all the way down, and disappeared into the back without touching a single pin.

Silence fell over their two lanes.

Mason stood there, his arm still frozen in his follow-through. He blinked.

Leo completely lost his mind.

He bent double, clutching his stomach, laughing so hard no sound actually came out. Chloe covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking violently. Even Zoya let out a sharp, genuine snort.

Mason slowly turned around. "The lane is crooked."

"Captain," Leo wheezed, wiping a tear from his eye. "You defend goals. You don’t throw them."

"It slipped," Mason argued, walking back to the bench with a completely flat expression.

"It bounced, Calloway," Audrey pointed out, trying desperately to hide her smile. "I think you actually dented the floor."

Mason dropped onto the bench beside her, crossing his arms. He looked like a giant, grumpy golden retriever. "Let’s see you do better, Ellis."

"Gladly."

Audrey stood up. She walked over to the rack, grabbed a medium-weight blue ball, and stepped up to the line.

She didn’t use a massive run-up. She didn’t use all her strength. She just took a breath, stepped forward, and released the ball with a smooth, completely fluid motion.

The ball rolled straight down the center of the lane.

CRASH.

Eight pins scattered into the pit.

Audrey turned around, a smug smile on her face.

Mason was staring at the two remaining pins, then up at her. He looked genuinely baffled.

"How?" Mason demanded.

Audrey walked back to her seat, casually brushing her dark hair behind her ear. "Physics."

"That’s not an answer," Mason complained.

"Force equals mass times acceleration," Audrey explained, sitting down. "You had too much acceleration, not enough control. I used angles."

Mason just stared at her. Then, slowly, that familiar, lazy grin spread across his face. He shook his head, looking entirely too amused.

"Show-off," he muttered.

The rest of the night was pure chaos.

Jackson and Zoya tied their first game, which meant they immediately demanded a second one. They spent the entire hour exchanging quiet, lethal insults while simultaneously buying each other nachos.

Leo spent most of the night trying to teach Chloe how to bowl without ruining her manicure. She threw three gutter balls, decided the game was stupid, and made Leo play the claw machine in the arcade until he won her a stuffed frog.

And Mason... Mason did not improve.

By the tenth frame, he had knocked down a grand total of twenty-two pins. He was terrible. He was spectacularly, comically terrible.

And he didn’t care at all.

He laughed every time Leo mocked him. He cheered when Audrey picked up a spare. He bought a massive pitcher of soda and handed out cups to everyone.

Audrey sat on the bench, drinking her soda, just watching him.

He isn’t pretending, Audrey realized.

The charm, the easy laughter, the way he naturally took care of everyone around him, it wasn’t an act for the football team. It wasn’t a show for the campus. It was just who he was.

"What?" Mason asked, catching her staring.

Audrey quickly looked away, staring very intensely at her plastic cup. "Nothing. Just wondering if you’ll ever break thirty points."

"Next game," Mason promised confidently. "I figured out the physics."

"Sure you did."

By midnight, they were finally kicked out of the bowling alley.

The six of them walked out through the double glass doors into the parking lot. The temperature had dropped significantly. The night air was sharp and freezing.

Audrey immediately shivered.

She stepped off the curb, struggling to zip up her heavy winter coat. Her hands were completely full. She had her heavy camera bag slung over her left shoulder, her handbag dangling from her wrist, and she was carrying the canvas tote bag holding her custom bowling shoes in her right hand.

She shoved her cold hands into her coat pockets, trying to balance the three bags awkwardly on her arms.

Mason walked up beside her.

He didn’t ask if she was okay. He didn’t make a big show of being a gentleman.

Without breaking his stride, he simply reached out and took the canvas shoe bag from her hand. Then, he grabbed the strap of her camera bag and easily lifted the heavy weight off her shoulder, slinging it over his own.

He kept walking, entirely unbothered by the extra bags.

Leo frowned.

"Captain."

"Hm?"

"Those aren’t your bags."

Mason looked down as though noticing for the first time.

...Huh.

He adjusted the strap on his shoulder anyway.

"Too late now."

Audrey stopped walking.

She looked at her empty hands. Then she looked at Mason’s broad back as he walked toward the cars.

Her fingers twitched instinctively.

For a split second, she almost reached for the bags.

Give those back. I can carry my own things.

A few weeks ago, she would have said it without a second thought. She would have seen his help as a threat to her independence.

...

She didn’t.

Somehow, she trusted him to carry them.

She slipped her cold hands deeper into her coat pockets instead and followed after him.

"Coming, Ellis?" Mason called over his shoulder, stopping near Leo’s car.

Mason stopped beside Leo’s car and looked back.

He didn’t call again.

He just waited.

Audrey noticed.

Somehow, he always seemed to wait.

Audrey smiled. It was small, quiet, and completely genuine.

"Coming, Calloway," Audrey said.

She jogged slightly to catch up to him, falling naturally into step by his side. It felt completely effortless. It felt right.