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Charli didn’t give in to the temptation to look over at Blake to see if he was watching her. Her crazy emotions wouldn’t be able to take it if she realized he was focused on his phone or even just staring at the floor rather than watching her.
Which was ridiculous since just a few days ago, she’d been annoyed that he was popping up everywhere in her life. She’d even ignored him at times.
Clearly, the conflict of her head and heart was a mess.
“Good job, Auntie,” Peyton called out when she knocked down five pins with her first ball. “Only five more to go.”
Charli gave him a smile as she picked up another ball. Standing there, she took a couple of deep breaths and told herself to get out of the emotional gutter she’d ended up in. Too bad there weren’t gutter guards for her emotions to help her stay focused on the moment.
As she threw her final two balls, she pulled her emotions deep inside to deal with later.
It was something she had a lot of experience with. She’d had to hide her sheer joy at being with Blake back when they’d been dating. Then, when he’d disappeared and she’d realized she was pregnant, she’d had to hide her heartache.
If she could keep her emotions under wraps during all that, she could do it through an evening of pizza and bowling.
Their game hadn’t ended by the time the pizza was brought out to the tables, but the kids abandoned it to go eat. It was Charli’s turn to bowl, so she watched them go, then picked up her second ball.
“Think you can get a spare?”
The sound of Blake’s voice drew her from her preparations to throw the ball. She turned to find him watching her with raised brows, as if to challenge her.
“Probably not.”
“You’ve gotta have more confidence in yourself than that.”
Butterflies fluttered madly in her stomach at his words. Trying to keep her calm, she shrugged and said, “It’s bowling. Winning or losing this particular game isn’t worth too much introspection, but I’ll try my best.”
She turned back around and took a deep breath, exhaling before she sent the ball down the lane. Normally, she would have walked over to pick up her third and final ball for the frame, but instead, she watched as her throw made its way to the pins.
There were only three pins left, and they were all clumped together. So it was really no surprise when her ball clipped one and it was enough to drop the other two as well.
“Yay, Mom!” Layla yelled down at her from the food table.
Charli turned around and smiled up at her, before dropping her gaze to Blake. He was still seated on the bench, leaning forward with a smile on his face.
Her heart gave a hard thump before it began to race, taking her breath with it for a moment. She hated that his smile could still affect her like that. But at the same time, she had missed the breathlessness that his attention could create in her.
“You did it,” he said as he got to his feet. Gesturing, he motioned for her to precede him up the small flight of stairs to the pizza table.
Charli took the empty seat between Layla and Janessa, not letting herself even look to see where Blake sat.
“Did you have fun?” Janessa asked as she handed her a paper plate with a couple of slices of pizza on it.
“Yep. Are you going to bowl at all tonight?”
“I plan too. I just wanted to eat first,” Janessa said. “It looked like Blake was having fun.”
“The kids were too, which is good, since this is for them.”
Kayleigh and Hudson had arrived, which surprised Charli a bit. She had a hard time imagining either of them wearing shoes that had been previously worn by a stranger. Knowing them, they’d probably bought a couple pairs of designer bowling shoes to use.
“Are you going to bowl, Kayleigh?” Janessa asked as she sat down across from them.
“Yep. I brought a pair of thick socks for the multi-person use shoes.”
“I would have thought you’d have bought your own shoes to bring,” Charli said.
Kayleigh laughed. “I did consider it, but Hudson told me no.”
