Never Safe ✔︎

Chapter Twenty-Three

We arrive right before the others and walk into the giant game center. I follow Cade and Luke to the front desk.

"Hey Ashton, how's it going?" Luke asks, doing a handshake with the worker who looks to be around my age, maybe younger.

"'Aight, and you?" he answers.

"I'm doing good," Luke responds.

"It's been a while man."

"Yeah, we've all just been really busy."

"I know how it is," Ashton responds. "Cade," he says addressing him, "Been a while, didn't know you were one to bowl."

"I'm just full of surprises," Cade bluntly answers. Clearly he isn't very fond of Ashton. Cade pays for the lane, giving us until 2:30 P.M. to bowl. With 3 hours to bowl, I make my way over to the lane we were assigned.

"You know you can't bowl, right?" Cade informs me as we sit at the table by our lane.

"And why not?" I ask.

"Bowling isn't exactly easy on an ankle. And besides, the bowling shows wouldn't provide any support."

"First off, I don't need to change my shoes to bowl, I can leave the boots on. Secondly, I can balance on my crutches and use my arm to bowl, without ever moving my ankle. I just think you're scared that I'll beat you, injured."

"Hardly, it's my job to take care of you, and if you even lose balance or hurt your ankle once, you're done for the day," he responds.

I smile widely at him, while Ari and the other guys arrive. I pick out one of the lighter balls, so I can carry it with my crutches. Once everybody is ready, we start the first game.

Halfway through the second game, I was getting demolished, so was Ari. Don't even get me started about the score of the first game. When they said they like to come here, they meant it.

"I'm hungry, can we get lunch here?" I ask, referring to the concession type foods available.

"Sure," Cade answers, getting up.

"You don't have to follow me everywhere. Besides, you can see me from here."

"Relax, I'm only going since you won't be able to hold all the food with your crutches. Just let me bowl quick and we can go," Cade says, getting out of his chair and going to the lane. He quickly bowls and gets a strike, which earns an eyeroll from me. Is there seriously anything this man isn't good at? He follows me back to where the food is being sold and waits while I look at the menu.

"Order, something for yourself, and we'll get 2 pizzas to go with it," Cade says, "That way everyone can eat lunch."

I pick out nachos and a water bottle, while Cade orders a cheese pizza and a pepperoni one. He carries all of the food back to our table, just in time for me to bowl my turn.

I quickly bowl, not doing too well, but kind of giving up at this point. I sit down between Cade and Ari, in front of the nachos. We eat the pizza while we bowl, me and Ari losing each round. As our time runs out, we finish our 3rd game. Today is exactly what I needed, something light and fun to enjoy. Once all of the shoes and balls are put away, we decide to go into the arcade. Walking to the arcade is a short trip and soon we're met with hundreds of games. It's like arcade heaven.

"Here," Cade says handing me a pile of cash, "Knock yourself out."

"Thank you!" I tell him, grabbing Ari's hand and heading for the machine that turns cash to quarters. Once we had the handfuls of quarters, we start looking at all the games to decide where to start. We decide on one where you drop a ball from 5 feet up, and whatever hole it lands in, you get that prize. After getting 60 tickets from that, I separate from Ari and walk towards another game I like.