Black Water ↠ Stiles Stilinski [Teen Wolf, Vol. One]

Bowled Over

Disclaimer: 'Teen Wolf' isn't mine. Shocking, right? But it's true. If there are any similarities in content or dialogue, it has probably originated with the show.

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Chapter 10 - Bowled Over

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Objectively, there was nothing appealing to be found in the smell of a bowling alley. None of its base elements were in any way fragrant—fried food, fake, neon nacho cheese, cheap beer, the oil coating the lanes—but combined they carried an innate feeling of nostalgia. It smelled of her childhood. City after city, her dad would always sign up with one of the local leagues. His way of joining his new community. Avoid homeowners' associations like the plague, find the group that spends a lot of time sitting down and drinking beer. Strategy. Charlie's life could be broken down using bowling alleys as a unit of measurement. Not a bad way to live. She loved bowling alleys—even the smell.

Except for the bathrooms. Those were unilaterally disgusting.

Charlie arrived at the Beacon Hills bowling alley about three quarters of an hour early. As far as such places went it was middling. Overall the building was well cared for, but the balls for rent came with small notches taken out and the lanes featured a few divots here and there. Not ideal for playing. But the scent of fry oil wafting from behind the snack bar was enticing enough to compensate. Plus they had funnel cakes.

Slapping down enough cash for a dozen games, Charlie grabbed her scuffed, rented shoes from the joyless man behind the counter. He handed them over with a beleaguered sigh. She couldn't blame him—that many kids' birthday parties and she'd be bitter too. Making her way to the racks of bowling balls, she ran her hands over available options, trying to find the right fit. Eventually she settled on a number 15, blue, printed with the design of a skull wearing sunglasses and headphones. She picked it up, judged the weight, measured the distance between the holes to see how it fit in her hand. Perfect. A nod and a smile later, she was striding towards her reserved lane.

Stepping onto the smooth wood platform, Charlie held the ball up to the tip of her nose, peering carefully over the top. The pins stood at the lane's end, staring her down despite being entirely faceless. After three long steps forward, Charlie drew her arm back and then swung it forwards, releasing the ball with a little bit of a twist. The skull design spun dizzyingly as the ball flew down the lane, making that characteristic curve. "Come on," Charlie whispered, twisting her head on her neck in an attempt to physically direct the ball's course to the center pin. "Come on, come on, come on."

The ball connected with a thunderous crack, but not with the center pin. Only six toppled over. Regarding the mediocre level of destruction she had inflicted, Charlie stuck her lower lip out in an immature pout. She was rusty. Which meant she had made a quite excellent decision in arriving early so she could loosen up and refresh her familiarity. This could have gotten embarrassing exceedingly fast, the way she talked herself up. She sent another ball down the lane and knocked over two more pins, leaving two standing. Not bad. Not particularly good, but not bad.

It didn't take much longer to get in the swing of things, pun, as always, very much intended. Within a half hour she had worked herself back up to regular spares. It was just a question of recalibrating her body movements, really. Her muscles remembered those familiar movements. In the end, if you broke it down into its base elements, bowling was just physics. Once she understood the motions, all that was necessary was the math.

Time passed, sets were played, and 7:30 was inching up on her. Over the course of the past half hour an exceptionally loud child's birthday party had taken up residence three lanes over, Tom Jones's "What's New Pussycat" had blared from the jukebox speakers either four or eight times—she honestly couldn't tell—and the man behind the rental counter's expression was even more dead-eyed than it had been when she arrived. Distractions ran rampant. Taking a deep, steadying breath, Charlie went in for another shot. Three steps, swing, spin, release.