“I appreciate your vote of confidence.” I needed his confidence to boost my own. If we lost, I could count on the librarians bringing us each a copy of Bowling for Dummies to the party next week.
“And if you screw it up, I’ll still love you.”
The world faded to only Hudson. He loves me? “You love me despite me always leaving my coffee spoon on the edge of the sink?”
His eyes widened as he likely clocked what he’d said. I hooked my finger in his belt loop and smiled until he relaxed.
“Despite that major character flaw, yes.” He kissed the corner of my mouth. “Now get us a spare so we have a chance at wiping the smug smiles off those book nerds’ faces.”
Hudson turned to walk back to his seat next to Ollie, and I stared after him. Hudson loved me. He loved me. The greatest person I knew loved me. The words filled me, lit me up, and buoyed me to win for him.
“Hey, Hudson? I love you too!” My words carried over the music and conversation. My last sight before turning to grab my ball was Hudson’s beaming smile and Ollie leaning in to give him a side hug.
“Save the lovey-dovey crap and lose already,” one of the Dewey Decimators called out.
“Got a book you gotta run home to?” Ollie teased back.
I’ve got this. I kicked my heel against the ground three times again. Step forward, arm swung back, then forward, release. The ball barreled toward the pin on the right, knocking it down with force. Come on, come on. It flew to the left and knocked the seven-pin over.
The spectators went wild. We were tied for first. I stared at the pinsetter. I did it. I picked up a 7-10 split. The spare in the tenth frame earned me one more roll, and as long as I didn’t lose it in the gutter, we would pull off a win.
I waited for my ball to spit out of the return and managed to send six more pins flying.
Before I knew it, too many arms to count wrapped around me from all directions as my teammates jumped and cheered. Familiar lips pressed against my neck.
“We won!” Ollie yelled in my ear.
The next moments were a blur of enjoying the moment with my team.
“Decimate that!” I called out to the librarians when we returned to the seating area.
Several of them playfully flipped me off before traipsing to the bar.
I grinned ear-to-ear as the other teams and league employees congratulated us. For the first time in our team’s history, we would get to wear the fake dahlia floral crowns of pride at the celebration next week.
The Decimators presented us with our rightfully earned victory beers as we ribbed each other. Hudson and I never left each other’s sides during all of it.
“It’s disgusting watching you two so happy.” Ollie scrunched his nose as he stared at us.
“It’ll be even more disgusting to watch you when you find someone to put up with you,” Hudson said. I loved that the two of them had grown even closer over the past few months.
“You gotta set me up with someone first,” he said before being whisked away by another team.
“You about ready to get out of here? Because I have an idea of how we can celebrate,” I whispered into Hudson’s ear when people began filtering out.
Hudson had our stuff gathered before I’d dug my car keys from my pocket.
Thankfully, it was a quick ride because I wanted, needed, to show Hudson how much I loved him. The words had nearly spilled from my mouth many times, and I’d nearly worked up the nerve to say them. Of course my competitive boyfriend would say them first.
Hudson put our bowling shoes in their cubby to hang out until the new season started in a couple of weeks, put away his street shoes, then crowded into my space. “You mentioned something about celebrating?”
“I did. How about you get comfortable in bed after giving the princess a treat, and I’ll meet you there?”
Hudson’s eyes flared as he nodded. He leaned and gave me a heated kiss that sent flames licking across my skin before he pulled away.
“Sorry, Ledgie, but you’re relocating,” he said as he entered our bedroom.
I laughed as she ran from our bedroom, throwing a hiss over her shoulder, to my old room that we’d turned into our TikTok filming studio. It had a third cat tree. Most spoiled cat on the planet.