Bowling pins

I rang Leona. Told her to come over and check out the mini bowling kit Mom and Dad tossed in with my birthday loot. She showed up wearing that smirk she gets when she’s already trouble. We set the ten plastic pins in a neat triangle and started chucking the ball like respectable adults, for about thirty seconds. Then one pin rolled under the couch, and suddenly the game plan changed. She grabbed a pin, held it like she was judging its girth, and asked if I’d ever considered a different scoring system. I shrugged. Next thing I know, her shorts are kicked into the corner and that smooth pink pin is nudging between her thighs instead of the hardwood floor. She worked it slow, eyes on mine, turning each lazy twist into a joke neither of us needed to say out loud. When she switched to two pins, spreading herself wider, the room got quieter except for the wet little sounds and her low laugh every time I swore under my breath. At one point she balanced the ball on her stomach just to prove she could multitask, then pushed it away so she could finish herself with the fattest pin, hips jerking, breath catching, the leftover pins scattered across the carpet like they’d given up keeping score. We both cracked up when the last pin slipped out and clattered away, because of course it did.