"As if I needed help," he smirked, walking backward a few steps before he turned around to pay attention to the poor, helpless bowling pins.
He bowled with the deadly earnestness and decisive style with which he did everything else. Controlled power, that was Adam.
But I started noticing something other than admiration in the gazes of the people who were beginning to look at us. At Adam. He wasn't really a celebrity; he tried to stay out of the news. But Adam was one of the wolves who was out to the public - a sober, successful businessman whose security company protected American nuclear technology from foreign hands: a good guy who happened to be a werewolf. All fine and dandy when they read about it in the newspapers, I guess. But it was different to see a werewolf at their bowling alley.
They are afraid of him.
The thought was so strong it felt as if someone were whispering into my ear, bringing with it worry.
Look at them. I saw the men bristling over their women, the mothers hastily gathering their children to them. In a moment, there would be a mass exodus - and that was assuming that some of the young men I saw coming to their feet about four lanes down didn't do something stupid.
He hasn't noticed yet.
Adam gave me a sly, pleased grin at his strike as he walked back - a strike more remarkable because there were no shattered pins, no broken equipment. Too much power can be as great a disadvantage as not enough.
Look beside you.
I took up my green ball and glanced at the people next to us. Like Adam, they were too involved in their game to notice the growing murmuring. The young boy was crawling under the chairs, and his parents were bickering over something on the score-board. Their too-cute toddler - with her pink dress and little pink lions in the two-inch ponytails that stuck out from the back of her head - had climbed up on the bowling platform and was playing with the ball return blowers designed to dry sweaty palms. She wiggled her little hands over the cool air and laughed.
Adam will feel bad when he notices that people are leaving because he's here.
Sweat gathered on my forehead, which was ridiculous because it was cool inside. I paused halfway to the throw line (or whatever it was called) and, imitating Adam, I brought the ball up and held it in the middle of my chest.
Perhaps there's a way to show everyone that he's not a monster, he's a hero.
I glanced over my shoulder and watched the toddler bang on the air vent. Her brother had wandered back through the seating area and was playing with the balls on the racks. His mother had just noticed he'd gotten away from her and had gotten up to go get him.
I turned my attention back to the pins.
"Are you watching?" I asked Adam. The urge to do something for Adam was so strong it made my hands clench.
"My eyes are peeled," he said. "Are you going to do something amazing?"
I swung the ball awkwardly, as if I'd never bowled before, missed the release, and sent it zipping backward toward the little girl playing with the air.
As soon as it left my fingers, I couldn't believe what I'd done. Sweating, shaking, and horrified, I turned. But as quick as I was, I'd missed the action.
Adam had caught the ball a good two feet short of the toddler.
She looked up at Adam, whose noisy fall to the ground had disturbed her play. When she saw that there was a strange man so close, her eyes got big, and her bottom lip stuck out.
Adam is mostly uninterested in children (other than his own) until they are teenagers or older and, as he told me once, capable of interesting conversation.
"Hey," he said, looking very uncomfortable.
She considered him a moment. But she was female and Adam was . . . well, Adam. So she put her hands in front of her mouth and giggled.
It was adorable. Darling cute. He was a goner, and everyone who was watching could see it.
The miniature conqueror squealed as her father grabbed her up and her mother, little boy in tow behind her, babbled out thanks.
And you are the villain of the piece. Poor Mercy.
Of course I was the bad guy; I'd nearly smooshed a toddler. What had I been thinking? If she'd taken a step back, or if Adam hadn't been fast enough, she could have been killed.
She wasn't in any danger. You didn't throw it at her, just rolled it past her. It wouldn't have hit her. You saved him, and he didn't even notice.
He frowned at me after we moved over a lane (for the safety of everyone, though the anxious manager didn't actually come out and say that). We restarted the game, and he let me bowl first.
I carefully rolled the first ball down the gutter, where it wouldn't be likely to hit anyone. I don't know if I did it for my own sake or to reassure anyone watching me.
All you were trying to do was keep Adam happy. And this is the thanks you get.
Almost squishing babies wasn't exactly an act I expected thanks for. I rubbed my forehead as if it would help clear my thoughts.
It wouldn't have hit her. You made sure of it. Even if Adam had missed, it would have rolled harmlessly past.
Adam watched me thoughtfully, but he didn't say anything to me as I engineered my loss by a hundred bazillion points. I could hardly bowl well after my spectacular failure, or someone would figure out I'd done it on purpose.
I had done it on purpose, hadn't I?
I couldn't believe I'd done something like that. What was wrong with me? If Adam had looked more approachable, I might have talked to him about it.
He doesn't want to hear what you have to say. Best just keep quiet. He'd never understand anyway.
I didn't mind, didn't object anyhow, to the way Adam made sure to stand where he could field my ball if I lost control again. After all, his rescue of the baby looked better if he seemed to think I was an idiot, right?
Four turns in, Adam stepped in front of me, and said in a low voice that wouldn't carry beyond us, "You did it on purpose, didn't you? What in the hell were you thinking?"
And for some reason, even though I agreed with him, his question made me mad. Or maybe that was the voice in my head.
He should have understood sooner. He should understand his mate better than anyone. You shouldn't have to defend yourself to him. Best not to say anything at all.
I raised an eyebrow and stalked past him to pick up my ball. Hurt fed anger. I was so mad I forgot myself enough to get a strike. I made sure it was the last point I made in the game - and I didn't say a word to him.
Adam won with a score over two hundred. When he finished bowling the last frame, he took both our balls back to the rack while I changed my shoes.
The teenage boys (by then five lanes away) stopped him and had him sign an autograph for them. I took my shoes back to the desk and turned them in - and paid for the game, too.