The Owner's Box

Chapter 12

"Harlow, my ass was in shock for real. Plus, you've never dated a stud before. You usually go for hyper-fems, so I don't know. You caught me off guard, honestly. But you might've hit the jackpot," she tells me.

"Why do you think that?" I asked.

"You got a bruh and a bae now. You got a bruh-bae," Rai begins to laugh again. I playfully smack Rai on the back of her head.

"Yo, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Rai laughs, holding the back of her head. "For real though. You know I don't care, and it shouldn't matter what anyone thinks, including me. But also, you know I'd never judge, especially with my, you know what, you know where," Rai giggles, making me laugh, knowing this is as serious as Rai gets.

"Also, in my defense, you know I don't know how to hold my facial expressions together. I'm an open book. But if you and Saint want to have a threesome, count me in," Rai's expression changes to one of amusement.

"Nah we good I'm good." I say rolling my eyes.

Just then, Peyton and Saint return to our bowling lane. Saint looks more relaxed than she did earlier. We make eye contact as they walk up, and she immediately begins to smile at me. I smile back at her pretty self.

"Ready to get your asses whopped?" Peyton asks Saint.

"Yeah, nah. You are definitely about to get that ass tapped," Saint responds to Peyton.

We all choose our balls as the waitress brings more drinks and food to the table.

"You've played before?" Saint asks as we change our shoes.

"Something like that. Are you any good?" I ask her.

"Guess we'll find out soon, won't we?" She says then winks at me.

Saint turned out to be really good. Better than good, actually. She ended up winning the game for us with a perfect strike. She got up and did a happy dance around Peyton and Rai before coming to sit down next to me again.

All night, Saint and I have been in close proximity, but somehow, we were still inching closer. Peyton and Rai decided that even though they lost against us, they wanted to play another game. So, we were watching them.

"So, are you having a good night?" I ask Saint as I grip the chair.

"Yeah, it's cool," she says, putting her shoes back on. "Geesh, am I that boring? Every time I ask you something, it's always just 'cool'," I tell Saint.

"I'm sorry. I just don't know what to say to you, for real," Saint tells me quietly. We sat there for a moment in silence, watching Rai and Peyton begin to argue about one of them cheating in the game.

"What color are your eyes?" Saint asks me suddenly. I smirk before looking at her. "What?" I ask, laughing.

"Don't take offense, Harlow, but you have freaky-looking eyes. Sometimes they look green, other times they look grey. And I've never met a Black person with either color eyes before," Saint laughs a little.

"Why don't you look for yourself? You tell me what color my eyes are," I smile at Saint, knowing how hard it's been for her to look me in the eyes. But I like eye contact, so we're going to work on that.

Saint slowly looks at me. We make eye contact for two seconds max before she scoffs and looks away.

"I can't for real." She says quietly looking away again.

"But you can." I lift her chin until we are eye to eye again. "Don't break eye contact. I like that shit too much." I tell her lowly. This time she doesn't break contact.