7 years later

Chapter 2-2

They went over to the counter where shoes were rented and looked around the noisy room expectantly. Pam was chatting away about how she should have brought her own bowling shoes, when, following her friend’s fixed glare, she understood why she was not answering. A tall, brown-haired, markedly handsome man in his thirties, with a sun-tanned face, wearing a white shirt and blue jeans approached them. His face was serious as he looked straight at Lana. As soon as he reached the counter, he gestured to the assistant and declared that the ladies were his guests. He stood in front of them and smiled for the first time. Pam watched the man with an open interest for a while, then turned to Lana, and spoke in a subdued voice, but with significance, ‘Oh. Everything’s clear now.’

Lana was finally able to tear her gaze from him and turned to her friend reproachfully. She coughed a few times with warning, and, unobserved, firmly squeezed Pamela’s hand.

‘Pam, this is Hayden Ravensdale, an old friend of mine, whom I have told you about.’ Her tone implied a warning, telling the other to behave. ‘Hayden, this is my friend, Pamela Masters.’

Pam got the message and politely held out her hand to Hayden.

‘Mrs Masters, it’s a great pleasure to finally meet you. Lana has spoken very well of you.’

‘I bet,’ she smiled and winked at Lana. ‘By the way, please call me Pamela.’

‘I take it as a privilege, Pamela.’

Hayden cast a charming smile at her, then let go of her hand and turned to Lana.

‘Hi Lana. It’s been a long time.’

‘Y… yes,’ she moaned, as it seemed to her that the past two weeks had felt like an eternity.

They kissed one another on the cheeks like friends do, and the woman was sure the temperature of the room had risen to its double. Hayden looked so damn good that the sight sent a hot wave of l**t down her whole body. This would have been no exaggeration, because the few days spent outside certainly did him much good. His newly tanned skin made him look younger and even more rugged, and Lana was sure she was looking ahead at a damn long and difficult evening if she was to keep up the pretence. When they finally disentangled themselves from the kiss, Hayden looked at her as though he wanted to rip her clothes off. And by all means, if he had done so, Lana wouldn’t have protested. Hayden cleared his throat and turned away.

‘It would be best if we joined the others,’ he said pointing in the general direction where he suspected the rest of the company to be.

He started walking between the two women, and he began to explain to them who everyone was along the way.

‘I told you a lot about Tony earlier. He’s the loud guy with the bald head and the golden heart. The brunette beside him is his wife, Sylvie. She’s very outgoing and friendly. I think you’ll like her.’ He smiled at Lana encouragingly. ‘The twins, Cruz and Bella, are nine years old, and… well, you’ll see!’ he waved, and the ladies laughed. ‘I’ve known them ever since they were born, and I can tell you, I have no clue how Sylvie didn’t go mad beside them.’

Pamela, who herself was a mother of a four-year-old little girl, could not refrain from interjecting,

‘Oh do you think that the ideal mother never loses her temper? We just try to time such scenes in a way that not too many people witness them.’

‘Pamela would know,’ Lana added. ‘Her daughter is like a little whirlwind when she gets started…!’

‘I can’t argue, Pamela. The amount of experience I’ve had with children is next to none. I’ll give all my due sympathy to you,” said Hayden half-jokingly, giving a heart-melting smile.

Lana and Pamela exchanged a quick glance, and Pam genuinely pitied her friend. They had hardly arrived, but the air was apparently charged with electricity between Lana and Hayden. Pam never bought the “friends” story for a moment. Lana was melting every time she looked at the man, and the other way around, it was even worse. The guy was practically devouring Lana with his eyes.

‘Sylvie’s brought along a friend of hers; I’ve only just met her as well. All I know about her is that she is called Grace. The rest is for you to find out, ladies!’ Hayden finished his intro, and by this time they had arrived at the designated lane.

The next few minutes were spent with introductions. Pamela realized with a surprise that she and Sylvie’s friend, Grace had already met somewhere. They soon figured out that their children used to go to the same afternoon playgroup, and that was where they had met a few times. Grace thoroughly checked Lana out, who did not have the feeling the woman liked her very much. Whom she was obviously drawn to, however, was Hayden. After a while, Lana noticed that Grace’s voice changed every time she spoke to Hayden; she used a very gentle, affectionate tone. She was divorced and probably a few years older than Lana. Although she laughed a little too loud, with her short-cropped black hair and feminine figure she must have looked very attractive to men. While Lana was introducing herself to the twins and was with her back to the rest of them, Tony gave a thumb up and Sylvie pretended to be fanning herself, thus signalling to Hayden that they found Lana absolutely charming. Hayden oppressed a bitter grin, as his friends’ enthusiasm brought to his mind again what it was he was missing. Lana wasn’t his girlfriend, and he knew very well what a loss that meant for him. After this little scene, Grace took action with even more élan. Lana teamed up with Antony, Sylvie, and Bella, while Hayden was with Grace, Pamela and Cruz. The children were enthusiastic from the beginning and fought with all their effort, but the adults were also soon overcome by a determination to win.

Lana, after a weak start, soon got the hang of the game, and when she hit a strike, she and Sylvie even burst into a loud ovation. They immediately got along very well, just as Hayden had predicted, and they cheered wildly whenever they managed to hit even one pin. Hayden was also at his best, and the two teams progressed in a tight race. The only disturbance was caused by Grace’s behaviour. She did everything in her power to capture Hayden’s attention, and Lana had to admit to her annoyance that she was very attractive and really hot. She acted like a poor girl who needed help with every single thing in the game and looked at Hayden with admiration whenever he gave her advice. Later on, when she questioned Hayden about the right posture and the best way to roll the ball, she pressed so close to Hayden that Lana had to turn away. Pamela looked at her inquisitively, but Lana only shrugged by way of answering. The woman’s behaviour was driving her crazy, even though in the meantime she knew she had no right to feel jealous. In the end, Hayden’s team won, but only by a very little, and before they played a second round, they ordered pizza and lemonade, according to the children’s wishes. Lana sat between Pamela and Sylvie, across from Hayden, beside whom, naturally, Grace beamed. Every once in a while they smiled at one another, and once their hands even touched when Hayden poured some lemonade into Lana’s glass. It was as if an electric current had passed through them, and they both pulled their hand back at the same time. Seeing this, Pamela shook her head, and Antony was apparently of the same opinion. Grace, however, kept talking to Hayden all along, so he had barely any time to speak a word to anyone else.

In the second round, Hayden and Lana did wind up on the same team, and both tried their best to act as good friends. This evening Hayden was certainly more successful at this. Lana wondered whether this was a result of Grace’s appeal or whether he simply had grown comfortable in this new neutral situation between the two of them. As for her, she knew only one thing for certain: the more she tried to look at him as friend, the more she wanted him. Her face turned scarlet red as her gaze settled on Hayden’s mouth, and remembered all the places on her body this lustful mouth had touched. No, she did not want to think about this.

Once it was Lana’s turn, and she was examining the balls trying to decide which would be the best choice for her. Pink or green? Pink or green? – She pondered, but her thoughts wandered elsewhere, somewhere under the man’s shirt. Just then, Hayden stepped beside her unexpectedly.

‘It’s a hard choice, isn’t it?’ he asked with a grin. She looked at him, and smiled a little in embarrassment. Hayden reached for her hand and placed it gently on the green ball. His skin touched hers with scorching heat, as if he had a fire burning underneath it. Lana hissed and closed her eyes for a moment.

‘It’s important that it shouldn’t be too heavy, so you can lift it without strain. But it shouldn’t be too light either, or else you can’t roll it with enough force,” he explained gazing at her straight, without a quiver.

‘It’s more complicated than it seems,’ Lana added, but she wasn’t sure what she was actually talking about.

‘Yes, it really is’ he answered, and then let go of her hand.

It was nearly ten o’clock when Sylvie declared that it was time for the twins to go home and asked them to say goodbye to the adults. Of course, this decision was not welcome by all, but no matter how the twins begged, Sylvie would not change her mind. The Costas parted with Lana in a friendly way, and they made Hayden promise he would bring her to their place for dinner soon. Hayden didn’t protest, only smiled. He wasn’t against the idea, although he wasn’t sure it still fit the frame of friendship which was the official term for his relationship with Lana. Anyway, common sense told him to keep a distance from her, because programmes like this only made the situation more difficult for him. Common sense, however, was never his friend when it came to Lana Bell.

After the Costa family left, Grace suggested they could go and have a drink somewhere. She said she knew a nice place where the music was not too loud and where they could have a nice chat. Lana was in no humour at all to keep enjoying Grace’s company. For this reason, she refused the invitation politely. Grace, of course, accepted her refusal almost immediately, which completely ticked her off. Oh sure, she thought with annoyance, she’s dying to be left alone with Hayden at last!

Naturally, Pamela joined her, and the two little groups parted. Lana intentionally kept the goodbyes short as she was afraid that she could not control her voice or her gestures much longer, and the last thing she wanted was for Hayden to see her disappointed. In the rear-view mirror she could see Hayden staring after them for a while, and Grace next to him, putting her arm through his tightly.

‘Just friends, right?’ Pamela broke the silence, scanning her friend’s face inquisitively in the semi-darkness.

Lana only shook her head and bit her lip in frustration. Her voice was close to tears as she said, ‘Pam, not now, please!’

Pam felt the depth of her pain, how much the evening had tormented her with this totally unnatural situation between her and Hayden. She didn’t even question her about the matter anymore. She patted Lana’s hand kindly and tried to change the subject.

Once at home, Lana did what usually worked for her when she felt upset: she let some hot water into the bathtub and soaked herself for a while in the bubbles. But she could not find peace from her overwrought thoughts. She felt frustrated and unsure about the whole Hayden issue. She tried to tell herself she wasn’t jealous, but the thought that Hayden was probably spending the night with the sexy Grace, made her want to scream. She wanted it this way, the whole friendship issue was her idea, she couldn’t blame the man for anything, and yet… she finally took a pill for her headache and went to bed with a book to change her train of thought. When her phone rang on the bedside table, her heart almost jumped out of her chest, and as she spotted Hayden’s name on the display, she was genuinely surprised. After leaving him in Grace’s company, his call was the last thing she expected.