Love In the Red Zone (Connecticut Kings Book 1) (28 page)

We arrived early, and thankfully, Trent offered to get a few practices in with me before his friends showed and I embarrassed myself. The place was the fanciest bowling alley I’d ever seen. It had chrome fixtures with dark wood flooring and paneling, neon colors lighting the place, and palatial white leather sofas. Our section was over to the end, next to the wall, and already loaded with bottles of wine, champagne, water, and food. Anxiety crept up my spine and tied itself around my neck. I chewed my lip as I watched Trent unpack his bag down in the lounge area where the game would be.

“C’mere. I need to see which ball is easier for you to work with.”

He was already out of his goose and on to business. I slowly peeled down the zipper of my coat and laid it on an available chair. As soon as I did, there was an older blonde haired woman there.

“Sorry about the delay, ma’am. Here are your shoes. Mr. Bailey said you’re a size seven?” she asked with professional courtesy.

I nodded. “Ye-yes. Thanks.” I took the bowling shoes that looked to be brand new from her.

“And I’ll take your coats. Is that okay?”

“Jade!” Trent called again. Then he glanced up to find me with the woman. “Oh. A’ight.” He turned for the score kiosk.

“Yes,” I answered the woman and sat down to change my shoes.

When I met him down on the floor, Trent had already changed into his shoes.

“Try this one.” He handed me a lime green ball that almost slipped from my grip the moment he let go of it. “Whoa! That won’t do. Try this one.” He handed me an ivory ball that was much more agreeable with my strength. “Okay. Good. Now, in bowling, one of the most important techniques is in your wrist, biceps, and hip alignment. They all need to be in great coordination and alignment to navigate the ball after it leaves your grip. Now, I don’t know about the rest, but your wrist and bicep coordination game is tight.”

I sucked in air. “No you didn’t!”

I slapped his arm. Trent let out a laugh that exposed all his teeth. He was really in a good mood. It warmed me at recognition. This was our second date in about a week. The first one didn’t go so well with two college girls staring at him the whole time we were in line for popcorn. It pissed me off when they headed to the same theater as us, but I let it all go in the name of behaving on my first ‘date.’ However, when it ended and I stopped at the bathroom before leaving and came out to them in his face, I lost it and went off on those thirsty broads. It was so bad, Trent had to physically carry me away. Needless to say, I didn’t score that night. I was also convinced I wouldn’t be getting in his pants any time soon.

“C’mon, man!” he laughed. “You have to relax. We’re out on a date. Isn’t that what we agreed to? Something normal. For us to act our age?”

“Yeah, but this ain’t no ordinary date.” I heard the intimidation in my chords. “This is with famous people. Celebrities!”

He straightened and stepped closer. “Yeah, well, let me tell you a secret about celebrities: they don’t like to be treated as such on their private time. Don’t trip. I can tell you now, StentRo has low key public paranoia off the courts. And his lady is the most down to earth woman you’ll ever meet in this game.” He lifted the ball in my grip, going back to the task at hand.

“And? They aren’t the only two coming.”

I was probably most nervous about meeting Tynisha Lang. It took days for me to select the right look for tonight. Although I thought jeans were the go-to gear for bowling, I couldn’t decide which would be best: fitted or boyfriend. That was a call Tynisha could write a book on. I didn’t know much about her husband.

And oh, my god! Would her camera crew be here?

Trent scratched his head, staring at the scoreboard. “Who, Alton Alston? He’s an ass. You ain’t gotta worry about him.”

My eyes went wide, and I stood stock still. Trent turned toward me after some time.

“Are you going to throw that thing anytime—Wait!” His face wrinkled. “You talking about Ty? Please tell me you’re not worried about her.”

Under normal circumstances I would be ashamed to admit feeling insecure about another woman to anyone, much less a man. But in this instance, this was no ordinary woman. She was a millionaire fashionista. A noted snob, at that. Of course my regular ass was intimidated.

“Oh,” he snorted, some sort of realization hitting him. “Is this why you made a big deal about what you’d wear? You’re fine. These are just peopl
e…
like you and me. I swear, if you’d just relax and be the beauty on my arm, all will be well. You’ll like them and they’ll enjoy you. But first we need to get your hip game in alignment with your wrist and bicep. Okay?”

The innocent look on his face while he pseudo flirted was the most adorable thing in the world. I held my belly with my left hand and tumbled over in laughter. I couldn’t believe his brazenness tonight.

“You know what!” I screamed. “If this is how you get down in front of your friends, I’m gonna need a drink to keep up with you.”

As I tried to straighten, I caught the gorgeous and carefree smile that crested his face. Trent was damn it beautiful. My attraction to him had to be unnatural; it was dizzying and hard to ignore that when he unleashed smiles like that without warning.  Needing to leave that head space, I walked up to the floor and bowled the ball. It was a gutter.

“Let’s try again,” Trent coached behind me. “Remember, bicep: you have to put some muscle in your toss. Wrist: you have to flick it with power. And hips: you have to center yourself to push your strength off of. You can do it. Let me show you.”

The ball shot from the dispenser, and I eased up to the alley next to him. Trent stood over me, flooding my nostrils with his infuriatingly delicious scent. He positioned my body and rolled my arm to align with the lane.

“Like that. Okay?”

I nodded my head and went for it. I didn’t get a strike, but did take out almost half the pins.

“See, you can do it. Let’s get a few more in.”

I took his advice and continued practicing. With every other attempt, it seemed I got better at it. I didn’t have enough to beat anyone, but it certainly boosted my confidence to play with others. At some point, Trent left my side for drinks. Well into my second cocktail, a name he wouldn’t share with me for some reason, I loosened up. Trent never asked for a turn. He closely watched and coached me to correct my mediocre game.

“Double A’s in the muthafuckin’ building!” someone shouted from behind me.

It was
her
and her husband, the basketball player. I watched as Trent’s long legs hovered over the guy, and broad shoulders curled over the shorter frame in front of him. Tynisha tapped away on her phone, never looking up. And I’ll be damned if she didn’t wear black leather pants with thigh high leather boots, making it impossible to see where one stopped and the other began. She topped it with a black turtle neck, faux fur vest, and wide brim brown hat.
Dang
. My eyes fell to my distressed boyfriend jeans and I sulked.

“She here, huhn?” the short guy asked as he rounded Trent, who made his way to a lagging Tynisha.

My heart beat hard, ready to fall into my stomach. Alton approached me as his eyes swept my entire body from head to toe. My eyes squinted. He had the nerve to lick his lips and grab his crotch. He flicked a quick eye over his shoulder en route to me.

“So, you Jada, huhn?”

“Jade,” I corrected before taking his hand, giving it a firm shake: I wanted no misunderstandings.

“Yeah, you tiny like her, too. My man treatin’ you right, Jada?” he repeated the wrong name, eyes still roving over me appreciatively.

Don’t be a creep. I don’t need the trouble tonight.

“The hell you mean, am I treating her right?” Trent boomed into the conversation, blasting a bright smile. “The fuck my name is?” He took me at the waist.

“Uhn-huh
n…
Pretty eyes.” Alton continued with the eye-hustling. “You let me know if this dude gets outta pocket. We SoJo brothers. He may reign from Camden, but I got the ‘Bridge on my back, and we eat niggas alive.” He puffed out his lips. “And beautiful women, too.”

“Ahh
h…
,” Trent cried. “C’mon with the bullshit. Ty is in the building. You don’t wanna find yourself in jail behind your antics tonight, bruh.”

Alton’s eyes whipped from my body up to Trent’s face. “Bruh? There you go with that North Jersey shit. You may live across the street from a Brick City nigga, but you down with the Philly tri-state, bro.”

“Speaking of him,” Trent noted and flipped his chin back toward the bar.

I followed his line of sight and saw a tall figure coming in: impossibly taller than Trent. He strolled in with his arm on an average height woman, who seemed to have a nice balance with his weight on her. They ‘fit.’

Dag, Stenton Rogers is tall!

“Alton!” Tynisha yelled from the sofa, unzipping her boots. “Come help me take these things off!”

“The fuck she wear heels to the damn bowling alley for?!” Alton hissed underneath his breath, but it was loud enough for us to hear. He shifted toward her, but whispered to Trent. “You know what this shit is all about, right? How the shit is gonna go down?” He gestured to me with his eyes before walking off.

“He doesn’t look that tall on TV,” I whispered.

“Dude is almost seven feet,” Trent replied, his eyes on the incoming party, too.

The woman on his arm was pretty. Pretty in the sense of a natural beauty with a friendly spark in her eyes. She had thick hair that was pushed from her face, falling past her shoulders. It was undoubtedly all hers. She wore next to no makeup, an ivory knitted turtleneck sweater, blue fitted jeans, and cognac knee boots with block heels. She smiled kindly as they approached us.

“Peace and blessings,” Stenton greeted, removing his limb from the woman’s shoulders. “What’s good, bruh.”

“Peace and blessings,” Trent returned as they embraced.

“Don’t start that church brotherhood shit!” Alton shouted from feet away.

No one seemed to be moved by that comment. Was I the only one sensitive to this guy’s antics?

“You ready for this whoopin’ I’m about to put on you?” Trent asked.

“Ready to send you home embarrassed in front of the lady.” He extended his hand to me. “Stenton.”

I accepted it. “Jade. Nice to meet you, StentRo.”

His lady sputtered a laugh, her neck extended to face him. “I like her already.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Stenton smirked as shook his head. “TB, check that, man. I may need to find a private corner somewhere to toss this one over my knee.” He gestured to the woman. They all laughed at that. I couldn’t stop my thoughts of that threat to concentrate. “Anyway, Jade, this naughty girl is my wife, Zoey.”

“Hi, Zoey. Nice to meet you, too.”

“Hey, Jade.” She shook my hand. “It’s great to see Trent off the block and outside of church.”

“Dang, Zo. Church is the best place to be,” Stenton playfully argued as he hugged her.

“I don’t even think Ezra would agree with that in technical terms,” Zoey returned.

“Your nasty ass, N
iñ
a!” Stenton busted out laughing. Trent followed.

“Well,” Zoey replied casually with hiked brows.

“Yo, man. Y’all over there huddled on y’all kumbaya shit. We ain’t come here for communion. I came to beat some ass. Let’s get this started, yo!” Alton yelled over.

“C’mon,” Trent advised. “I already got the game set up.”

On our way over, Zoey tapped me from under her husband’s arm. “It’s good to see another woman so tiny under her man’s arm. This guy looks like he could crush me.”

“I do crush you,” Stenton murmured over her head with slanted eyes.

Zoey shook her head at that.

“If you haven’t noticed, everybody looks to be able to crush me,” I joked in response.

“Not Alton,” Trent spoke loud.

“Not Alton, what the fuck?” Alton asked sincerely, going for a bowling ball.

This time, the four of us laughed at the private joke. For once, someone found this guy to be a natural comedian. We took our seats around the kiosk where Alton and Tynisha went first and Trent and I went last. The guys had constant banter playing while we drank and nibbled on finger foods. There was continuous laughter and joke throwing. I learned Stenton was just okay at bowling; Zoey was a bit better. Tynisha wasn’t so bad herself, and Alton was a constant scorer. However, Trent was leading on the scoreboard with most of his attempts ending in strikes.

We were on our third game when I realized Tynisha had been speaking to everyone but me. She barely spoke to Trent. It made me wonder what was her problem. She would joke with Zoey a lot. I could tell they were friends. But when Zoey would talk with me, Tynisha had nothing to offer. Trent had just sat back down from getting us another round of drinks. I noticed he was liberal with his intake, something unusual for him. I’d never seen him kick his feet up with other people, and throw back a few. It was good to witness.

“You okay?” he asked, using his body to shield my view from everyone else.

“Yeah. Everybody’s cool except for Tynisha,” I whispered. “She seems to be throwing you shade, too.”