Edge of Glory (Friendship, Texas Book 1) (6 page)

I shrugged. "I'm sure I'll have to tell them sometime. I do live under their roof for at least another six months then hopefully California."

She snorted. "I could just imagine what your Nonna has to say about him!" She scrunched her face and puffed out her bottom lip. "Mother Mary, Rosalia!" she cried in an over exaggerated Italian accent.

I covered my mouth to try and muffle my laughter. She actually sounded like Nonna.

At one point, Sofie and I talked about getting an apartment together in Dallas when we graduated high school. But an apartment required funds and we were both lacking those at the time since I wasn’t very good about saving tip money and used it on music and comic books.

When I brought up the idea to my parents, Ma cried, and Dad gave me a lecture about financial responsibility and basically shut the whole thing down. Thus, I still hadn’t moved out and hopefully California would be my first time living away from home.

"What are you doing to me, Rosalia? Bringing a boy with tattoos and spiky hair into the restaurant?" Sofie held her hands out and furrowed her brow like my dad does. "Mama Mia."

I actually snorted I was laughing so hard. "Okay, you need to stop hanging out with me so much because you're actually starting to sound like my family!"

"Want me to do Sonny next?" She wiggled her eyebrows.

My phone started vibrating against the hard plastic of my desk. I reached over and grabbed the phone, looking down at the screen as I leaned back into my mountain of throw pillows.

"Who is it?" Sofie curled up next to me, trying to look over my shoulder at the screen.

I didn't recognize the number, so my plan was to ignore it, but Sofie was not having it. She grabbed the phone from my hand and quickly put it up to her ear.

"Hello, Joe's bar, you kill 'em we grill 'em," she said in an overly done southern accent. If it wasn't obvious, Sofie wanted to be an actress and sometimes tried a little too hard.

"Oh, hey, Jay!" She grinned like a Cheshire cat.

"Give me the phone." I reached my hand out, but she already jumped off the bed as fast as her bare feet could carry her.

"Yeah, Lia's here but she just got out of the shower and all wet and naked, so it's going to take her a minute before she can get into something more comfortable." She winked at me before I leaped across the room and almost knocked her over.

She threw the phone at me as I scrambled with it in my hands before finally getting it to my ear. "Don’t listen to a word she says…"

"Aw." I could hear him laugh into the phone. "And it was just starting to get interesting."

There was a mumbling of other voices in the background.

"Um, shouldn't you be doing something like swimming? And since when did you get a phone?"

Sofie tried to lean against the other end of the phone so she could hear the conversation, but I kept darting my head.

"I just got done with practice. We're here in Rockwall. I picked up my new phone today and finally got the chance to actually call you."

"That is so hot," Sofie mouthed.

I rolled my eyes and put the phone to my other ear. "That's cool…I guess."

"Anyway…"  I could hear him moving, his shallow breathing and some kind of background noise. "I was seeing what you were doing later today."

"Well I have to work later this afternoon until whenever my mom says that I'm done. What about you?"

Sofie unraveled my poster and held it besides herself, pawing at it and making kissy faces. "Oh, Lia I just want your hot Sicilian body," she mocked in a low voice that sounded nothing like Jay's.

"Stop it," I mouthed.

"Well I was hoping that we could hang out later. Go to a movie or something?" There was uncertainty in his voice. Was the great Jay Morningstar nervous to ask me out?

"Yeah, um, let me figure out my work schedule. I can try and switch tonight with another waitress," I stammered.

"What?" Sofie dropped the poster and ran back over to the phone.

I covered the mouthpiece with my hand. "He wants to hang out tonight…."

While I was distracted, Sofie grabbed the phone, putting it to her ear. "We would love to hang out tonight!" Sofie squealed.

"SOFIE!" I lunged toward her, but she slid back and I came up short.

"Pick us up at Lia's parents' house." She looked up at me. "Uh huh, seven o'clock. One Twelve Meadow Drive. See you then, bye." She hung up the phone and looked at me, licking her lips. "Rosalia we have a date!"

"SOFIE!" I screeched again.

"What?" She put her hands on her hips. "You don't want to hang out with your man candy and help your best friend meet some other hottie swimmers?"

"Well it’s not that…"  I struggled for words as I shoved my hands into my pockets, dragging my feet on the carpet. "I'm just not completely sure as to what my parents will say about Jay coming around..."

"Well you better tell them soon." She marched over to my closet and threw open the doors. "We only have nine hours to figure out what to wear!"

Luckily, I was able to persuade Dana to take my dinner shift as long as I covered for her the next two Saturdays. Of course that was worth it for Sofie who spent all day prancing around my bedroom, plucking her eyebrows, and trying on everything she could in my closet.

Sofie's dad was a catering manager at one of the hotels near Dallas so he was always working late on the weekends. It gave me the perfect excuse to say I was spending the night at Sofie's, since her dad wouldn't realize when we left or came back.

Most girls my age were away at college. Had the freedom to do what they wanted.

I'd never had that my entire life.

As the youngest in a larger Sicilian family, and the only girl, I was always watched. Always had an abundance of rules that I usually never messed with.

Jay Morningstar was the first rule I ever broke.

"Do you think it could get any colder out here?" Sofie's whole body shook as she looked over at me.

Jay said that he was on his way, so we stood at the end of my driveway, waiting for his car to pull into my neighborhood. Nonna was inside, but she usually passed out after
Wheel of Fortune
and it would take a massive earthquake to wake her up.

I could have told my family that I was going out with friends, maybe include Jay’s name casually.

But I didn't.

I chickened out like I always did.

I just didn't want it to be ruined. The moment. My time with Jay. My parents wouldn't exactly "forbid me" from going out with him, but they could make it really hard for me to do so.

"Maybe if you had on a skirt that was bigger than your fist, then you wouldn't be freezing." I looked down at her barely there skirt and black boots that still couldn't hide the goose bumps parading up her pale legs.

She pulled her cheetah print pea coat tightly around herself as she curled her upper lip at me. "Well, at least I dressed for the occasion."

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

Sofie lifted her chin, looking down at me with her heavily painted eyelashes. "I'm just saying if I was going to hang out with an Olympic swimmer, and had a rack your size, I wouldn't be wearing combat-looking boots and a sweater that hides your ginormous cleavage.

I rolled my eyes, tossing my hands out to the side. "Uh, these are Steve Madden hiking boots and it's like two degrees out, so why wouldn't I be wearing a sweater? Not everyone needs to see my goodies all of the time."

"Whatever." She sighed, standing on her tiptoes to look over me. "I thought he was supposed to be here by now."

I glanced over my shoulder, only seeing the neighbor's front porch light, but no cars anywhere in sight. "He should be here any minute…"

"You don't think he stood us up, do you?"

I bit my lip, hoping that wasn't the case and opened my mouth to try and reassure Sofie when the screech of tires sounded. I whipped my head around to see a large black Navigator rounding the corner.

Sofie placed the tips of her index and middle finger in her mouth, pulling them out and into a V shape as she slid them along her eyebrows. "It's show time."

The Navigator came to a halt in front of us as the back door was thrown open to Jay sitting there with his million-dollar smile.

"How much?" I heard one of the guys call from the front seat.

"You couldn't afford us." Sofie laughed as she climbed in after me.

I slid into the seat next to Jay and his arm went around my shoulder, his fingertips sending a rush of warmth through me. "You're freezing."

"If you would have given us better directions here then they wouldn't have been standing outside all night," Scotty yelled from the driver's seat.

"Hey, it's not my fault you can't understand north or south." Jay laughed, leaning forward and hitting Scotty on the back of his head.

Johnny almost choked on the long licorice rope he had been gnawing on from the front seat as he laughed at Scotty, a red goop forming on his chin.

Scotty glared at Johnny as he peeled, a little too fast, out of the neighborhood. "Shut up Johnny, it's not like you know the difference either."

"That's why I'm not the one driving." He slurped the red goop from his chin. I tried not to curl my lip in disgust, but Sofie was practically drooling as she stared at the two of them.

"Oh, uh, Johnny, Scotty, this is my best friend Sofie." I tilted my head in her direction.

Scotty glanced at Sofie from the rearview mirror, giving a small nod, but it was Johnny who completely turned around and extended a sticky hand in her direction.

"Pleasure." He smiled, his teeth caked in red.

Sofie giggled, the color rising in her cheeks as she took his sticky hand. I made a mental note to get her some hand sanitizer.

"I wouldn't touch that, I don't know where it's been." Jay leaned over the seat, looking at Sofie.

              Johnny snapped his hand back from Sofie's, throwing the end of his licorice rope at Jay. "Man, shut up you don't know what you're talking about."

Jay flicked the licorice off him as if it were a fly before raising his hands in the air, "Hey I'm just telling the girl what I heard."

"All right, so now that, that's out of the way, where are we going?" I questioned, trying to get away from the subject of sticky hands and focusing on Jay's fingers and the feel of him.

"
Rock
and bowl," Scotty yelled.

"We're going to the bowling alley?" Sofie's eyes grew wide and I was hoping she finally realized that her high-heeled boots and one shoulder top were a bad idea.

"Is this what elite athletes usually do for fun?" she whispered, glancing in my direction.

I shrugged as Jay leaned his head against mine. He smelled even better than I remembered. Like some expensive cologne, but he also still had the scent of chlorine on his skin. Like it would never leave. In a totally non-creepy way I just wanted to sniff him all night long.

"If you'd rather go back to the ranch, we can do that too. I found some more albums up in the attic," he whispered, his lips vibrating on my ear.

I clenched my legs closed, trying not to think about what Sonny said. About what Jay wanted from me. I had to play it cool.

"No. Rock and bowl is totally fine."

The bowling alley was about a twenty-minute drive from my house. You could practically see the neon signs from the highway that advertised every single beer known to man. Scotty circled the parking lot until he found a spot near the back of the old brick building and hopped enthusiastically out of the car like he was running into the summer sun instead of the cold night air.

"Do you really think we're going to be able to just walk into a bowling alley without getting mobbed by a bunch of fans and reporters?" I asked as Jay took my hand to help me out of the Navigator.

His hands were so soft yet so rough at the same time. They were mainly hands. Manly large hands. I wondered if what people said about big hands were true. I'd never actually seen a penis in person except for when I babysat or watched really bad scrambled porn at Sofie’s.

Yes, I get it. Loser.

Now I was holding hands with one of the hottest men alive and thinking about penises.

He tilted his head, letting his eyes scan the parking lot. "I think you overestimate the power of swimmers. No one is going to be following us unless we're at the pool and it's usually just swim bloggers. Nothing too exciting. Well most of the time."

I didn't want to mention how much I'd seen of him on TNC, especially now since Jay had resurfaced on their radar. I just chewed on my bottom lip and kept my mouth shut.

"Come on, Lia, do you think anyone cares if Jay Morningstar is around? He's the least attractive of us. Now me on the other hand..." Scotty poked his head in between Jay and me. He smelled like a mixture of expensive cologne and Oregano. The scent was enough to defrost my nose.

I arched an eyebrow looking over at Scotty as he slid out in front of us, a cock-eyed smirk on his face before he opened the glass door to the bowling alley.

We stopped at a small desk where a bored looking teenager barely looked up for us to pay. I wasn't expecting Jay to pay, so I brought my wallet but he moved too fast for me to even offer. Before I knew it, his hand was back on mine and we were making our way through the bowling alley.

A few older guys with long white beards and leather jackets stared at us as we entered, but quickly went back to their drinks as if we weren't interesting enough. Beyond the bar, the bowling alley was only lit by black lights with the fluorescent signs on the walls glowing against the lanes that hadn't been updated since the 1970s. I'm pretty sure they weren't exactly up to code with the squeaky ball returns and peeled wooden lanes.

"I get the pink ball!" Scotty yelled, making a beeline for the last lane with Johnny following close behind. Most of the other people bowling were at the other end of the bowling alley. Aka a lot of middle school kids who were too busy grinding up on the person next to them to some screaming dance music and didn't even notice us between the flashes of strobe lights.

Sofie couldn't take her eyes off of the boys as she followed them like a small puppy toward the lane.

"Looks like she's enjoying herself." Jay leaned in toward me.

"I hope she's not the only one," I whispered, trying to be seductive and rubbing my side against his, but tripped over my own feet and almost face planted right into a rack of bowling balls.

"Whoa." Jay put his arm out in front of me, stopping my body before I fell to the floor.

Scotty and Johnny looked up from the ball rack, their eyes widening.

"Didn't know you were that excited about bowling." Scotty laughed, rolling a bright pink ball between his palms.

"Oh yeah, all Sicilian girls are really into knocking things down with huge balls." I rolled my eyes and stepped down to the lane.

"That's what she said," Sofie piped up from the other end of the rack. The comment made Scotty and Johnny crack up as they high-fived her.

I turned toward Jay. "Is it bad that I think my best friend is on the same brain waves as Scotty and Johnny?"

Jay glanced at the three of them over my shoulder while I sat down next to him and shrugged my coat off and onto the chair. "Well, that depends."

He slid his arm around my waist pulling me closer, the barely-there stubble of his chin brushing against my face. "Do you want our friends to be distracted by each other so we can have more alone time or would you rather have them by our side all night?"

"Touché." I leaned in to kiss him when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I groaned, somehow Jay and I were always getting interrupted. I turned around to see Sofie staring down at me as she fidgeted from one side of her body to the other.

"Yes, Sofie?" I looked up and gave her a look that said,
this better be important or I I’m going to kill you later
.

"Um, I was just hoping you’d go to the snack bar with me and get a drink before we started playing." She wiggled her eyebrows motioning her head in the direction of the other two guys.

"Either your friend has some kind of a disorder, or she's trying to give you a hint at something." Jay laughed and slid his arm out from around me before squeezing my shoulder.

I rolled my eyes and stood up next to Sofie, staring right at her to answer Jay. "I think it's a little bit of both."

"Oh, come on." She let out a huge breath of air through her braces as she linked her arms with mine and dragged me toward the snack bar.

"Are we really getting drinks?" I leaned in, almost whispering as we exited the lane.

Sofie shrugged, "Maybe, but I just had to get out of there to ask you the game plan, so the guys wouldn't hear."

"Game plan?"

She rolled her eyes as her boots clanked on the linoleum floor. I had only seen Sofie wear heels about twice in our life. Once at our confirmation and the other time at our freshman homecoming. It showed since she wobbled on her tippy toes toward the concession stand. "Are we actually staying here all night? Aren't you worried about someone seeing you?"

I shrugged, looking around the bowling alley. I couldn't recognize anyone through the fog machine and our lane was all the way at the other end from where most of Rock and Bowl was going on. "I don't think anyone can really see us…"

Sofie pushed a stray curl out of her face as we approached the snack bar. "I mean I don't care if I get recognized with some of the hottest guys on the planet, but I could just imagine what your mom would say if she saw us on TV or something."

“It's fine. No one even knows we're here."

"Oh em gee!"

And with that high-pitched squeal I knew I spoke too soon. My body tensed as I slowly turned around to see Christy standing there with Abbey, a girl who went to college with us. I liked Abbey well enough; her biggest flaw was that she was always in Christy's shadow.

Shouldn't Christy have been at school or something? Though, she did come home for the weekend a lot. She said it was to see the ranch, but I always wondered if there was another motive.