Finally Us

Strike Bet

The concept of bowling was simple. Take an eight to fourteen pound ball that was painted with pretty colors (or just black, if you're that type of person) and toss it down an extremely slippery wood floor towards ten pins set in a triangle, and knock them all down. It was that simple. Of course, as she watched some of the people around her, they were pulling out all their fancy tricks and hooks, and rubbing their balls down with special towels that she was sure were just plain ol' towels you could pick up from Target or wherever. She watched them all tie up laces on their special bowling shoes and do a little walk from the edge to the tip of where the lane actually started, like a ritual, spacing out and getting in the zone for the game of bowling.

However, simple was not her middle name and nor was it a concept in her life. Nothing was simple. It was complicated and she always needed someone or something to show her how or push her to do these things...well, most of the time. She did recall that she was the one pushing her mom to take her and her sister to auditions when they were young. That was the only thing that she never needed any pushing on. This however, was a whole different story.

Telling Ross about the bowling idea with both families and some friends a few days ago, he was jumping all over it and the one that was getting everyone here. It was cute to see just how excited he got over it; kid in a candy store like. Of course, he was mostly excited to do something other than study scripts that he'd be acting out in a weeks time in Vancouver again. He'd been trying to memorize them all in the week's time, and she was kind of hoping he would. It was a running bet and if he didn't by the time he had to leave, he couldn't go surfing for a week. She couldn't recall why she chose that punishment at all, but he did tell her she had to cook all week if he succeeded.

Watching Rocky roll the ball down the lane and knock all the pins down was getting her discouraged. She was never going to get more than 100 points. Never. Ryland was next, and then Savannah before she would try again. Riker had teased her earlier, telling her they could get the bumpers out if they needed to. While everyone else was knocking down five pins or more each time, she was at two. Two. And it was ridiculous and embarrassing all at the same time.

"Okay, so you're going to get whiplash if you keep looking back and forth like that."

Laura looked back to her right side and up at her boyfriend. Poking him in the side and sticking her tongue, she scrunched up her nose too, just because. While yes, she had suggested bowling, she hadn't let on what prompted her to suggest it. He didn't know about Sofia and how she was supposed to randomly show up during their outing and join them and then her and Riker could live happily ever after...well the last part was in her mind, but it was good to hope. She wasn't entirely sure about Riker's own love life but she did know that he'd been crushing on Sofia for a long time...and in between his other relationships throughout the years, he'd always go back to the idea of her. The only reason she knew about that was because she'd gotten a crash course in everything Lynch during their movie shoot in Cape Town.

But Sofia, she knew exactly everything about Sofia's love life - partly because she had told her at lunch the other day and because it had been blasted all over gossip sites and television and papers for the past three years. Just like she had, Sofia had been involved in a very high profile relationship and it was all perfect. But you know when something seems perfect and a match made in heaven, it really isn't; and it definitely wasn't for Sofia. She had told Laura that for the first year she was over the moon about the guy and after playing a princess on television, she was truly being treated like one but that was until more jobs surfaced and rumors that they had usually brushed off, were getting to both of them. At the end of it all, as much as they had loved each other, the worry and being apart for most of their relationship was the breaking point.