“You’re not wearing socks,” I whisper, horrified.
He looks down at his toes. His naked toes. They’re touching the floor without a barrier. They were just inside bowling shoes, also without a barrier.
My stomach recoils. I’m not really germophobic — I don’t even own hand sanitizer and firmly believe that that’s how bacterial superbugs are created — but I cannot handle bare feet in bowling shoes.
“Uh…” he says, glancing from his feet to my face and back.
“You can’t do that,” I tell him as he wiggles his toes against the gray-blue industrial carpet. “That’s horrible. Kevin.”
He gives me a look so clueless, so deer-in-the-headlights, that it could only come from a nineteen year old guy.
“You need socks,” I tell him. Suddenly I feel like his mother.
“I don’t have socks with me,” he says, like he’s still trying to figure out what the big deal is.
“You can’t put those on without socks,” I say. I grab my purse and start rummaging through it. After a moment I find what I’m looking for and hand the small bundle to Kevin.
He takes it and holds it in the palm of his hand for a long moment.
“Are those pugs saying ‘I love you’?” he finally asks.
I take a closer look at the socks I just handed him.
“Yes,” I confirm.
“And you just had these in your purse,” he goes on, still not putting the socks on his feet.
I bend down and tie the laces on my own bowling shoes. They pinch, but I’ve decided it’s the right amount. Mostly because I don’t feel like trying on another pair only to inevitably switch back to these.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” I say.
I wore heels to work today, and I knew I’d need socks for the bowling outing after work, so when I grabbed myself a pair of socks, I also grabbed an extra just in case someone else forgot socks.
Obviously it came in handy, because I saved Kevin from needing his feet amputated.
“They use that disinfectant stuff,” he says, sounding a touch defensive, unfolding the socks from each other.
I just shake my head, tying my other shoe. Kevin slides the socks over his feet, then looked down, wiggling his toes again.
Then he shrugs.
“Thanks,” he says.
Across the lobby from us, Eli walks by. He’s already got bowling shoes on, along with jeans and a green t-shirt that says Don Antonio’s in faded script across the front.
I’m still tying my bowling shoes and through my hair, I watch him walk past the lanes while pretending that I’m not watching him. His sleeves are tight across his arms, the shoulders of his shirt slightly snug. I stop tying my shoes and just watch him as he approaches the rack of bowling balls, glancing along it before picking one up.
He tests it, facing away from us. He lifts it a few times, turns it back and forth, puts it back down. Even from thirty feet away I can see the muscles in his forearm flex as he locks his fingers into the holes, testing a few different ones.
It feels deeply, deeply unfair that he looks hot while trying out bowling balls and wearing bowling shoes. That just shouldn’t be a thing.
Finally, he picks one and turns away from the rack of bowling balls, glancing and Kevin and I, seated on the bench. Eli nods hello.
I realize that neither Kevin nor I have moved since Eli started lifting bowling balls. We’ve just been sitting here, Kevin with his shoes in his hand, me bent over, not even tying my shoes.
Very cool of us.
I nod back quickly and sit upright, trying to hide the slight blush creeping up my cheeks. Eli heads into the lane with Lydia. Kevin still hasn’t moved.
“He’s straight,” I say.
That shakes him out of his reverie, and he snorts.
“I know,” he says.
“You do?”
For a flash, I think yet again about Eli in the elevator. The maid of honor. His arm around her, her head against his chest. The glowering, smoldering, victorious look he gave me as the elevator doors closed.
Something I can’t name stretched and tightened in my chest, a nervous, strained tension.
Did Kevin see them in the elevator? Did he see something else?
How many people has Eli slept with at work in his first week?!
“Of course I know,” Kevin says, standing. “Trust me, the first thing a gay kid learns is how to tell who’s straight and who’s not. I’ve got it down to an art. I could tell you everyone here who’s ever thought about putting a dick in his mouth.”
He stops short, looking suddenly alarmed.
“…Ma’am,” he says, like he just remembered that he’s talking to his boss.
“Right,” I say. “Sorry.”
He shrugs, then walks to the shoe counter in sock feet.* * *“Come on,” I mutter, still standing at the very end of the lane. “Come on, come on.”