Before You Go by James Preller Page B

said. “ Oh, Becka, sweetheart, I love your luminous eyes ,” Roberto purred in a high-pitched falsetto. “ They are like limpid pools of  … I don’t know what the frak.”
    “‘Frak’?!” Corey repeated, laughing. “You’re a Battlestar Galactica fan?”
    “Oh, yeah, big-time,” Roberto said. “I have the complete series on DVD. Best sci-fi show ever. I could power disk that shit all night long.”
    “Adama’s the man,” Corey said.
    “Don’t even get me started on Kara Thrace,” Roberto replied.
    “I’m more into Number Six,” Corey admitted.
    “Ohhhh, she’s a bad, bad Cylon,” Roberto joked.
    Corey turned in his seat, grinned at Jude. “Nice shirt, by the way,” he said, noting Jude’s pastel polo.
    “Yeah, does it come in guy colors?” Berto cracked.
    Jude laughed along with his friends, told them it was only a matter of time before they had a show together on Bravo. Besides, they were kind of right. Lately he couldn’t think of much else besides Becka. She kept creeping into his thoughts. At work he was attuned to her every movement; watched her at the cash register, knew exactly when she took breaks, and tried whenever possible to arrange quasi-accidental time together. Becka, for her part, sent signals the same way. There was something definitely going on between them. Some sort of dance. Where it was all headed … Jude didn’t know.
    Roberto blew off Jude’s request to visit Becka’s house and drove directly to the Alley Cat Lanes. “Don’t be mad, Jude. We’ll hide in her bushes another time,” Roberto half apologized.
    “Oh, yeah, we’ll have all the handy stalker tools,” Corey chimed in. “GPS tracker, night-vision goggles, whatever it takes to get you hooked up, my brother.”
    *   *   *
    Jude felt there was something undeniably cheesy and yet thrilling about your basic Rock ’n’ Bowl experience. It was like a bizarro blend of the coolest things you could imagine and the lamest things ever, like, um, bowling itself, all mixed together. The Alley Cat was packed with teenagers and college kids, most of the girls wearing complicated haircuts and expensive denim. Some guys did the cliché thing and wore vintage, two-toned bowling shirts with thick vertical stripes, others saw it as an opportunity to impress the girls with their bulging biceps, a trick that required wearing T-shirts that were two sizes too small. It was a wonder they could swing their arms.
    Roberto poked Jude, whistled softly, said that watching the redhead in lane six bend over to pick up a ball was alone worth the price of admission. Four center lanes were reserved for the band, a five-piece outfit that was actually not too bad. Very jam bandy, they were covering a Dave Matthews tune when the guys walked in, and not without skill. It sounded good, featured a propulsive groove, but at the same time, you didn’t have to pay attention to the band, either. The right sounds for Rock ’n’ Bowl. The place was all dark corners and cheap laser lights, punctuated by the clatter of crashing pins. It had been a while since Jude had been to the Alley Cat, and he was happy to be back, hearing the pins rumble like thunder. Jude was sure that half the crowd was buzzed on something, tripping the light fantastic. With that many guys and girls jumbled in one place, rock music blaring, strobes flashing, it felt like what school might have been like without the teachers and hall monitors.
    Corey, Roberto, and Jude settled into their assigned lane to the far left of the cavernous alley. Jude typed in the names, which were displayed on an overhead screen, while Roberto read aloud from a paper place mat he’d picked up off the floor. “Did you know that bowling is the number-one participation sport in America?” he enthused. “More than seventy million people bowl annually!”
    “These lights are very Dark Side of the Moon ,” Corey observed, only half listening.
    “I’m getting a pitcher of Coke,”