Autumn Adventure (Summer Unplugged #6) by Amy Sparling Read Free Book Online Page B

small bowling balls, only to realize that all of the holes are kind of big. Jace laughs when I shove my fingers into a small one, and they go all the way down. “Maybe they have some baby-sized bowling balls around here,” he says, looking around.
    “Shut up!” I say, but I follow him to the other side of the bowling alley where more racks of balls await. Sure enough, there’s an XS ball that fits me perfectly. Of course, when I go to pick it up with my fingers in the holes, I can’t lift it.
    “Why is this so heavy?” I whine, instinctively scrunching up my face in a way that I know makes me look like a kid.
    “Maybe because it’s sixteen pounds?” Jace says. “That’ll be like twice the size of our baby when he’s born. Here, try a twelver.”
    I frown at the greenish-blue ball he holds out to me. “That’s ugly.”
    “Are bowling balls supposed to be pretty?” he asks, trying to make me take his choice of a ball by pressing it against my arm.
    I tilt my head to the side. “It’s not pink. It looks like puke.”
    “Well, we can’t have a puke ball, now can we?” Jace says with a laugh. He drops the ball back down to the rack and we spend the next ten minutes searching for a pink extra small, twelve pound ball. It’s the stupid things like this that make me genuinely happy for having married someone like Jace. I know that no other guy I’ve ever dated would have wasted this much time looking through a bowling alley just to make me happy. And really, I’m not that much of a brat. I don’t need a pink ball. But the fact that Jace is willing to do whatever it takes for me just makes me want that ball even more.
    Finally we find a pink ball and it’s even more sparkly and pink than the first one I found. At only twelve pounds, I can pick it up too, so double win.
    Except the magical sparkly pink ball does absolutely nothing in helping me bowl. My ball goes straight in the gutter on my first try. Jace gives me some pointers for my next try, and this time, with his help I get the ball all the way down the aisle and it knocks over two pins on the right.
    Oh well, better than nothing.
    We bowl several rounds and eat even more nachos, and before long, the alley is completely empty except for us and another couple who look about my mom’s age. They’re a few lanes down from us and they’re both excellent bowlers. I study the woman as she bowls, trying to memorize her fancy foot step pattern so that I can do the same thing. It doesn’t exactly work, but I do get better as the night goes on.
    When I’m out of soda, I grab Jace’s empty cup and mine and head over to the refill station while he bowls. The older woman from a few aisles down walks up behind me, holding an empty pitcher of beer.
    “Can’t believe it’s so dead here tonight,” she says, setting down the pitcher and asking the girl behind the counter for another one. “We come here all the time and it’s usually packed.”
    “That’s probably for the best,” I say back to her. “My terrible bowling would be too embarrassing if more people were here to witness it.”
    She laughs. “Is this your first time?”
    I tell her yes and she nods, understanding. “You’ll get better with time. How far along are you?” At first, I’m not sure what she’s asking, but then she points to my stomach. “Oh, um, about five and a half months,” I say, steeling myself for her reply. I’ve had the judgement looks and snide comments before. But this is my honeymoon and I’m not going to let her ruin it.
    She looks at me incredulously and then smiles. “Wow, you look good for that far along! Girl, I was a freaking whale by three months.”
    I stand there, shocked for a whole ten seconds. That wasn’t rude. It was friendly, even. Sheepishly, I smile back and say, “Thanks. I feel like a whale if that counts for anything.”
    She laughs and hands the cashier money for her new pitcher. “You’re gonna feel a whole lot worse soon, but it’ll