chapter 6

“Not bad huh?” asked Andrew as he sat down alongside Ellen.

“Huh?” she asked, her attention was obviously on filling her now substantial belly rather than Andrew’s performance.

“I scored a strike!” he said, looking for any kind of recognition for his accomplishment.

“Oh, well done.” smiled Ellen as if genuinely impressed by his performance before remembering who she was sharing an alley with. “Took you long enough” she added as she put down Andrew’s empty plate and once again picked up her ball.

She frowned as she adjusted the ball in her hands, for some reason it just didn’t feel right as if she couldn’t get a good grip. Had she been privy to the evening’s events she would have known that the reason she couldn’t get a good grip on her personal ball was that her fingers were significantly chubbier than when she had the ball drilled.

As she approached the foul line it was obvious that her technique was totally off, as if she was bowling in someone else’s body, in many ways she was. However, as awkward as her approach had been, she still managed to hit another strike.

This new growth helped her fit into her borrowed sweats a little better even if it meant that her upper arms now pressed tight against her shirt’s sleeves as the fat there dimpled over her elbows. Her softened cheeks took on a rosy hue as she dabbed the sweat away from her brow using the back of her hand.

“Is it really hot in here?” she asked Andrew as she returned to her seat, “I feel kinda weird”

“It is pretty warm” lied Andrew “and you have been bowling up a storm” he wasn’t about to tell her the real reason that she felt so warm was the fact that she was now easily twice the woman that she had walked into the alley as.

He took his turn and added another 8 points to his score, he hadn’t scored nearly half the points that Ellen had but that wasn’t really the reason he had suggested going bowling after all.

“If you’re warm, we could have some ice cream” he offered, knowing that Ellen normally avoided the stuff like the plague. “It’ll be my treat” he smiled.