Dark Valentine (Monster High; Book 1 of the DV Duology)

Chapter 18: Sunrise of Flutes

Holt

After Kieran filled me in on everything he'd told Jackson about his dad, I figured the mood needed to be lightened considerably. I didn't want to run into that creep any more than Jackson did, but I didn't think it was a good idea to dwell on it until something actually happened.

The next day while Kieran and I were on the way to school in my car, I decided to surprise him by instead driving us over to the bowling alley that was close to the Normie side of town.

I knew Jackson wouldn't like that we were skipping school for this, but he could deal. With how he was when it came to school, he'd catch up in two minutes flat.

"Why are we stopping here?" asked Kieran, noticing where we were.

"Figured we could use a break," I said, grinning over at him. "The mood's gotten a bit too heavy lately, so I figured we could have some fun to lighten things up a little."

Kieran grinned, too. "Jackson's going to kill you for this."

"He can deal," I replied, "Wouldn't kill the guy to have a bit of fun, either."

It didn't take us long to find a parking space, thankfully, and we were able to get bowling shoes from the counter by the door. As we were walking over to our lane, I noticed there was a counter you could buy food from.

The bowling alley wasn't too crowded today, which was surprising since it usually was. But I was cool whether it was crowded or not, so it didn't really matter.

Anyway, Kieran was up first. Neither of us wanted to play with the bumpers up, so gutter balls were possible. I expected Kieran to get one, but instead he got a strike.

Kieran laughed. "That was great; I thought that was going to go in the gutter!"

"It looked like it was going to for a second!" I joined in.

"I'm glad that didn't happen; it would've been unfortunate to have that happen on the first turn of the game."

"On the bright side, it'd give me a reason to make fun of you," I joked.

"That's true," said Kieran, "You're up."

"Alright, here we go!" I exclaimed, going up and picking up my ball. After a few seconds of concentration, I aimed for the center pin. The ball decided to grow a mind of its own, though, and veered to the left, hitting only half the pins. "So close!"

"You've got this, Holt, you can still get a spare," said Kieran.

And I did. "Yes!" I then got an idea. "DJ Holt Hyde has picked up that difficult spare—and let's see it again in slow-motion!" Then I pretended to throw the ball again in slow-motion, imitating Dan Conner.

Kieran was laughing at this. "I didn't know you watched Roseanne!"

"I don't, really, but my mom does," I grinned, "She's made me watch a couple episodes with her, and that was one of them. That scene just sort of popped into my head at the right moment, so I ran with it."

"That was pretty awesome, though," said Kieran, taking his next turn. While he did that, I went to go get food for both of us. A few minutes later, I returned carrying two Cokes and a bag of popcorn.

"Here," I handed Kieran one of them as he finished his turn. I set the popcorn on the table near our lane.

"Thanks," he said, taking it from me. I then set mine down with the popcorn so I could take my next turn.

Two more frames later, Kieran was a good deal ahead of me and it was back to my turn again. I stepped up, determined to take the lead from my boyfriend.

Just then, some asshole bashed right into me and knocked my headphones off my head and onto the floor. As I was reaching down for them, everything went black.

Jackson

The first thing I noticed when I woke was that Kieran and I weren't in school. Quickly glancing around, I realized we were in a bowling alley, and I figured Holt must have brought us here. But why during school hours?

"Kieran?" I asked, "Why are we here? I mean—shouldn't we be in school?"

"It was Holt's idea," explained Kieran, "With all that stuff with Drystan going on and everything, he figured we could use a break from all that so he brought us here. I didn't even know that was his plan until we were on the way over here, and—"

"It's okay," I stopped him, "I'm not upset or anything. I mean, yeah, I am sort of dreading having to catch up on my work, but we're already here, so...I figure, why not just enjoy it?"

Kieran smiled and hugged me. "Thanks, Jackson."

I grinned back, and then glanced up at the board to see how far in the game we were. Seeing that it was my turn, I picked up a ball and attempted to get a strike.

Just as the heavy ball left my hand I noticed a gravelly voice coming closer to us.

"This is bowling," it said. The voice was low and husky, but not the nice type--more like the nails-on-a-chalk-board kind. An older man with a thin layer of grey hair approached the lane next to us, followed by two little boys who looked to be twins, both of whom had brown hair and green eyes.

"Hi," one of the twins said, coming up to us. Kieran gave him a little wave and I bent down giving him a smile. "Hey."

"Bruce," the man scolded, approaching us holding the hand of the other boy, "We don't talk to strangers."

"He nice GPA Ken," Bruce said petting the side of my leg.

"It's okay," I interjected, "He's cute."

I stood up giving the man called Ken a smile, "I'm Jackson and this is Kieran."

"I'm Ken," He said shaking both of your hands. "These are my grandsons, Bruce and Bryce. Are you two dating?"

I wasn't sure how my boyfriend would have wanted me to respond, so I waited for him. I had no issue with telling anyone we were together but he might have.

"Yeah," he said with a nod, putting his hand in mine. Ken's face fell.

"I used to have a boyfriend. But the asshole left me for another man."

I looked at Ken and his grandkids. I couldn't believe the language that he was using in front of them.

"Don't repeat Grampy," Ken said to them a second later. "Anyways, he was wonderful. I don't know why he left; I was so good to him. I held him in the night and whispered soothing words when he was ill. Then he left me stating that I always cheated on him and stuff."

"Did you?" Kieran asked. I wondered the same thing but was too nervous to ask.

"Well, yeah, just a few times. But I always went home to Jay in the end."

I glanced at my boyfriend. The look he gave me informed that we shouldn't press the matter anymore. "That's unfortunate for the both of you," I said giving a small smile wondering when they were going to go away.

"Play?" Bryce asked, looking at their lane.

"Right," Ken said taking their hands, "Well, if you ever have issues than find me on Facebook. I am Ken Kaning. I will talk to you anytime."

"Okay," I said giving a wave as the three of them walked away. "That was interesting," I said to Kieran once they'd gone to their lane.

"Yeah, it was," agreed Kieran, "He seemed nice. Although I can't help but wonder how long it'll take for 'asshole' to make it into his grandsons' vocabulary."

"Who knows?" I then proceeded to finish my turn, noticing my failure to get a strike earlier. I did manage to get a spare, though, and I was happy with that even though Kieran was still a fair few points ahead of me. We were only in the fourth frame; I had lots of time to change that.