It was just Susan, Lucia and Jo at the bowling alley, Susan hadn't invited anyone else. Her dad had paid for two games, drinks and fries and had left them to it.

On the first frame Susan threw her ball down the lane, it sailed a good third of the way down the lane before bouncing into the gutter. Her second ball wasn't any better.

"Erm, you have played this game before haven't you?" Jo asked.

"Yeah, I'm a bit shit though." Jo watched as Lucia's ball also sailed into the gutter twice in a row.

"Okay, can I give you both some pointers?" She asked, nervous the manager may throw them out for destroying his lanes.

"Sure! Anything to help me beat Heather next time we play!" Susan agreed enthusiastically.

"Okay, so when you release the ball, you have to do so from the level of the ground. Now, Lucia did that but she rotated the ball around her hip which put spin on the ball and caused it to go left." She demonstrated what she meant, "now to stop that happening you have to swing one leg out behind like this."

She strode to the lane and made a graceful sweeping motion, releasing the ball without a sound and it raced down the lane, all the pins seemed to jump backwards as if scared of the ball.

"Strike!" The other two shouted and both hugged her, jumping up and down.

"Erm, yeah." Jo laughed, amused by the antics. "I get a few of those so perhaps tone down the celebrations on my goes?"

"Sorry, so like this?" Susan asked, pantomiming the motion.

"Exactly, give it a try."

Susan did a little shuffle at the end but managed to release the ball well and she knocked down four pins. She did a little dance and a fist pump.

"Okay, better but you need to know which foot to start on and you need to keep your pace steady. That little two step you did was because you were wrong footed. It's like high jump." She explained. "Take a few walks from the seats to the line and see if you can work it out."

She did that and when she thought it was right she tried again, knocking all but one pin down. Again she danced and this time held Lucia's hands and jumped around.

"You're a really good teacher, where did you learn all this?" Lucia asked.

"My dad is in the bowling league, he takes me with him when mum's in the hospital."

"Oh god, I'm so sorry. What's wrong with her?" Lucia asked.

"Crone's, it's a gut thing, they keep cutting sections out of her intestines because it get inflamed and her body tries to fight itself." She brushed it off.

"Geeze, that must be hard." Susan said, "I thought she looked frail last night."

"Oh don't let her fool you, she'll still thrash you to within an inch of your life if you wrong her!" Jo replied, "anyway, it's your turn, have a few practices first.”

Lucia's next shot was straight as a die. Unfortunately it was off to the left so only clipped the side pin.

"That was better! You just need to aim." She got up and led to Lucia to the line, see these arrows at the line? You want to pay attention which arrow you release the ball on and see the diamonds a few feet further in? You want to aim at the corresponding diamond, it's easier than aiming all the way down the bottom and your ball should go pretty straight."

Her next ball hit the pin to the right of center and took out another five pins, the girls celebrated this small win. "It's amazing, we sometimes struggle to get double digits!" Lucia gushed.

Jo took her shot, scoring another strike. The other girls started to celebrate, then they saw the amused look on Jo's face and stopped. "Sorry. Force of habit." Susan said with a grin.

By the end of the first game the scores were respectable, Jo was in the mid hundreds and both of the others had broken sixty. Susan had gotten sixtynine and had nudged Jo and waggled her eyebrows.

Lucia excused herself to visit the toilet between games and Jo turned to Susan. "Can I have a word?"

Susan shot her a confused glance, "Sure."

Jo led her to a quieter part of the room. "Susan, erm." She started hesitantly, "you know how I'm a lesbian?" She plowed on without waiting for a reply. "Well, I'm not sure you've noticed, but sometimes it feels like you're flirting with me."

"Well, yeah." Susan said with a sly smile.

"Well, I kind of need to know, is it because you find it fun, or are you actually interested." She had been dreading asking this question since the hug last night but felt she shouldn't put it off.

"I wouldn't flirt if I wasn't interested." Susan said, confidently.

"I'm not interested in playing around and hiding it from everybody. If we do this you would have to be all in. As in, all out. I've done the covert stuff before and got seriously burned." Jo insisted, her heart falling.

Susan paused, her face went flat for a long moment. "Can we go on that date, the picnic we talked about first?" She took a deep breath. "If we decide we are dating after that then I will tell our friends. Would that be okay?"

It was more than Jo had hoped for, she had readied herself for rejection, expected it even. She pulled Susan into a big hug, "It's a big step you know. Some people will not be nice." Susan nodded into her shoulder. "I did tell them if you were nice I might date you myself, they shouldn't be too surprised." She laughed. "Lucia's waiting."

The next frame they all improved on their scores and Jo joined in their celebrations more vocally.