Free Moonset by Scott Tracey

girls followed her lead, a few giggles escaping here or there. And then there was the girl in the back.
    She held the inner door open, just as I held the outer. After a momentary stare down between us, she cocked her shoulders as if to say, “Well?” We stood like two gunslingers in the Old West, waiting to see who’d flinch first. Who’d release their door and let the other walk through?
    I glanced down the street, desperately trying to think of something cool to say. This girl didn’t look like she’d fall for one of Malcolm’s stupid lines or be drawn in by Cole’s sometimes adorable nature.
    “Your friends are leaving.” Immediately I wanted to kick myself. That was how I opened a conversation?
    Her smile widened. “Maybe they’re not my friends.” She ran a hand through her hair, and I … forgot what I was going to say. The cold didn’t matter, the people coming in and out around us weren’t important.
    “My name’s Justin,” I finally called out, during a particular rush through the doors.
    She touched a little old lady in a tan coat on the shoulder and laughed. Then she looked back at me, shaking her head. “I didn’t ask.”
    Right about now, Malcolm would be sliding in with some completely inappropriate line. Or Cole would be too busy staring at her butt to really pay attention. I just … kept holding the door. I’d used up all my know-how with girls right off the bat. My brain couldn’t form words. Make talky hard.
    “You’re gawking.” She had a tinkling kind of laugh, like someone running fingers down the piano.
    I shook myself, and shifted so I was holding the door with my foot. “Am not.” Great. I’d regressed to kindergarten, thirty seconds away from kicking her in the shins and running away.
    The last of the line finally dissipated. She gestured again, this time a flourishing move with her arm. My feet remained rooted in place. She smiled again, her eyes searching mine. Then she finally let go of her door and started walking towards mine. After a second’s hesitation, she opened the other half of the double doors and exited through that one.
    “Come on, puppy,” she said with a backwards glance at me. “I’m going to let you buy my coffee.”
    I remained where I was. “Puppy?”
    “Could’ve called you kitten,” she said over her shoulder. “Keep it up, and maybe we’ll work our way up to ducky.”
    “I have a name,” I replied. But before I knew it, I was following her.
    I could practically hear the amusement dripping from her words. “Still didn’t ask.”
    “You know I’m a stranger, right? You always go around asking strangers to coffee?”
    She walked into the street and nearly into a car as it drove past. A moment later, as I started to lunge forward, I realized she was in no danger. The car passed, and she moved behind it easily, her movements timed perfectly.
    “This is Carrow Mill, porcupine,” she said, and then grimaced. “No, definitely not porcupine.”
    I shouldn’t have been surprised when our trip for “coffee” led us instead to a smoothie shop. “Do they even have coffee?” I asked skeptically.
    “You know that was just an expression, right?” Her eyes said I should have. Small children in Botswana probably knew it was just a euphemism. “If I’d said ‘Hey, let’s go have a couple of Green Giant smoothies with extra ginseng and wheat grass,’ you’d have looked at me like I was some sort of crazy person.”
    “ That’s still on the table.” It was honest, but probably the stupidest thing I’d said so far. I tried to open the door for her, but she opened her own for the second time.
    “Lucky for you, your opinion is invalid.” She sauntered over to the counter, smiling at the guy dressed head to toe in orange. He couldn’t have been much older than either of us, but he was a little taller and rounder than I was.
    “Hey, Cal.”
    Cal looked at the girl, then glanced over at me. “Hey,” he said tersely. “Who’s