Free Sideways by Rex Pickett

gesture and pounced on it.
    “She fucking winked at you!” he said, rising up off his stool.
    “She does that to everyone.”
    “Bullshit. There are winks and then there are
winks
,”
    “What’re you getting all worked up about?”
    “What am I getting all worked up about?” he echoed snidely. “Oh, I don’t know. She might have a friend. Two girls, two guys, small town, wine country …” Jack knocked back his Pinot and motioned to Charlie to refresh our glasses.
    “There’s no way that woman is interested in me. No way.”
    Charlie heaved over with a full open bottle, poured us each a glass, and placed it on the bar between the two of us. “It’s on Maya.”
    Jack turned to me and slapped a hand over his mouth in mock astonishment. “Oh, my God, she must hate your guts.”
    I sheepishly tossed Maya a schoolboy’s wave. She smiled
You’re welcome
back, and all Jack could do was slowly shake his head.
    We ordered off the menu—Jack: filet mignon; me: duck breast; both ideal complements with the Pinot, which we drank with relish. I kept trying to coax the Bien Nacido out, but it never really opened up the way I had hoped, remaining budded and hidden from its full expression. Maya came and went, stoking Jack’s libido with every appearance.
    Jack wanted to hang around the bar after we had finished dinner, drink more wine, and wait until Maya got off her shift, but the congested room was already beginning to feel suffocating, and, more important, I feared a long intoxicated evening with a woman I barely knew and an
    Outside, the night chill freshened our flushed faces and invigorated us for the half-mile-long walk back to the Windmill. It was a commercial district and many of the businesses had closed for the night. As we walked along the shoulder of 246, vehicles of all sizes hurtled by in both directions, the 18-wheelers buffeting us with the velocity of their passing. In between the roar of revving engines, the highway grew still for brief moments and we could hear the gentle hum of insects fill the void. We were a little tipsy from the two bottles of wine, but the universe was still comparatively in order.
    Jack bumped my shoulder and I bumped him back. “I could take you,” I said unconvincingly.
    “Oh, right,” Jack said, looming over me with hands on hips.
    I adopted a boxer’s pose. Jack did likewise, and we shadowboxed against the side of the road, feigning left jabs and right crosses, ducking and feinting, until both of us were laughing so hard tears sprang to our eyes. To passing motorists, we must have looked like some bad vaudeville duo who had been unceremoniously drummed out of town.
    It was still relatively early and going back to the motel wasn’t really in the cards for Jack. He kept trying to persuade me to go back to the Hitching Post, but I wasn’t in the mood.
    “So, what do you want to do?” he said. “’Cause I ain’t ready to call it a night.”
    “What about a movie?”
    “A movie?” He smirked. “You mean like with a big box
    “Okay, bad suggestion.”
    “I’m on vacation. I’m getting married a week from tomorrow. I want to party.” He swept an arm grandiloquently across a desolate expanse of car dealerships, minimarts, and supermarkets. “Where’s the action around here on a Saturday night?”
    “All right,” I said, “I’ll take you to the happening place.” We headed back to the Windmill Inn and rolled into the Clubhouse, the motel bar. It was a spacious, tacky joint, with tiled mirrors serving as one wall behind a horseshoe-shaped bar that showcased a raft of available stools. In the center of the place, Naugahyde club chairs circled laminated wood tables that were grouped in front of a carsized parquet dance floor. This was flanked by a barely elevated stage on which stood some kind of amplifier console and microphone stand.
    Jack was underwhelmed. “This is it?”
    “It’ll pick up.”
    Jack looked skeptical. I pivoted onto a stool. Jack placed