Free Joe by H.D. Gordon Page B

wove his way around a group of girls
who giggled and batted eyelashes as he passed by, and made his way to the bar.
He was thinking about whether to start with beer or shots when he saw her. The
raven-haired girl from school was tending the bar, moving swiftly and keeping
up with the customers with ease. She flashed smiles at patrons, but as he
watched her, he noticed that she didn’t ever speak to any of them. Michael had
found the girl intriguing when he had first seen her at the beginning of the
semester, but he had never seen her smile before. It struck him as odd when he
realized he was staring, and that he thought he found her attractive.
    When she made it over to where he was standing
on the other side of the bar, she offered him the same smile as she had all the
others. Recognition passed behind her eyes as she looked at him, and with the
smile she gave him, he realized that all of her previous ones had been fake.
But she didn’t speak to him, either. The girl just raised her eyebrows a
fraction, asking the question with the expression rather than speaking it.
Seeing those silver-blue eyes of hers so closely, the name she’d provided him
earlier in the day flew to the front of his mind and latched there.
    Michael said the only thing he could
think of. “Hi, Joe.”
    Another smile, a real one. He was
surprised when his heart picked up its pace a little. “Hi,” she said.
    A moment or two of silence went by.
Michael had somehow lost his train of thought. When Joe raised her eyebrows
again, he found it. “Oh, uh, just a couple of Buds, please,” he said.
    She held out her hand to him, and for a
moment he didn’t understand. One side of her mouth pulled up. “ID, puh-please,”
she said.
    Michael laughed a little and handed it
over. He was usually smoother than this. Joe studied his identification and
handed it back. Then she pulled two cold Budweisers out of a refrigerator,
popped the tops, and handed them over to him.
    “Huh-happy birthday,” she said.
    It felt like his grin was kissing his
earlobes. “Thanks. How much?”
    Joe stared at him a moment, her
silver-blue eyes more penetrating than anyone’s Michael had ever known. He
decided then that he definitely found her attractive, and somehow infinitely
intriguing. She wasn’t really the type he usually went for, but he was sick of
those kinds of girls anyway. Somehow he knew the raven-haired girl didn’t spend
too much time worrying about superficial things, or what others thought of her.
This girl was all around different.
    “On me,” she said before scooting down
to the other end of the bar to serve a lady who was now waving her money in her
hand.
    If Trey hadn’t returned from the
restroom just then, Michael may have gone on staring at the girl all night.
Suddenly he wished he had come here alone, and that there weren’t so many
people around. With the way the jukebox was pumping, and all the chatter of
patrons, he wouldn’t get to talk to the girl all night. He wasn’t sure why he
should even want to talk to her so bad. She obviously wasn’t one for
conversation.
    Michael handed Trey his beer and his
twenty. “I told you the drinks were on me, dude,” Trey said, shoving the money
back at Michael.
    Michael stuffed the bill in Trey’s shirt
pocket. “They were free.”
    His best friend’s eyebrows drew
together. “Free?”
    “Yeah, I go to school with the
bartender,” Michael explained.
    Trey’s eyes went to the raven-haired
girl behind the bar, and Michael noticed that his friend also stared at her for
a moment too long, not as though he found her beautiful, but in a way that
suggested he found her too interesting for just a passing glance. Michael came
to the conclusion that the girl named Joe must have that effect on everyone.
    “Did you see those girls standing over
by the door? Dude, the one in the blue tank top was checking you out,” Trey
said, giving Michael a little shove. “I’ll take the brunette next to her. Come
on,