A Girl Like You by vinnie Kinsella (good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

ask for mine, which I figured was just as well, since he wouldn’t remember it the next day.

“Bartender!” the kid hollered. “A beer and another round for the lady.”

I wasn’t quite finished with my wine, but when another glass arrived, I paid with a $10 and left the $2 change on the bar.

Baseball Cap, however, was having trouble.

“Put it on my tab,” he said.

“You don’t have a tab,” the bartender said patiently. She had a string of spiders tattooed across her throat.

“Yesh, I do.”

“Look, I’ll have to see a credit card. Or you gotta pay cash.”

I slid carefully in my seat as far away as I could from Baseball Cap, hoping no one had seen him talking to me and think I was with him. He was still searching his empty wallet when the bartender came out from behind the bar and went to find the bouncer.

“You better go,” I said. “They’re going to throw you out of here.”

Baseball Cap was chugging his beer, shaking his head. “I ain’t leaving.”

The bouncer came out of the back and strode over to us, tapping Baseball Cap’s shoulder.

“Time to go, bud.”

I nearly left the bar myself, but instead pretended to study the huge TV screen on the MMA channel. I watched a guy in a yellow leotard pick up his opponent and slam him onto the floor of the ring. The bouncer took Baseball Cap by the back of his shirt and hauled him up with one easy move. I think his feet were actually off the floor.

“He still owes me six bucks for the drink!” the spidery bartender yelled, then shook her head and swept the empty beer glass off the bar into the sudsy sink.

Meanwhile, I was watching MMA as if nothing unusual had happened in the seat directly next to mine.

I looked at my cell. It was only 11:15, but I felt like I’d been there for hours.

“Is anyone sitting here?” said a man with black hair and a puffy bomber jacket, startling me.

“No, go ahead.” I waved my hand and looked away.

“Thanks. How’s the music?”

I turned to Bomber Jacket Man and saw the second seat had been taken by a brown-eyed man with a neatly trimmed beard, who was smiling at me.

“Good, if you like ’80s pop.” I nodded my head to the cluster of twentysomethings jumping around to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

“I’m Al,” Bomber Jacket said, “and this is Jeremy.”

“Jessica.” I shook their hands, which were a little cold. “Have you been outside?”

“Yeah, at a bonfire, at our age, believe it or not.”

I tried to guess their ages. Al was gray at the temples and looked in his early fifties, but Jeremy could be anywhere from mid-forties to fifty. But at least not thirty-eight, and he looked at me with fully functional eyes rather than droopy lids.

Blessedly, Al and Jeremy weren’t drunk, and as they nursed their beers slowly, it was clear they weren’t trying to get plastered.

“Got kids?” Al asked.

“Two. You?”

“Four daughters,” Al said proudly, showing me pictures on his cell. “Two grandbabies already.”

Jeremy was quieter, but when Al excused himself for the bathroom, he slid into the seat closer to me.

“I like your sneakers,” he said.

“Thanks.” I was nervous. I was also a bit buzzed from drinking three wine/club sodas over the course of the night.

“So, what do you do, Jess?” he asked, stroking his chin and watching me intently.

“Oh, I have a boring day job, but hey, it pays the bills,” I said, laughing in a way that sounded giddy to my own ears. “But I write at night.”

“Fiction?”

“Ad copy,” I said, feeling apologetic. “What do you do?”

“Photography.” He smiled. “You know, newborns, weddings, engagement parties, I’m working on a calendar….”

“Sounds awesome,” I said, kicking myself for using that word. “Do you work out of your house?”

“I have a studio in a duplex I rent out on Campbell Lake.”

“Cool,” I said. Campbell Lake was known for its luxury homes.

“You have any pets?” Jeremy asked out of nowhere.

“A little dog, Penny—she’s a little tomboy,” I said. “You?”

“I rescue greyhounds. Right now, I have a brother and sister whose legs are in pretty rough shape. I brought them for X-rays yesterday and their femurs show tiny hairline fractures,” he said, his brown eyes somber.

“That’s so sad!”

“I try to carry them around as much as I can. I think they kinda like it, being lazy and relying on me.”

Al came back and waited for Jeremy to get out of his seat, but he didn’t budge. The bar stool on the other side was empty, so he sat down there, and suddenly, I was monkey-in-the-middle.

“So, where are your friends?” Al asked, looking around.

“Um, I’m here alone.”

“Really? Why?” Al looked genuinely confused.

“It’s actually easier to meet people this way,” I said, as if I’d been successful at any attempts to mingle.

“Well, you know, it is hard to approach a bunch of women all in a circle,” Al said, stretching his arms wide, stifling a yawn. “There’s always that one that’s married or something and she’s always like, ‘Let’s go home,’ as soon as you start talking to the cute one.”

“Al doesn’t have much luck with women, as you can tell,” Jeremy laughed. “Can I buy you another drink?”

“I’m fine—thanks, though.”

“C’mon, don’t be one of those ‘I’m fine’ women,” Al said. “What are you drinking, anyway? What is that, water?”

I looked at my glass of club soda, white wine, and melted ice. It was completely clear and looked more like water than water itself.

“She said she’s fine,” Jeremy interjected.

“Whatevs,” Al said, looking around the room. “Oh, man, is that Ricky?” He got up and bounded away.

When I turned back to Jeremy, he was watching me closely. “Ignore him. He’s a big kid in a man’s body.”

“How long have you known each other?”

“I used to date his sister, in another life,” Jeremy said, tapping the beer glass with his long fingers. “He took me under his wing after she broke my heart. Kind of like an older brother.”

“Sweet,” I said,