Silver ||Joel Miller||

I'm good with my hands

JOEL

2016

There was one reason and one reason only that Joel was at this sorry excuse for a... a bar? He wasn't overly sure if that's what this place was aiming to be, but it was probably the closest thing he could describe it as.

He was out of the apartment, and in this 'bar', because Tess had told him to be. She was out cutting some kind of deal and wouldn't be back until morning, and she'd instructed him to make friends. Or rather, her exact words had been 'please, for the love of God, at least try to talk to someone who's not me'. Whether she wanted him to make a friend or find someone they could work with hadn't really been specified, but the place she wanted him to go to was.

It was near the market, a darkened building where people like him went to get their hands on alcohol and speak with like-minded individuals. Although, he wasn't sure if anyone was like-minded to him.

The rest of the people involved in their circle were too senselessly violent or hadn't been through enough to understand why brutality was necessary. Either way, they also tended to be untrustworthy. Shockingly, the other questionable people here all thought of themselves first... exactly like he did.

Maybe they were a little more like-minded than he thought.

"Is there a problem?" A woman asked as she slipped into the seat across from him at his small table. A gentle, but exceedingly gorgeous, smile on her face that made his breath hitch.

"What?" Joel asked, and she laughed... he could only describe the sound as akin to a wind chime in its cheerful musicality.

"You've been staring at me for a while now. I was trying to figure out if it was intentional or not. Or whether I've screwed you over before and couldn't remember your face," she said. Had he stared at her? Shit. He could hardly blame himself, though. "Judging from the look on your face, I'll say it was accidental."

"I uh..." God, she was beautiful. Maybe he could talk to her, just like he promised Tess he would do with someone. Maybe he could be friendly and pretend to be a little playful like he used to be before the fungus. "Have you screwed me over?"

"I highly doubt it; I'd remember a face like yours." She wasn't flirting, was she? No. That wasn't possible. She would be punching far below her weight if that was the case. "And you would surely remember a face like mine." She wasn't wrong. Even if he couldn't remember her face, those hazel eyes were already burned into his memory. Although he couldn't help but feel there was something familiar about her.

"I think I would," he replied, as he gripped onto his glass a little tighter. Had he read the situation correctly? Surely he was being uncharacteristically optimistic. There were a few moments of silence as she lifted her glass to her lips and sipped whatever alcohol they'd brewed in this place.

"It's strange, I know the name of every single person within these concrete walls, but sometimes faces allude me..." She tilted her head to the side, which made her dark curls fall over her shoulder and reveal her neck...

Oh God. She was flirting with him.

"Is that your way of asking for my name?" Joel asked, leaning back in his questionable chair. This conversation made little sense to him, but if he wanted to figure it out, the only way to do so was to move forward.

"No..." she trailed off. "You don't know who I am, do you?" She leant forwards onto the table, her elbows on the surface.

"No," he answered. She smiled once again as her shoulders relaxed.