Read Just Joe for Free Online Page B

watched him when he wasn't aware of it,
Mattie saw something she didn't want to see... a kind of sadness, a yearning
that she was afraid to examine too closely.
    As she had told him,
Mattie had never had a friend like Joe, and every time she witnessed that
sadness in him, a niggling fear sprang to life within her. A fear that she
would lose him, his friendship and the person she was becoming.
    She wasn't lonely anymore,
she discovered one day, because she had Joe. And sometimes, when the past
overwhelmed her, and she tried to push him away.. .Mattie shook her head. Joe
never left her. They might be separated physically, but there was always a part
of him, a warmth, a caring that Mattie carried within her. Lesson two, Joe
had.told her. Friends are forever.
    The game on the fourth
Sunday of the season did not go well. Guiltily Mattie played hooky from her
darkroom and watched the televised show. The Conquerors were trounced 35 to 7.
    She was expecting the knock
on her door later that evening but not the drained expression on Joe's face
when she answered it.
    "Joe!" she
exclaimed in concern, grasping his hand and leading him into her living room.
"You look awful!"
    Joe managed a wry grin.
"Gee, thanks."
    "I'm sorry you
lost."
    "Are you psychic, or
am I wearing a sign?"
    "I watched the game
on TV," Mattie told him, seating herself next to him on the sofa.
    Joe winced. "That
wasn't a game," he corrected her. "That was a massacre. Why did you
bother? You don't even understand the game."
    Mattie's eyes shied away
from his. "I watched it because I'm your friend."
    Joe blinked. "Excuse
me?"
    Mattie shifted restlessly.
"Well, I don't know anything about football, and it's what you do. I
thought I should at least try to understand."
    "I see." Joe
shut his eyes and turned his face away so that Mattie wouldn't see his emotion.
It was times like this, when she touched him unbearably with some innocent comment,
that Joe had to force himself to put some kind of distance between them.
    Mattie, uncomfortable with
the long silence, continued defensively. "I didn't want you to get bored
with me and trade me in for a new friend."
    "Oh, Mattie,"
Joe said, shaking his head. "You don't trade friends in like—like used
cars! Friends are forever."
    Mattie swallowed. Forever
sounded like a long time, and she had never thought of anything in those terms
in her entire life. Trying to ease the sudden ache in her throat, Mattie
brought the conversation back to its starting point.
    "I bet you got yelled
at by the coach," she said, grinning, and poked him in the ribs teasingly
but drew back abruptly when Joe bit off an agonized moan.
    Her eyes met his in deep
concern before his skittered away.
    "Joe? What's wrong?
Are you hurt... ?"
    "I'm
indestructible," he managed breezily, unconsciously placing a protective
hand at his side. "I just got banged up a little in that second
quarter."
    Mattie pulled his hand
away determinedly. "Let me see."
    Joe backed away
instinctively. "No, I'm all right. I promise. It's just a little
bruised."
    But Mattie was not about
to let him get off that easily. Taking a deep, steadying breath, she grasped
the hem of his sweater and pushed it up beneath his arms. She gasped as she
witnessed the horrible discoloration over his rib cage.
    Her eyes met his fiercely.
"Has the doctor seen this?"
    "Sure," Joe
bluffed. "He said the color suited me."
    "Dammit, it's not
funny, Mr. Macho," Mattie choked out painfully. "This looks
awful."
    Joe swallowed as her
fingers brushed gently against his skin, too conscious of her soft and feminine
warmth for comfort.
    "You're right,"
he told her abruptly, barely aware of what he was saying, with his whole being
focused on the touch of her fingers. ' 'It hurts like hell. Doc told me to rest
up for a couple of days."
    "Well, that's the
most sensible advice I've heard in a long time," she breathed thankfully,
pulling his sweater back into place. "You go home and go to bed, and I'll
bring you chicken soup