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The air in the bar is hazy, full of smoke and sweat and the stench of cheap beer. The band is too loud, Gendry thinks – some alt rock group, a bunch of siblings from up North who Beric insisted were about to break into the mainstream. The posters on the wall, wrinkled paper peeling off in the heat, proclaim them to be “THE DIREWOLVES – ONE NIGHT ONLY, A HOLLOW HILL EXCLUSIVE EVENT YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS. 21+ ONLY.”
Harrenhall is a college town, and the Direwolves are a college band. Maybe half of the kids here are actually 21, Gendry estimates, the rest let in by Anguy or Hot Pie or whoever is not actually checking ID’s at the door.
“You should have let Sandor and I work the front,” he mutters to Thoros after he confiscates his seventh fake ID.
“Nobody would get in,” the red-bearded man tells him cheerfully. “An’ you wouldn’t get to eye the drummer the whole time.”
Gendry flushes. “I’m not eyeing her.”
Lem snorts as he turns to pour another drink. “You’re practically making bedroom eyes, kid.”
“I am not eyeing-”
“Who aren’t we eyeing?” says a girl’s voice behind him, and when Gendry turns around he could die.
It’s the drummer. Of course it’s the drummer, and of course by the cocky grin on her face she’s heard the whole thing. Her dark hair is cropped short around her ears, revealing near a half dozen piercings and the edge of a tattoo snaking across her shoulder. Her ripped jeans and tank top are both black, matching the thick eyeliner starting the smear in the heat. He guesses she’s a head and a half shorter than him, maybe more. Arya, supplies the part of his brain still functioning. Arya Stark. Twenty-two. She’s a Harrenhall student, the one who set up the gig with Beric.
“Nobody!” he says too quickly, and steps back onto Thoros’s toes.
Arya smirks. “Riverlands ale.” She glances back, at where one of her brothers is flirting outrageously with a redhead. “Make it two.”
Wordlessly, Gendry fumbles with the bottles, shoving them across the bar at her. She slides a handful of bills back at him. “Thanks-” she leans in closer, peering at his nametag, “-Gendry.” Arya winks, winding her way back through the crowd to shove a beer at her brother, and Gendry tries to remember what he’s supposed to be doing.
Clutched in his hand, along with her change, is a scrap of paper with messy handwriting scrawled across it.
Arya, from the bar. Call me, it says, with a phone number underneath.
This time, Thoros actually laughs. “Cat got your tongue, Waters?”
“Shut up.”