She blinked in surprise and seemed unsure of what to say. “Cool,” she smiled.
Alex couldn’t help but grin back. It was nice to not be the only one who felt a little shy for once.
* * *
“We can open tonight on schedule,” Ahmed said proudly as he hung up the phone. “No one was told not to come in to work. He just sent everyone home early last night. Mr. Gorge promised full night’s pay for last night, though. With bonus to make up for lost tips.”
“That’s not a problem,” Lorelei replied. She closed up the financial statements and turned to a catalog for pool tables and furniture. “I don’t believe replacing what was damaged will be too expensive. Would you be willing to handle that part of things, Ahmed?”
“Of course,” he nodded, but frowned at the pool table. “These can cost a good deal, though. You cannot just have it fixed easy.”
“No, but we could have a new one delivered by tonight.”
Ahmed considered his words carefully. There were a couple of suppliers in the area, but immediate delivery on call would be an expensive proposition. “We can go one night without this table. Just cover it and list it as out of order.”
“We could,” Lorelei nodded. Her phone hummed. It would be Alex, of course. She enjoyed the steady excitement of whatever flirtations he was engaged in, but at this point she doubted anything would be consummated. He was probably calling to be picked up…
…or, as it happened, texting her to say, “Surprise date w/Onyx. Not sure to where. Tell me if it’s inconvenient. I’ll fix it.”
Mindful of her company, Lorelei neither smiled broadly nor laughed out loud as she might have done otherwise. Instead, she allowed herself a small grin as she reached into her purse. Lorelei pulled out the wrapped stack of cash that the guys had left forgotten on the floor and passed it to Ahmed.
“That should cover the pool table and the other damaged items along with delivery costs,” she said. As she spoke she texted Alex: “Don’t worry about me. Enjoy. Take as long as you like. I wish you luck.”
Shock was plain on Ahmed’s face. Lorelei looked up at him with a shrug. “Mr. Gorge knew there would be changeover expenses. Have the pool table and the broken chairs replaced. File the receipts. Then take a thousand for yourself as a re-hire bonus and spread the rest around evenly to those who stay on.”
His shock doubled. “So much? It is very generous!”
“I have learned, lately, the value and importance of rewarding loyalty.”
* * *
They decided they were pals before getting even halfway through a fast-food lunch. They talked of music and books and school and the craziness of new adulthood. They caught on to one another’s wit and intelligence. Every legitimate excuse to touch one another, if entirely chastely, was exploited.
She was not quite two years older than him and didn’t seem to think it made any real difference. Alex sensed that much from her voice and her laughter. For all Onyx’s black garb and appreciation for things creepy and morose, for all the introversion she displayed for the world at large, she was very much alive and vibrant.
Open, unabashed excitement at this new connection steadily overcame them both.
“Gimme your left hand.” She hardly waited for it. She just pulled it up to her eyes. Onyx sat in the driver’s seat of her old, used car outside of a Dick’s Drive-In with Alex beside her. “Relax it. Like this.”
“Are you reading my palm?” Alex blinked.
“Yeah. Seriously, relax it,” Onyx grinned.
“I thought it was the dominant hand?”
“Only if you don’t know what you’re doing.” Her eyes glittered with interest.
“You a big believer in this?”
“I believe in lots. Laugh if you want.”
“Oh, I’m not one to judge lately,” Alex smirked. He chewed on his burger while she looked his palm over. “Anything interesting?”
“Yeah. Your lines are all weird. ‘kay, now gimme your other hand,” she said. Her brow furrowed as she looked at it.
“So am I the Chosen One?”
Onyx laughed. “I don’t know. Do you believe in fate?”
“No. Nobody’s ‘chosen’ for anything. You happen to be in one situation or another and you make your decisions based on who you are. Maybe you’re the right person for that situation, maybe you’re not. Hopefully you do the right thing for the world and you move on from there.” He watched her. “Why are you grinning like that?”
“I knew I liked you,” she answered. She let him have his hands back. “I think you’ve got a whole mess on your palm lines from a past life or something.” She didn’t sound serious.
“Never thought about that. What were you in your last life?”
“Last life was only a few years ago. I was a cheerleader.”
“Bullshit,” Alex laughed.
“No, seriously. First couple years of high school. I busted my ass to fit in. Then I sort of found myself and gave up on the social scene. I started hanging out with the wrong crowd and went off the deep end,” she explained with a sarcastically ominous tone. “Spent a lot of time in the counselor’s office after that, but at least I felt like I was being honest with myself.”
“Wow. I’d pay to see those cheerleading squad photos.”
“You’ll have to pay a lot,” she grinned. “What about you? What’d you do?”
“Swim team. I was okay at it. I guess it was good for me, but I only joined because of a girl.”
“Ah,” she nodded. “How’d that work out for you, Flipper?”
Alex just snorted. That was all she needed to hear about that.
“So you don’t have a girlfriend, do you?” Onyx asked casually. Trepidation crept into her voice, but only if one listened for it.
Alex swallowed, hoping this didn’t blow things. Or sound completely pretentious. Or slimy. “I’m sort of seeing someone,” he said with a casual tone to match Onyx’s, “but it’s really new and it’s not exclusive. We’ve talked about it a couple of times to make sure we’re all clear on that.” Holy shit, I sound like a philandering creep, he thought.
He needn’t have worried. “Kind of in the same boat,” she admitted, but didn’t try so hard to sound casual anymore. She seemed to be staring.
“What, you’re a philandering creep, too?” Alex asked.
Onyx burst out laughing. “No!” she said. “I mean I’m not in anything exclusive.”
“I feel totally weird even saying it,” Alex shrugged. “I used to wonder if I was bad for even having a crush on more than one girl at the same time.”
She chewed on a fry thoughtfully. “I think I’m supposed to tell you that you should just date only one person if that’s what makes you comfortable.” He nodded, but then she said, “Except I think if that’s your situation, you should blow off all those worries and enjoy yourself. What happens, happens.”
He blinked. “Really?”
“I might have selfish ulterior motives behind that opinion.”
He didn’t miss the hint, but wanted to know more before he went further. “What’s that boat you’re in look like?”
“Keep it to yourself?”
“I don’t hide things from who I’m seeing, but past that, sure.”
She nodded. “Fair enough.” Then she took a deep breath. “I’m mainly into girls. I’m in a relationship that’s pretty serious. But she doesn’t want to tie me down and she knows I sometimes like guys, too, when they aren’t jerks. She just doesn’t want me being stolen from her.”
Alex smiled. “I can appreciate that.”
“So I can’t date someone who’s looking for something exclusive and super serious.”
“That would make it complicated, yeah.”
“I haven’t actually, um, taken advantage of my freedom yet,” she said. Alex nodded, saying nothing. She added, “It also means I can’t exactly take boys home with me.”
“You live with your girlfriend?” Alex asked. She nodded, still looking at him. She was nervous. It showed. But she was gutsy, too, and that was fully on display.
“I should point out,” he ventured after summoning up his courage, “that I am a guy, and not a jerk. I’m not looking for anything exclusive. And I like you a lot.”