“Shit, I’d have shoved that gun up the dude’s ass,” snorted Tucker, seated on a second couch opposite Jocelyn and Alex. He kept his arm around Britney, who didn’t seem to notice her date anymore. Jocelyn wished Britney would, both to shut him up and to turn her away from Alex.
“Right on,” agreed Tucker’s friend, some jock named Jimmy. He, too, held a passively derisive expression. “What’d you do after you got shot?”
“I pretty much fell down at that point,” Alex said. “That’s kind of what happens.”
“Yeah, I guess maybe if you were a bigger guy you might stay on your feet,” Tucker shrugged. He was, of course, a bigger guy.
Jocelyn glanced over at Alex, wondering what he’d say. She already knew the whole story from Taylor, which was why she’d brought it up in the first place. Jocelyn realized Alex was downplaying his heroics. She found his humble telling of it all adorable, but she bristled at the running commentary from the two guys suffering from penis envy.
“Naw,” came a Southern drawl from behind Jimmy. “Size don’ matter much. Ah fell down when ah got shot, too, an’ ah’m bigger’n Alex.” Wade stood behind Tucker, Britney and Jimmy’s couch, wearing one of those plain gray t-shirts marked “Army,” his John Deere ball cap and a smug grin. He had a beer bottle in his hand.
“Yeah?” Jimmy asked, frowning a bit at this new intrusion. “Where’d you get shot?”
“Afghanistan,” Wade said. “Wanna see mah scar?”
“Sure, dawg,” Jimmy chuckled, figuring he’d call the hick’s bluff.
“Oh no,” Alex murmured just loud enough for Jocelyn to hear. He had a grin on his face, but he warned her, “Don’t look.”
Wade had already dropped his pants and turned away before Alex finished. He gave the other two guys and Tucker’s girlfriend a good view of his ass. “Ah know this might sound strange,” Wade said over the chorus of shrieks and protests, “but if’n one of y’all boys’d give it a kiss, it might hurt a bit less.”
“Aw, dude!” Tucker yelled.
“Fuckin’ freak!” Jimmy snapped.
“Wade,” Alex laughed, “put that thing away! That’s against the Geneva Convention!”
Jocelyn wasn’t bothered, but she buried her face in Alex’s shoulder in feigned surprise anyway. He put his arm around her as he laughed, probably without thinking about it. She felt grateful to Wade on a couple of levels after that. He had scattered most of the room.
“Ah think ah need a cigarette. ‘n maybe another beer,” Wade said. Thankfully, his pants were back up.
“I think you need therapy,” Alex chuckled.
“I think you need to be cut off already,” Jocelyn snickered. She stayed tucked against Alex. He didn’t object.
“Nonsense. This is my first beer. Ah only ever moon people sober. Y’ never know what horrible things might happen if’n ya show yer ass when drunk.” With that, he wandered off to find the front door.
“Alex,” came a sultry voice. Jocelyn and Alex looked up to see his girlfriend slink through the room. Jocelyn suspected she’d been created on a lab table. She also had to concede, inwardly at least, that Lorelei’s charisma was a little intimidating. Jocelyn wondered if she should move, but Lorelei didn’t seem the least bit phased by her presence or her position.
“Hey you,” Alex smiled. “Where’ve you been?” Again, Jocelyn noticed his easy tone in the face of this incredible woman. He’d always been shy with girls. How did that all change so fast?
“Tending bar with Drew,” Lorelei grinned. Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial level, still completely unbothered by Jocelyn’s inclusion. “We’ve been putting less into the drinks than we’ve let on. Several of your fellow partygoers aren’t nearly as intoxicated as they’d like to believe. We thought about going the other way, but this just seemed naughtier. Would you like anything, though? I’m perfectly willing to drive later.”
“I’m good,” Alex said, shaking his head.
“I came to ask if Jason turned up yet?”
“Nah, he texted about a half hour ago. He’s working tonight, so he’ll be here a bit late.”
“Jason Cohen?” Jocelyn wondered aloud.
“Yeah.”
“Oh, he’s coming? I haven’t seen him in ages.”
Alex smirked. “He’ll be flattered all to hell that you remembered his name.”
Jocelyn waved a dismissive hand at Alex as she stayed cuddled up to his side. “Psh. Whatever. I remembered you, didn’t I?”
Lorelei reached over to touch Alex’s free hand. “I’ll be around,” she said before she followed Wade’s path outside.
With Lorelei gone, Jocelyn turned closer in on Alex. She put her hand on his chest. “Okay, Taylor told me a little about her, but what the hell’s up with that?” she grinned.
“What do you mean?”
“If I saw a hottie like me curled up on my man the way I am right now-and I’m not sayin’ I’ve got a man right now, ‘cause I don’t-but if that was me, I’d be tellin’ a bitch off. And she doesn’t seem like she’s easily intimidated. But she didn’t even blink at me!”
Alex grunted. “Well, she’s got zero security issues. She knows she’s got me. And we’ve talked about, you know, that sort of stuff.”
“Uh-huh…?”
“And we’ve, um, y’know, set our boundaries for ourselves. And with each other. Informed consent and…stuff.”
“Uh-huh?”
Alex swallowed. The Most Desirable Hottie (Unofficial, Of Course) of his graduating class looked on expectantly. “And she knows she’s never going to lose me, so there’s that.”
“So where are your boundaries?”
Alex admitted, in a quiet and somewhat embarrassed voice, “I pretty much don’t have any.”
* * *
“So many more stars in Afghanistan,” Lorelei observed.
Wade turned his head away from the sky to his unexpected company. He had finished his cigarette, and now simply stood in the shadow of the house looking at the nighttime sky. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, there are. Lotta light pollution in the city.”
“I wanted to say thank you.”
“For what?”
“You may well have saved Alex’s life the other night. And likely mine. Had Gorge not been dealt with the way you all handled him, I don’t know what would have happened.”
Wade shrugged. “Wasn’t like Alex just sat on his hands.”
“No. But he did not stand alone, and that made all the difference.” Wade shrugged again, but said nothing. Lorelei went on. “I want you to know that you have nothing to fear from me, for Alex’s sake or yours, or any of his friends. He has my absolute loyalty.”
“Ah’ve always figured he was a good judge of character.”
Lorelei nodded. “I would like to consider you and the others my friends as well.”
“Ah guess ah’d like that, too.”
“You sound wary,” Lorelei smiled softly.
“Well, mah buddy’s supernatural seductress demon girlfriend whatever just snuck up to me all by her lonesome t’ say she wants t’ be mah ‘friend’ while the hottest gal in our graduatin’ class is in there practically in his lap,” Wade explained. “It’s potentially a little awkward.”
Lorelei’s smile broadened. “I understand,” she said. “Which is why you should probably forget,” the succubus breathed, stepping directly into Wade to wrap one hand around his neck and draw him close, “that we ever did this.”
Wade’s inner strength, independence and confidence served him well. He needed it, to have gone where he’d been and then return home to deal with his emotional wounds. But against Lorelei’s direct efforts, he could only hold out for a moment or two. Wade was too lonely and ultimately too vulnerable after all he’d been through to turn away someone like Lorelei.
She held him close, breathing deeply as she invaded his mouth with her aggressive, insistent kiss. He reciprocated, unable to resist the physical urges she aroused in him. When her mouth parted from his and she said, “Ssshhh,” he quickly grew calm.
“Forget the kiss,” Lorelei instructed. “Do not long for me. Remember all else…including this,” she whispered, and with that, Lorelei embraced him neither as a lover, nor as a target of seduction, but as a friend.