Four shocked, disbelieving pairs of eyeballs and an accompanying stunned silence made up her audience’s response. Lorelei favored them with a grin. “Obviously you can take for granted that you won’t need to pay for time at a table. Just be careful not to eat and drink yourselves into the red.”
“This is…legal?” Wade blinked.
“Effectively, yes. It will hold up to legal scrutiny. We’ll have to come up with some plausible reason why Gorge passed ownership to you, but Ahmed can be pliant. This works out for him financially as well.”
“But didn’t that guy do some sort of supernatural woojiness to Ahmed to get him to sell?” Jason asked.
“I don’t believe so, no. I cannot prove that one way or another, but he didn’t need to. Ahmed received a generous price for his business, and all of it in cash. He could have bargained a little more and the decision was a bit rash on his part, but it was still his decision to make. He came out ahead in the short term-and will in the long term as well if you keep him on as manager for at least a year or two.”
Drew was every bit as overwhelmed as the others. “How did you swing this? I thought all of Gorge’s papers burned up in the church?”
Lorelei’s sly grin only broadened. “Come now, you know what I am. One doesn’t spend the better part of a few dozen centuries with all of the worst sorts of people without learning a trick or two. No one is harmed,” she quickly added for Alex’s reassurance, “but I did have to do a bit of creative forgery and paperwork. It’s not like Gorge could wrap things up at this point. But you destroyed him when he forced conflict upon you. By his own customs, his belongings are now yours. It’s only a small pity that you couldn’t have held him upside down and shaken him to see what fell out of his pockets before he died.
“And on that note,” Lorelei added, picking up her purse, “there is the added concern of the diamonds he flashed around. You left them behind in the midst of your brouhaha.”
She handed out four white envelopes, which the guys tore open without much pause. Each contained several thousand dollars in cash.
“Be careful how you spend that,” Lorelei said. “I wouldn’t suggest you deposit it in a bank unless you want to run the risk of having to explain how you got it.”
“This is too good to be true,” Jason thought aloud.
“No. What was too good to be true was the notion that I could live happily ever after without further threats,” Lorelei said. “You have all stood with Alex, repeatedly now, in the face of dangers grave and…well, whatever those boys out there might’ve dished out,” she shrugged dismissively. “You are not millionaires. You’ll need to keep quiet about this until we can all agree on a solid cover story. But you earned this. And my unending gratitude as well.”
“I’m gonna suggest,” Wade said after swallowing hard, “that we just all shut up about this for tonight and let it sink in. Ah mean this will all run itself for now, right?” Lorelei nodded. “Yeah,” he continued, “this is…awesome. But, uh, there’s a geeky brunette cutie out there waitin’ for me. I was talkin’ to her ‘fore half the Huskies bench showed up.”
“Yeah, I’m kinda hangin’ around here late with Sherri, too,” Drew thought aloud. “Thanks, Lorelei. Seriously. Thanks.”
“My pleasure,” she nodded as Drew exited. Wade followed. Alex offered Lorelei his hand as he was about to leave. She took it with a smile.
“That’s awesome,” Jason grumbled. “Everyone picks up at the party but me ‘cause I showed up late.”
“There’s still party left,” Alex shrugged. “Just show ‘em your awesome stun gun. I bet chicks dig that.”
“Funny.”
“A moment, Alex?” Lorelei asked. She fixed Jason with a smoldering hot gaze of lust that stopped him dead in his tracks. She slipped her leg in between his, grinding upward with her thigh. Her hands caressed his neck as she planted a deep, wet, aggressive kiss upon his mouth.
Jason fainted dead away on the bed behind him.
Alex just looked on in shock. Lorelei dabbed at her lips. “You said I could flirt, and I owe him my gratitude. It’s not like he’ll remember that happened, anyway.”
* * *
Later, Jason sat in the middle of one of the plush living room couches. Wade had already taken off with Trish. Drew set to cleaning up the kitchen, allowing him to stick close to their increasingly flirty hostess. Alex and Lorelei departed…and so, for that matter, did Taylor, Jocelyn and numerous others.
It wasn’t all bad, though. He didn’t have a lot to add to the conversation, but at least he was seated between Britney and Brittany. The former had broken up with her boyfriend that very night because he was apparently an asshole. The latter’s date vanished entirely. It turned out that Brittany and Britney were longtime friends. Jason wasn’t entirely sure if he was a welcome part of what probably should have been a private conversation.
They both, however, put a hand on each of his knees when he first decided to chivalrously extract himself from the girl talk.
“She needs to hear a male perspective,” Brittany said. “Only someone nice, not that jackass she just dumped.”
“He dumped me,” Britney corrected.
“Well, that’s obviously his loss,” Jason said helpfully. Britney looked up at him like she deeply appreciated that. Brittany smiled and squeezed his leg.
“You think so?” Britney asked. “Sometimes I think the only thing I’m good at is sex.”
“I feel like that sometimes, too,” Brittany chimed in.
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not all you’re good at,” Jason ventured, feeling an insane stiffness between his legs like nothing that he’d ever endured before. Much of the blood from his brain retreated south. His mouth went on autopilot. “But you shouldn’t be ashamed of your talents. You should, I dunno, embrace ‘em!”
Britney and Brittany looked up at one another in silent confirmation just as Jason scolded himself for sounding like such an idiot. Then they each took one of his hands and stood, saying simply, “Okay.”
Even at nineteen, Jason lived with protective, intrusive, conservative parents. When he staggered through his family’s front door at a quarter to seven the next evening, having neither called nor emailed, he had considerable explaining to do.
Hickies, scratches and even a few bite marks covered his skin. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep. He reeked of perfume, sweat and more intimate scents. His wrists bore two cell phone numbers written in Sharpee marker, along with many hearts and a few endearing vulgarities. His mother, aghast, snatched away the pair of pink lace panties hanging out of his jacket pocket.
It was the most awkward moment in his life to date…and totally worth it.
* * *
She stood at the door with the same mixture of trepidation, excitement and doubt that she faced while waiting for the elevator. And while sitting in her car in the parking garage. And while on her way to the hotel.
The door was different, though. There’d be no turning back after walking through that door.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Taylor could turn back at any moment. This was Alex. He never held anything against her. He couldn’t possibly see this coming, and wouldn’t feel deserving, but he would not blame her for backing out at any point.
The thing she couldn’t take back was the statement that she wanted this. In front of the door, it was all still a hypothetical. It was all still in her head. No one else knew. Sure, she’d made out with another woman, but lots of girls she knew did that at parties. Only she and Lorelei knew about it. Taylor could either deny it or own up to it as she chose.
But once she stepped through that door, she couldn’t play it off as a joke or a stunt. Either she wanted this, or she didn’t. And if she stepped through that door, she was the kind of girl who’d get in bed with a man and a woman. Whatever happened next would be part of who she was from now on. Even if no one else ever knew, Taylor would know.