Natural Consequences (16 page)

Amber let out a snorting laugh, covered her face in instant embarrassment, peeked at him through her fingers and laughed again. Jason took it upon himself to open the oven and slide the dish inside. “Man, check me out. I’m domestic
and
suave,” he said.

The stupid, bashful grin on her face wouldn’t go away. Not when she reminded herself that they were five critical years apart instead of the two she claimed as part of her cover. Nor when she reminded herself that she was, indeed, here undercover.

She felt guilty about that, and worried, but it all seemed far away, and none of it diminished her smile.

“How long does this need to go?” he asked.

“About twenty minutes,” she replied. “Maybe twenty-five.”

“What do we do in the meantime, then?”

Amber knew there were a hundred things wrong with this. She couldn’t let this go too far. Whatever the ambiguity in her instructions, there was something very wrong in initiating all this.

A small part of her brain pointed out that she hadn’t initiated it at all. Jason did that. Adrift in a storm of concerns hidden behind a shy smile, Amber said, “I dunno. Got any ideas?”

“I’ve got a pretty comfortable couch,” he suggested, slipping his hand in hers.

She didn’t initiate that. She wouldn’t initiate what she knew would come next, either. “Okay,” she said.

*   *   *

Unemployment still didn’t sit well with Alex, but he couldn’t
claim that having a weekday off from school and work had no advantages. His long and torrid morning at home with Lorelei made for a great start to his day, but eventually he had to come up for air. There were matters to attend to and a world beyond their apartment.

He
got his hair cut by an old barber who complained about liberals and taxes. Rode over to the college for a few hours at the library, mindfully doing all he could to avoid female attention. Dropped off his motorcycle for overdue maintenance. Hit a florist’s shop on the way home for two bouquets of roses.

Boarding the bus
, Alex had to shuffle his bundles around to pay the fare. “You in that much trouble with your woman you need two bouquets?” smirked the bus driver.

Alex smiled back, “
I’d be in trouble if I brought home roses for only one of ‘em.”

Eventually he
gave up his seat for an elderly man, again having to rearrange his burdens to make room as he stood with many other commuters. The flowers naturally caught wandering eyes. Alex took it in stride. For all its oddities, Alex would never claim his domestic life was anything less than awesome. Far from tranquil, to be sure, but definitely awesome.
Hell yeah, I need two bouquets to get the job done
, he thought with a grin. He had a great deal to be thankful for, and never forgot it.

Fumbling for his keys outside the door to the apartment after the long elevator ride, Alex heard laughter from within. Several voices, all of them female. He paused. One of them sounded like Lorelei. The others didn’t sound like Rachel.

She hadn’t mentioned any plans for company before he left. Several scenarios and possibilities ran through his mind. Lorelei knew plenty of people outside his social circle, and she could charm virtually anyone at the drop of a hat, but thus far Lorelei seemed content—even preferred—to restrict the invitations to their home to Alex’s tight group of friends from high school.

He
carefully balanced his pair of bouquets in his left arm and unlocked the door, which refused to open quietly.

“Alex,” he heard Lorelei call, “I’m glad you’re home. Come join us.” The other voices fell silent. He shut the door behind him, threw the deadbolt, and walked in toward the open living room.

Lounging on the couches with wine glasses in their hands were Lorelei and her guests. The couches were arranged in an “L,” with one of them facing directly away from him, yet he recognized the occupants. His heart stopped.

Sitting by herself on one couch, Molly looked up at him with a grin
. The fire engine red color of her lipstick matched her short hair and contrasted with the dark colors of her torn-up jeans and VNV Nation t-shirt. Beside Lorelei on the other couch sat Onyx. Her curly black locks obscured her face from his view at first, but she slowly turned her head to regard him with sharp blue eyes and an arching eyebrow that spoke volumes.

“Oh,” Alex blinked. “Hi.”

“Nice flowers,” Onyx said before turning back away from him.

“I didn’t—“

“Very thoughtful of you,” Lorelei said. “I was afraid you hadn’t gotten my text about inviting Molly and Onyx over.”

“Nice save,” Molly murmured into her wine.

“Hush, you,” Lorelei replied under her breath without the slightest break in her smile.

Alex just bit his tongue.
I should’ve bought four bouquets
, he thought.
Wait. No. That would’ve been stupid. And I’d still feel like a jackass.
He opted to play it straight. “I forgot to turn my phone back on after I left the library,” he admitted.

Lorelei sighed a bit. “
It’s fine,” Onyx told her quietly.

“I should. Um. Yeah,” Alex mumbled, walking over to the kitchen counter to deposit the flowers.

“I’ll take care of those later,” Lorelei assured him.

He set his burdens
down and took off his jacket before he walked over to face the music. “So I haven’t seen either of you in a while.”

“Yeah,” Onyx said, her eyes on her glass. Alex tried not to be distracted by the sight of her, but it was hard. Had it not been for his crush on Molly and the girl in the black lacy dress and knee-high Doc Marten boots, his life would be nothing like this. Her next comment assured him that he was, as he suspected, in more than a little trouble with her: “Almost
like you’ve been avoiding us.”

Lorelei looked from one guest to the other. “You’d like to talk.”

“Yeah,” Molly nodded.

“Please?” Onyx asked, her
tone friendly and polite toward Lorelei.

“Of course,” Lorelei said. She
scooped up a yellow legal pad covered in notes and a pen along with her wine. Her grace never waned as she slipped between the couches and the sleek glass coffee table to pass by Alex, pausing for a light kiss. “I’ll be in the study,” she said, then sauntered off.

He didn’t know what to say. Molly looked him dead in the eyes, an expectant grin playing at her lips. Onyx kept her gaze on her wine glass. He tried to collect his thoughts as they all
ran away from him. Alex grabbed onto most honest one. It seemed important. “So are you two, um… y’know, protected?”

“Yes,” answered Molly, “Lorelei warned us your magic fuck-me cooties might be on full blast right now.”

From down the hall behind him, Alex heard an uncharacteristic snort of laughter just before Lorelei closed the door to the study. He came over to sit on the opposite end of Onyx’s couch so he could see them both. Onyx turned and looked at him with eyes so expressionless that he couldn’t help but project his guilt onto them.

“I’m sorry,” he began.

“For what?” asked Onyx.

“For avoiding you.”

“So I wasn’t imagining it.” Her disturbingly placid expression remained. “Why did you avoid us?”

“There’s, um… okay, there’s no way for me to explain this without feeling like I’m a complete asshole, so I just want to state that up front.”

“I won’t object to your feelings,” Onyx deadpanned.

He winced. When his eyes opened, he looked to Molly. The hard-edged redhead looked on with
mild amusement. The unshakeable loyalty between her and Onyx was evident as always.

That was, ultimately, why he stayed away. “You mean a lot to me. You both do.
I’ve gotten worried that I’ll cause problems for you or get between you.”

“How would you come between us?” Onyx asked.

Suddenly everything seemed pretentious. He felt bad for even presuming Molly or Onyx liked him at all. “Did Lorelei say anything about this?”

“No. Lorelei invited us over to talk business,” Onyx replied.
“We barely talked about you at all.”

“She said you’d want to handle this
part yourself,” Molly chimed in, “when you were up to it. But she figured that might be tonight since we’re here.”

Alex nodded. That fit. “Okay, well… you said you wanted to keep seeing me. Dating
, more or less.”

“
Casually, yes,” Onyx nodded.

“Both of you.”

“Sure,” conceded Molly.

He took a deep breath. “Full disclosure?”

“That was always my one condition,” said Onyx.

“
I haven’t been ready to trust myself,” Alex shrugged. “Onyx, it’s like I told you originally—“

“Originally you didn’t tell me at all, and I forgave you for that,” she broke in smoothly. “But go on.”

“Okay. Fair. Anyway, I just lost my job because my boss wanted to screw me and I wouldn’t cooperate. I had two other co-workers get a lot more than just flirty with me before that happened. Not really sure how I turned ‘em down, but I did. But I keep finding myself in these situations, and I just… I just don’t know if it’s smart to get involved with someone who’s already involved in a relationship, y’know?”

Molly snickered. Onyx ignored it. “
What about your ‘friend,’ Taylor? Are you still seeing her, too?”

“No,” Alex shook his head. “We had one more hook-up after all the craziness, but she started seeing another guy and I didn’t want to mess that up, so I’ve cooled it.”

“By cutting off all contact?”

“No. Just by cooling it.”

“Ah,” Onyx nodded, “so what I’m hearing here is that you
can
control yourself. What was it you told me? ‘I’d rather be your friend than your bed buddy. But I’d much rather be both.’ I seem to recall doing everything I could to show I was down with all that.” She paused to let that sink in. “Who else?”

He swallowed. “The, uh, real estate agent who sold Lorelei the condo.
That actually went all the way.”

“How’d that end up?” Onyx asked, and when he hesitated, she reminded him, “Full disclosure.”

“Kind of ended up right where Molly’s sitting now, actually,” Alex blushed. Molly couldn’t help but snicker at that. “It was practically a ridiculous scenario out of a porno movie. Cliché dialogue and everything. I think she’s jumped clients before me, though.”

Onyx smothered a laugh. The confession threatened her composure, but in the end her willpower triumphed. “So in the four weeks since you first agreed to keep seeing me,
and
Molly, and with all of us acknowledging and accepting that you had this…” she twirled her pinky at his groin, “little problem, you’ve had sex with
one
other woman, and
one
last fling with Taylor. I imagine your sex life here with Lorelei and Rachel is gonzo insane every night, right?”

He felt like he should qualify that somehow, but instead he just nodded.
“Rachel doesn’t come home every night,” he elaborated, “but… yeah.”

“Alex,
without all this—if your life hadn’t become an endless letter to Penthouse—would you want to date either of us?”

“Yes,” he answered honestly. “You’re amazing. Both of you
. I just… like I said, sometimes women just get irrational with me. I didn’t want that to happen to you.”

“What, you don’t know any guys who get irrational about attractive women?”
Onyx frowned. “Alex, right now I would absolutely not fuck you, no matter what, and I’m not the least bit protected.”

He blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I thought you might still be worried about that, so I wanted to test it out. You said it’s not mind control, and you know what? You’re right. It’s nowhere near it. I’m not happy with you and it doesn’t matter how sexy you might seem or how long you spent in bed with Lorelei last night or this morning.”

“She mentioned you’d had the day off and we did the math,” Molly put in, making a lewd gesture with her fingers.

“Hell, this is my third glass of wine and I’m not any nearer to jumping you. And so if that’s the case,” Onyx said, her head tilting somewhat, “I think the reverse must be true, too. Lorelei might make it easier, but you weren’t a leper before she came along. You’ve doubtlessly learned a lot from her and your other flings that has nothing to do with curses. I think Dumbo can probably fly just fine without his magic feather.”

She let that sink in, turning to refill her wineglass before she looked at him again. “
You need to stop second-guessing Molly and I. We told you before. It’s not about your cologne.”

“So… you really want to give
this another chance?”

“Were you really avoiding us just so you wouldn’t cause us problems?” Molly countered. “Not because you were trying to make time for seeing any other floosies?”

Onyx blinked. “Did you just say ‘floosies?’”