Chapter 32: Bonding with Onyx...

"Oh wow, what a great shot," breathed a voice behind Alex. He blinked, turning slightly from his computer terminal, and became very, very aware of long, curly black hair and pale, luscious cleavage framed in black fabric looming thrillingly close to his left shoulder. He recovered very quickly and looked up at Onyx's blue eyes.

She was herself, however, looking at the picture of the angel statue on his screen. He had gotten the angel statue pretty much perfectly. There was just enough ambient light from the street and the exterior lights of the funeral parlor to let the angel's features show, while still creating a near-silhouette effect with the moon. All he'd had to do was play around with it in Photoshop a bit.

"Hey, thanks," he smiled.

"Alex, where did you do this?" she asked, still looming. She seemed to be a bit closer than would be reasonable, really. Onyx was a walking, talking work of delicate beauty wrapped in black satin and lace and knee-high Doc Marten boots. She was a little older, or at least Alex believed she was. She'd been in school before he'd gotten there, anyway, and carried herself like she was older. But he really didn't know.

He was just thrilled that she remembered his name. After all, he had really only managed passing conversations with Onyx and her apparent partner in crime, at least until now. "Uh," Alex mumbled, "promise to keep it quiet?"

Onyx's eyes slid down to look at his, a conspiratorial smile playing at the red lips on her porcelain-perfect face. "How quiet?"

Alex smirked. He kept his voice low. "Well, I guess you can tell Molly there, she seems cool."

Onyx gave it only a second's thought before she hissed Molly's name. It was an open lab period for photography, rather than direct instruction, so a little quiet socializing in class wasn't going to annoy anyone else. Molly looked up, seemed to blink and nearly say something, then stopped to save her work before coming over.

Where Onyx was beautiful and delicate, Molly struck Alex as a girl whom he'd be happy to make out with in a mosh pit. Her fire engine red hair was cut short. She wore no make-up and didn't really need any. (Onyx probably didn't need it, either, but she clearly had her style.) Alex had no doubt that she probably cleaned up quite wonderfully, but generally speaking Molly was all torn black band t-shirts, dark cargo pants and spiky jewelry.

He was probably wrong in labeling Molly as a goth. He was probably wrong in that regard with Onyx, too, but it wasn't like he was going to throw the labels at them directly. Really, he just found them both enchantingly hot.

Hot enough to go out of his way in the hopes of even marginally impressing or interesting them, and that seemed to have turned out wonderfully already.

"What's up? Oh, shit, that's nice," Molly said as she came over to the screen.

Alex just smiled, clicked over to the previous picture, and waited as they looked over his nighttime shot of the mausoleum.

Molly's grin was unrestrained. "Where did you get these?"

"Keep it to yourselves?" Alex asked. They both nodded. "Sacred Heart Cemetery."

"No shit?" Onyx asked. "They just had a big fire and the chapel burnt down burned down."

"Yeah."

"Did get permission to shoot on their property?" Molly asked.

"Uuhhh... no. They don't allow you to get in there at night," Alex said, dropping the line as nonchalantly as he had said it in his own head several nights past. "But if you climb the fence and stumble around in the dark anyway, you can get this really cool shot of this statue here." He clicked over to another picture. "And you can sneak up on the chapel and get a pic of the steeple with the moon overhead, and it feels totally creepy. And there's this mist and stuff, and you almost feel like you can hear wailing..."

"Um," Onyx said, "that's the chapel that burned down?"

Alex just nodded. "Yeah. Freaked me the fuck out, too."

"Holy fuck, you were there that night?" Molly asked.

"I left about an hour before," Alex fibbed. "If I'd seen anything, I'd have called 911," he added, which wasn't entirely untrue. He had, in fact, called the cops when he saw what was going on. He just didn't wait for them, or stick around to talk. "I mean, yeah, I was trespassing, but that chapel was kind of a nice building."

Molly snorted, but Onyx just looked at Alex. The redhead noticed the change in the way her friend looked at him, and flashed a quiet, knowing smile at her.

There was a great deal within each glance between the two. Molly flashed a wordless query. Onyx gave a small, tentative nod of confirmation with bashfully eager eyes. Molly smirked in approval. Alex missed almost all of it.

Almost. Without realizing that the two were throwing signals to one another with a sharp clarity just short of telepathy, Alex knew that they were both looking at him differently than they had before. What's more, he knew it was an encouraging sign.

"What're you doing after class?" Onyx asked abruptly. Molly was already moving back to her workstation.

Alex blinked. "Um. I've got my first aid class after this. Normally I work on Friday afternoon after that, but today my plans are pretty much flexible. Why?"

Onyx shrugged, smiling a bit shyly. "Figured we could hang out. You seem cool."

"I'd like that," Alex smiled back.

"Molly's got a ton of mid-terms coming up, so she's stuck here for a while. So I'm on my own."

"I'm free."

"I mean, I don't have anything in mind. Like, no plans to go do anything interesting."

"Cool."

"I'm not saying it's a date or anything," Onyx replied. "I mean. Um. I'm not sure what I'm saying right now. Do I sound like a babbling idiot?" Several workstations away, as if able to hear every single word that Onyx was saying ever so quietly, Molly faked a cough that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

"Onyx," Alex said calmly, "I'd really like to hang out with you after class. We could go do whatever or nothing. You just seem really cool and I'd like to get to know you better."

She blinked, as if he had said that completely out of the blue. She smiled, looking a bit surprised. "Cool," she said.

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. They were just all sent home early last night. Mr. Gorge promised full night's pay for last night, though. With a bonus to make up for lost tips."

"That's not a problem," Lorelei smiled. She had already gone through the most pertinent financial statements and was now looking over a catalog at prices for replacing the damaged pool table 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?" she asked.

"Of course," he nodded, but frowned at the pool table. "These can cost a good deal, though. You cannot just have it fixed easy. Repairs will typically cost more than buying a new one."

"I agree. We could have a new one delivered by tonight."

Ahmed's eyebrows rose, and he considered his words carefully. There were a couple of suppliers in the immediate area, certainly, but immediate delivery on call would be an expensive proposition. "We can go one night without this one table if we just throw a cover over it and list it as out of order."

"We could," Lorelei nodded. Her phone hummed, and she picked it up. It would be Alex, of course. She had been enjoying the steady excitement of whatever flirtations he was engaged in, but at this point she doubted anything would be consummated. The clock had already dashed her hopes of him ravishing his professor in her office after class. No, 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."

Not forgetting that she was in another's company, Lorelei restrained herself from smiling broadly and laughing out loud. Instead, she allowed herself a small grin as she reached into her purse. Without looking at Ahmed -- she was texting a reply -- she pulled out the wrapped stack of $100 bills that Rob Gorge had flashed around the night before and then left on the floor when the fight began. Lorelei 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. I will need to see the receipts when all is said and done. Then take a thousand for yourself as a re-hire bonus and reserve perhaps two hundred dollars as a bonus for each employee who stays on."

The shock doubled. He looked up at Lorelei. "So much? It is very generous!"

She simply shrugged. "I have learned, lately, the value and importance of rewarding loyalty."

************

They had 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 seized upon.

She was not quite two years older than him and didn't seem to think it made any real difference. Alex could feel as 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.

There was open, unabashed excitement at this new connection, and neither of them were shy about showing it.

"Gimme your left hand." She didn't really wait for it. She just pulled it up to her eyes. "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." Onyx's eyes glittered with interest.

"You a big believer in this?"

"I believe in a lot of things. Laugh if you want to."

"Oh, I'm not one to judge lately," Alex smirked wryly. He chewed on his burger while she looked his palm over. "Anything interesting there?"

"Yeah. Your lines are all weird. 'kay, now gimme your other hand," she said. Her brow furrowed after she looked at it for a moment.

"So am I the Chosen One?"

Onyx laughed. "I don't know. Do you believe in fate?"

"Not really. 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 quietly. She let him have his hands back. "I think you've got a whole mess on your palm lines from a previous life or something," she said. She didn't sound serious.

"Never thought about that. What were you in your last life?"

"Last life was only a couple years ago. I was a cheerleader."

"Bullshit," Alex laughed.

"No, seriously. First couple years of high school. I tried really hard 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." She cocked an eyebrow, and he shrugged. "I was okay at it. I guess it was good for me, but I only joined because there was 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. She sat in the driver's seat of her old, used car outside of a Dick's drive-thru, twiddling with her French fries. There was some trepidation in her voice, but only if one really 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 recent and it's not exclusive. We've talked about that a couple of times to make sure we're all clear on it." Holy shit, I sound like such a philandering creep, he thought. His mind raced for a way to dig himself out of the hole he had just dug.

He needn't have worried. Onyx's smile was small, but it was there. "Kind of in the same boat," she admitted. There was no attempt at being casual. 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 the situation you're in you should blow off all those worries and enjoy yourself. What happens happens."

He blinked. "Really?"

"I might have ulterior motives behind that opinion," she shrugged, still looking directly at him.

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'm not going to 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 that means I can't date someone who's looking for something exclusive."

"That would make it complicated, yeah."

Onyx shrugged. "I haven't actually, um, taken advantage of my freedom yet." 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 would like to point out," he ventured after summoning up his own courage, "that I am a guy, and not a jerk. And am not looking for anything exclusive. And I like you a lot."

"I can tell," she grinned. "I like you, too." They were silent, looking at one another for a long moment before she finally said, "What I'm saying is sitting here in my car is going to get old, but we can't really go back to my place."

"We could go to mine. I'm one of those dorks who lives at home with his mom, though."

"Whatever. You're a year out of high school. I'm only living away from home by virtue of luck and having someone else to lean on."

"Point being, we could go hang out at my place. We'll have it to ourselves for at least a few more hours."

Her bright blue eyes drifted away from him for a moment. She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly and heavily, and then turned the car on.