Natural Consequences (8 page)

“I guess I was too much of a distraction from her school work. That’s what she said, anyway.”

“Callin’ it,” announced Wade, who had been on a roll while no one else was looking. “Side pocket.” One stroke of his cue stick later, Wade smiled up at Drew with a triumphant look, then glanced to the others. “Who’s next?”

Amber looked to Jason and shrugged. “Anyone else likely to show up soon? Should we wait?”

“Nah, they can wait us out,” Jason decided. “Two on two?”

“All good,” said Drew as he racked up the balls. “Amber, you wanna break?”

“I can do that,” she accepted. Amber pick
ed a cue stick off the rack on the wall, then moved around to the end of the table. She waited for Drew to clear out. Set up the cue ball. Lined up her shot. Glanced up, once, at movement on the other side of the table. Spiked the ball in shock as her brain registered what she saw.

The dark-haired
stunner on the other side of the table caught the flying cue ball without the slightest break in her composure. Amber’s mind nearly went blank as she just stared. The newcomer smiled gently, rolling the cue ball back across the table to its starting point.

“Hello,” the woman said. She glanced to the young men around the table. “Gentlemen. Who’s this?”

“Lorelei, this is Amber,” Jason spoke up. “She’s a classmate of mine.”

Amber blinked. She couldn’t believe that Jason or the others
could speak so comfortably with her. Why weren’t they just as awed? Hell, they were guys, and young ones, too—why weren’t they
more
awed?

The woman rounded the table to offer her hand. She looked noticeably older than the rest of them, perhaps around thirty, though with unfairly perfect skin and a figure that
women would kill for. Amber slowly took the woman’s hand, shook it, and mumbled out a greeting. She couldn’t tell if Lorelei didn’t realize how taken aback she was or if the older woman was simply too gracious to draw any attention to it. Amber suspected the latter.

As she shook it off, Lorelei
asked, “You said you’re here with Jason?”

“Yeah-huh,” Amber nodded.

Lorelei’s cool smile remained. She slipped over to stand next to Drew. He didn’t look her way, but he waited with his hand out and a smug smile as she fished a twenty from her purse.

* * *

“You don’t need to play your cards so close to the chest, you know,” Lorelei told her as they got to the bar. “They’re trustworthy. They like you already.”

Not for the first time that evening, Amber found herself
taken aback. A dozen replies came to mind, none of them honest. She chose the most non-committal: “What do you mean?”

Lorelei favored her with a quiet, sly grin. “You ask much more than you tell,” she observed. “I can’t blame you. They’re an interesting crowd. Yet I can’t help but think you hide things about yourself. You need not.”

“Am I that obvious?”

“No,” Lorelei replied. “Not obvious at all. You’re good.” Her tone was so cool and knowing that it made Amber nervous. “They are all sharp young men—
I would not spend my time with them otherwise—but they haven’t caught on just yet. I’m a little more practiced at reading people. You needn’t be so guarded, Amber. You might be surprised at how accepting they are.”

“I bet everyone’s accepting of you,” Amber huffed. It hadn’t taken long for her to get over her initial shock, but she’d spent the last hour trying to piece together why a woman like Lorelei hung out with these guys. That her boyfriend was part of the circle of friends was perfectly clear; that she had great affection for all of them was also obvious. Yet even so, the casual socializing just didn’t seem to add up.
Who the hell was this woman, and just how much did she suspect?

“That’s a loaded topic. Ahmed, hello,” Lorelei said to the older man behind the bar. “Gin and tonic for me, and for my friend…?” She looked to Amber.

“Guinness,” answered the younger woman. She paused to choose her words as Ahmed moved off to fill the order. “I dunno. After everything that happened with my last boyfriend and all that, I guess I’m a little gun-shy.”

“I don’t think that’s it, no,” Lorelei mused, thoughtfully looking her over. “You haven’t decided whether you’re attracted to Jason or not, but you find him intriguing and you enjoy his company. You suspect there’s much more under the surface, and you’re right about that.”

“I am?”

“He’s not suave, I’ll grant, but he’s honest with himself about who he is. He’s a strong soul. Witty. Resourceful. Exceedingly brave and loyal.” Lorelei leaned back on the bar, looking to the group of young men. “
You’ll have to earn the stories,” she added with a smile. “He’s also quite intelligent. He knows that bringing you out to meet his friends runs the risk that you’ll find one of them more attractive.”

Amber nodded. She wasn’t naïve. “Then why did he invite me out here for tonight if he knew that?”

“I imagine he felt that alleviating your loneliness was more important than getting laid.” Her eyes turned to Amber’s again. “You worry that they will discover something about you that will drive them away from you. Something scandalous? No,” she seemed to think aloud, analyzing Amber as they stood waiting for their drinks. “Deceptive. Unforgiveable.”

“Well, when you
say it like that, I might get worried,” Amber chuckled.

“You might be shocked at what those young men can forgive.”

“You sure about that?”

Lorelei nodded. “I’ve had personal experience.”

“What did they have to forgive you for?”

“All that I am,” Lorelei murmured, accepting the drink from Ahmed with a smile. Her first response wasn’t meant to be heard, but Amber
caught it. The second came out clearer: “We didn’t meet under ideal circumstances.”

“But you’re seeing one of Jason’s friends, right? That’s how you met them?” asked Amber.
“How did that come about? I mean, I haven’t met him yet, but you seem like the kind of woman who could grab any man she wants.”

“That is more of a story than I think we’d care for tonight, but if you want the simple answer? I can talk to him as I had never been able to speak to any other. Alex has wit and courage. I liked the look of him.
He overcame every obstacle that life offered. There are of course a dozen qualities of relevance. But if you ask what first made me give him a chance, and what keeps us together from day to day? He listens to me, as he did from the start. He accepts me for what I am, and has never asked me to change.”

Amber chewed on that, glancing back at the guys again. “That’s what makes him stand out? I mean judging by his friends, you probably don’t come from the same social circles.”

“Not remotely.”

“You don’t think
another man might have all those qualities?”

“
Surely there are others,” nodded Lorelei. “They missed their chance.”

“Hey, Lori, back again,” came a male voice. The two looked up to find a tall, muscular man looming behind them, his smile not quite as broad as his chest. He had to be proud of both. His teeth were laser white. His shirt spread unbuttoned at the top, showing off both his gold chain and the dark chest hair threatening to explode from his pecs.
She caught an accent that she could not immediately place as the handsome stranger said in a great voice, “I’ve missed you so much. Why do you never come around anymore?”

“I was here only
last week, Emir,” Lorelei answered. “You don’t remember?”

“Ah, every night without you is like an eternity,” he said, so smoothly Amber guessed he must have practiced it. The next line was dismissive rather than grandiose: “Besides, you were with that boy you keep hanging around with.”

“We are rather fond of sharing our time together,” Lorelei smiled patiently.

“Sure, but you could maybe share a drink with me, eh? Maybe let me take you out some time? He’s not here now. How serious could you and your boy be?”

“Quite serious. I don’t think I’ll take you up on your offer, Emir.”

“What’s the matter?” he scowled, though trying to maintain a cheerful tone, “you afraid you’ll like it? Or maybe you’re afraid he won’t?”

“Emir, I’m not interested, and that alone should settle the matter. But since you asked,” Lorelei smiled sweetly, and then stepped closer, putting one hand on Emir’s chest, right over his heart.

Amber leaned in to hear what Lorelei said, but it all came out in a different language.
Is that Arabic?
Amber wondered.
Turkish?
Regardless, her words took the wind from Emir’s sails. His eyes went wide with disbelief and even fear.

He stepped aside. Lorelei walked past. Amber followed. They weaved through the aisles of pool tables. As before, Amber knew that most every man watched Lorelei pass. “What did you say to him?”

“Emir obviously grew up believing that women don’t know their own minds,” Lorelei shrugged. “Were I interested in investing the time, I’d correct his error. I find him annoying, though, so I put things in terms he’d understand.”

“What was that?”

“I told him that the last time a man wouldn’t leave me alone, my love followed him into his home and stabbed him in the heart. Right in front of all of his friends.”

Amber almost tripped. “Is that… wait, really? He believed that?”

Lorelei grinned over her shoulder. “Why shouldn’t he? Don’t you?”

* * *

Not for the first time, Alex regretted putting his photography class ahead of his social life.

“In contrast to modern American policies, photographs of the dead were not forbidden or banned by the Allies during the Great War,” droned the lecturer. Above and behind him, black and white photographs of hospital scenes and lifeless soldiers laid out in rows flashed past.

“Plenty of examples can be found in the archives, from the war’s beginning in 1914 right through ‘til its end.” The lecturer clicked through more black and white tragedy. Alex cringed.

His photography professor pitched this as a study of the growth of camera technology, and a way for students to earn some extra credit. The various sign-in sheets in the lobby and the bodies packing the auditorium suggested that plenty of classes from other schools had similar interests. Alex had all his assignments in, but his attendance had grown spotty as of late. He needed the points.

He didn’t need the First World War. Somehow, nobody thought to note that little detail in the lecture title. His professor conveniently glossed over that.

“Naturally, photographs of the action as it happened on the front lines were difficult to arrange,” said the lecturer. “Equipment was clumsy and not particularly quick to operate like cameras today,” he said. “Naturally, you don’t see many views of the battlefields at night. Flash photography could cause all sorts of potential problems among armed, jumpy men,” he added with a chuckle.

“Laugh it up, ye fookin’ cunt,” Alex heard someone mutter bitterly. He blinked, turned his head this way and that—and found the people on either side staring at him.

The girl to his left leaned in across the empty seat between them. “Hey,” she smiled, “are you Irish?”

Alex looked back to the screen. He saw more devastation, of course. This had all started out with photos of parades and men in dress uniforms—just like the war itself, he remembered, though the photos lacked the full color of memory.

Chelsea fawned over how he looked in his uniform before he shipped out. She said all he needed were some medals.

Alex rubbed his eyes. Who the hell was Chelsea? An image flitted through his mind, but it was of a photograph, not the memory of a face. He saw Chelsea’s wedding picture by the light of an overhead flare, lying in some mud. He smelled dead flesh.

The lecturer droned on. Alex raised his head to try to follow. Disjointed as his thoughts were, he couldn’t tell what might be real and what might be imagined.

Then he recognized the shattered hillside, the broken and dead remnants of a forest, and the ruined walls of a house that inexplicably stood while everything else had been blasted away by artillery.

Soft light swept into the auditorium as a door opened in the back. He cringed out of reflex, almost ducking behind the seat in front of him. Then the door fell shut with a loud slam, and reflex took over. He squatted down in front of his seat and threw his hands over his head.

“Woah,” said the girl to his left.

“Hey, what the hell?” hissed the guy on his right.

Alex looked up. No one else ducked. There were just people sitting around his trench without helmets or guns, all looking at him like he was mad.

No. Not a trench. An auditorium, at the UW.

Oh shit
, Alex finally realized. He looked to the screen to see a landscape of mud and craters filled with water. He felt himself drowning.

He had to go. This had been a mistake. Just like signing up with the BEF. Just like transferring to the infantry after Hooge chateau. Just like the whole stupid war.