Handsome and Greta (Seven Ways to Sin 3)

I pulled more insistently on Hans’s arm and started to back away.

“I tell you what, Betty,” said Hans. “It smells so good. I’m going to go take a nap. And if I wake up in time, I’ll wake up hungry and come rushing down.”

She looked at him a long moment as if she was about to cry then suddenly smiled cheerfully and said, “You do that, Hans. Go take a nap and I’ll see you later.”

The boys and I took a table in the lodge dining room. I’d warned them to set their expectations low in regard to the food, but by the time we’d been served we’d already had more than a healthy dose of wine that even I dug into my plate eagerly and had no problems finishing, and the servings were quite copious. The boys shared stories of Jake from college—turned out that’s how they all knew each other.

“Jake was always getting into trouble,” said Matty, “not the criminal kind… just… I mean, he was always living in the moment, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I got that vibe off of him,” I said.

“Heart of gold, though, that Jake,” said Austin, and he raised his wine glass.

Dalton raised his glass too. “To Jake.”

The rest of us joined in. “To Jake.”

We toasted a few more times to Jake, another toast to us, another toast to our live streams, which by that point we were qualifying as our ‘business venture’, and another toast to The Handsome Agency. When Betty brought us more wine, we toasted to her, too.

Betty cleared our plates and brought us dessert - chocolate mousse.

I put a hand to my head. “I’m feeling a bit woozy from the wine.” Then I put a hand to my stomach. “I didn’t leave any room for dessert. I couldn’t possibly eat another bite.”

“You all right, there, Greta?” asked Erik. “You look a little pale.”

“You don’t look so hot yourself,” I said. And it was true. Erik’s cheeks had turned bright pink, and he was noticeably sweating.

“It’s OK,” said Erik. “I don’t have to drive.”

“Me neither,” said Austin, and he refilled his glass.

Austin, too, was sweating and his eyes had gotten puffy like he’d gone a few rounds in the ring.

I went around the table, looking from face to face, and noticed we were all showing signs of our excess. I had to grip the table to keep from falling over. But that didn’t stop the room from spinning.

“You OK, Matty?”

“Austin, what’s wrong?”

“Cameron, you OK?”

The voices blended together. All the sentences—essentially the same, asking if one of us was all right—sounded to me warped and warbled.

The faces around the table whipped by me in a blur then spiraled into a whirlpool of grays, getting darker and darker until all sound cut to silence and the whirling grays cut to black.

22

Jake

Just when things were finally starting to turn in my favor, just when I was starting to enjoy the present and even hope for a future, that’s when the past had to come back for me and bring everything to a screeching halt.

I knew as soon as I saw Matty, Austin, and Cameron that it was all going to come crashing down. I couldn’t explain how I knew, just that seeing them was such a stark visual reminder of my past, like a perfect metaphor, my past in smiling faces knocking unexpectedly at my door.

It didn’t take long for my premonition to come true—twenty minutes at most. One minute I was hugging my friends, the next I was handcuffed and being transported to Colorado.

I didn’t think the murder charge would stick. Although, I’d seen enough corruption in the courts to have me wary of my optimism. But I did know that I would be in jail for at least eight months before I’d get a chance to defend myself in court. And that timeline, too, was optimistic.

That first night in jail, my cellmates tried to make small talk, but I was too in my head to engage.

Another month and I would have saved up enough money to get a lawyer—probably. I came so close. Should have known not to get my hopes up.

I felt bad for myself and even worse for disappointing my friends. What they must be imagining!

Mostly, I felt bad for losing out on what could have been between me and Greta.

Monday morning, I was taken to the courthouse. And to my surprise, a lawyer was actually there waiting for me.

“How is this possible?” I asked her.

“You’ve got good friends, Mr. Moore.”

I was indicted. The proceedings went by quickly. The prosecutor said I was a flight risk. My lawyer argued that I was prepared to enter a guilty plea for identity theft, but that I was innocent of the charge of murder. This took both the judge and the prosecutor by surprise. My bail hearing was then put off till the following morning, giving me and my lawyer the time to try and work something out with the prosecutor.