A Game of Chance

by Emma Shortt

  She wanted answers.

  Chance had to give them to her.

  But after what had happened last night, how could he?

  He made his way over to the door. His mind raced. One thought was prominent above all others, and not just prominent but painfully obvious. This was always going to happen. The attraction between them was simply too strong for it to be otherwise. But Chance hadn’t wanted it to happen with the lies between them. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, even if he hadn’t acknowledged it, he had been sure that he could get everything squared away before they reached this point. He’d been a fool, and now he was going to pay the price.

  He pulled the door open and walked into the living room. It connected through to the kitchen. Meg was there, dressed in baggy sweats and a huge, oversize tee. Her hair was pinned in a haphazard bun. She wore pink, fluffy socks. She looked adorable. Chance’s cock did not soften. His arms ached to pull her against him. Dammit.

  “Good morning, Chance.”

  Chance made his way across the space. Should he take her into his arms? Should he kiss her? Never before had Chance been so frustrated by his lack of seduction skills. A regular guy, someone who hadn’t spent most of his life as a socially awkward nerd who hadn’t even managed a date until he was in his twenties, would know what to do here. Despite his extensive research, Chance did not.

  All those hours in the gym trying to become someone that a person like Meg would find attractive. The weeks spent on his study of human mating rituals and the signs of attraction. The months of trying to be like everyone else, a normal, functioning member of society. It meant jack shit right now.

  Chance did not know what to do.

  “Good morning, Blue.”

  She turned to look at him. She had a spatula in hand. Chance looked from it to her. She wasn’t smiling, but she wasn’t frowning, either. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Was she happy? Was she angry?

  “You’re cooking breakfast?” was all he could think to say.

  She tilted her head. “Why do you sound surprised?”

  Should he lean in and kiss her? Should he brush back the strands of hair dancing around her face? “I didn’t figure you for the cooking type.”

  “I’m not,” she said. “My skills are dubious at best. But it doesn’t take that much to fry some bacon and flip some eggs.”

  She turned away from him. If there had ever been a moment for Chance to reach out and touch her it was gone. He clenched his fists. Frustration shot through him. It had been so much easier last night. They had touched, and they had continued touching until they were both exhausted.

  Chance took a step forward. Meg took a step to the side. Was she moving away from him? Chance gritted his teeth. The egg box was half hanging off the counter. He nudged it back to safety.

  Meg shook the pan where she was frying eggs. At least Chance thought that the white and yellow mass in the pan were eggs.

  “The yolks are broken,” he said.

  Meg shook the pan again. “Yes. I prefer them that way.”

  Chance shot a look at the egg box. There were several shells in there that looked like they’d been broken more than once. In fact, there were only a couple of eggs that were still whole.

  “How do you prefer yours, Chance?” she asked as she prodded the spatula at the eggs. They didn’t move. The edges were starting to brown.

  “However you serve them,” Chance said.

  She prodded them again. “In two minutes. Go clean up.”

  The bathroom was next to Meg’s little office. Chance did not look in there. He didn’t want to see her profile board. He didn’t want to be reminded of X-Tech. And yet, how could he ignore it? The X-Tech fuck-up was what had brought them together. If Chance didn’t play this right, it could well be what tore them apart.

  He thought about that as he washed his hands and then dried them on Meg’s Star Trek towel. He considered multiple options, multiple scenarios where she wasn’t left feeling like she had been lied to…even though she had been. It was no use. By the time Chance made his way back into the kitchen, he still had no idea what he was going to do.

  Meg was sitting at the small table next to her kitchen. There were two plates of food waiting there and a pot of coffee. Chance took a seat. She nudged a mug across to him.

  “I don’t know how you like it,” she said. “I took a punt.”

  No sugar. No cream. It was not how Chance took it. Hers, of course, was filled with both. Chance tried his best not to read anything into that as the bitter coffee slid down his throat.

  “I would have gone out for coffee,” he said.

  “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  The eggs were burned. The bacon was, too. “I would happily have made breakfast,” he added.

  “You can cook?” She shot him a look. “I guess that doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Blue…”

  “Eat your breakfast, Chance,” she said.

  Chance rarely ate breakfast. He liked to go for a run straight after waking. He didn’t want to eat breakfast now. He wanted to talk to her. Only, he didn’t want to talk about the difficult things. He just wanted to hear her voice. To make her smile. To see her laugh. And yet, they did have to talk about the difficult things. There was no avoiding it. He knew that even as he wished otherwise.

  “Blue,” he began again, but she shook her head.

  “Think about what you’re going to say before you say it,” she said.

  Chance could have used that advice days ago. When he’d sat there at his desk the first night they’d met? Concocting a plan that he’d foolishly thought was foolproof? Find the girl, get the information he needed, continue his investigation. Yeah, it had all been so simple.

  “Am I about to find out how much you regret what happened?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “That’s what you said last night, that you wanted to find out how much you were going to regret this.”

  Meg actually rolled her eyes. “I don’t regret what happened between us, Chance.”

  Chance’s heart thumped. “Neither do I.”

  “Whether it should have happened is another matter entirely.”

  His heart thumped again. “It shouldn’t have, Blue. Not because I didn’t want it to,” he added quickly. “I did. Hell, I’ve wanted you naked beneath me since the moment that wig fell off.”

  “The wig…” She shook her head. “Damn thing cost me forty dollars. What did you do with it in the end?”

  “It’s…it’s in my apartment,” he admitted.

  “You took it home with you?” She sighed. “I can’t work you out, Chance. One moment you say things like that, and I’m all like, how cute is he? But then, I remember that you’ve basically lied to me since the first moment we met, and that’s not cute, is it? Not at all.”

  “I have lied,” Chance agreed. How different would things have been if he hadn’t? It was too late to find out now. It wasn’t like they had a time machine. The math was completely against them there. Chance wouldn’t be able to build one even if he devoted the next twenty years of his life to the project.

  “How badly, Chance?” she asked.

  “Badly.”

  “Why?”

  “Not because I wanted to,” Chance said.

  “Because your employers gave you no choice?”

  Chance started at that. “My employers?

  “You’re working for X-Tech,” Meg said. “You have to be. Why else would they have booked your ‘office’ for you?”

  “How did you—”

  “Nerds are the worst gossips,” Meg said. “You want to be part of this world? The sooner you learn that the better.” She paused. “Who hired you?”

  Chance rubbed his beard. What the hell could he say? I hired myself? “I honestly don’t know if I can explain it to you,” he said.

  She frowned. “Start at the beginning.”

  “The beginning won’t help,” he said.

  Her frown
deepened. “That’s a stupid answer.”

  “Yes.”

  “Try explaining why they hired you, then,” she demanded. “Admit to me that it’s about shutting up the people that they’re stealing from.”

  “What?” Chance lowered his hands. “No, Blue, it’s not about that at all. It’s to find out who is doing the stealing.”

  She hissed out a breath. “They know it’s happening?”

  “They suspect,” Chance said.

  “How?”

  “Little incidents, little clues, it was only when they linked them all up that they started to see a pattern.”

  “But they don’t know who it is?”

  “No.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” she snapped. “If someone is stealing, then it should be easy to track which department is benefiting.”

  “All departments have in some way,” Chance said.

  “So, it’s someone from the top?” She pushed her burned food aside and stood up. “Someone who has a stake in the whole thing.”

  “All of the senior management team have come up clean,” Chance said.

  “We haven’t run their profiles yet.”

  “I ran them days ago.”

  Her eyes widened. “I made a profile board and you… Goddammit, Chance!”

  She turned and headed to her office. With a deep breath Chance followed her. She stood in front of her profile board, picked up a highlighter, and circled the names of all the senior management team…almost all of them.

  “It has to be one of them,” she said.

  Chance didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to bring it up at all, but he couldn’t help himself, not given what they would have to talk about at some point, what Chance would have to admit. Because he would have to, wouldn’t he? That was unavoidable now.

  “You haven’t circled Jack Richards.”

  Her response was immediate. “It wouldn’t be him.”

  “How do you know that?” he asked.

  Meg turned, highlighter in hand. “He’s a genius. He wouldn’t need to steal anyone’s work.”

  “Maybe he’s lost his touch,” Chance suggested.

  She snorted. “Jack Richards would never lose his touch. He changed the world. More than once. That money transfer website he started with? The encryption software behind it? How he linked it into a messaging system that half the world still uses?” She shook her head. “He’s brilliant. Beyond brilliant. He’ll change the world again. There’s no doubt about that. The forums all say he’s locked away somewhere working on something completely revolutionary. I can’t even begin to imagine what that might be.” She paused. “Jack Richards would never steal from another nerd. The very idea is ridiculous. That was the reason I planned to go to him in the first place.”

  A slither of unease ran down Chance’s spine. “Maybe he’s just taking a really long holiday.”

  “Or maybe he’s creating AI? Real AI?” Meg’s eyes sparkled at the prospect. “That’s the kind of thing he could do.”

  “Unregulated AI is dangerous, Meg,” Chance said without thinking.

  She rolled her eyes. “You’ve been listening to too much Elon Musk.”

  “And you sound like Sophia.”

  Meg stilled. “The robot. How do you know about her?”

  “I watch the news.”

  “I swear, Chance, sometimes…” Meg shook her head before turning back to the board. She picked up a different highlighter, this one pink, and circled the name Jack Richards. The circle looked suspiciously like a heart.

  Chance’s feeling of unease increased significantly. His heart thumped in a way that he didn’t think he’d ever experienced before. He’d known that Meg was likely to be a Jack Richards fan simply because all nerds were. But he hadn’t realized to what extent. What would she think when she realized that he was Jack Richards, and he wasn’t trying to change the world at all, that he was actively working against it. That he would put a stop to her work, if he could?

  How could he possibly tell her the truth? Not only would she be disappointed with Jack Chance, but she would be horribly disappointed with Jack Richards. There was no way to win with this.

  “We have to interview the rest of the developers,” she said. “It’s the only avenue left open to us.”

  It wasn’t, but suddenly Chance didn’t want to tell her that, either. His mind was racing, his heart was thumping, and he was more confused than he could ever remember being. Was there even a way out of this that didn’t end with Meg hating him? Perhaps if they spent enough time together…if she felt strongly enough for him by the time all the lies were revealed…

  “That’s a good idea,” he said quickly, almost desperately. “We’ll do it together.”

  “Together…” She dropped the highlighter and placed her hands on his chest. Chance knew she could feel the racing of his heart beneath her palms. “I’ve always been a fool where men are concerned,” she said softly. “I feel like I’m being one now, and yet…I can’t believe I would feel this way for someone who isn’t a decent person.”

  “How do you feel?” Chance asked.

  “No. I’m not going to be honest with you until you’re honest with me.” She looked him dead in the eyes. “You’re a long way from being honest with me, Chance.”

  “I know, Blue,” he said, and even he could hear the edge of desperation to his voice. “But it’s not because I don’t want to be. You have to believe me on that. You have to trust that I am not doing this because I want to.” He stilled, trying to find the words that would keep whatever the hell this was intact for a little while longer. “I promise, it will all become clear. Just give me some time.”

  “Time…” She shook her head. “Why do I feel like we don’t have a whole lot left?”

  “Because it’s a construct?”

  She shook her head again, but this time she smiled. He loved that damn smile. “Oh, shut up already and kiss me.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Chance left late in the afternoon to change his clothes and to do whatever else it was that he needed to do in his apartment. Meg spent the time that he was gone having a long, hot shower, washing up the plates from breakfast and lunch, putting in a load of laundry, and messaging Kate to let her know what was happening. She also called her mother to try and explain the increase in her heart rate that the rest of the family were now monitoring on an hourly basis. Meg’s vague comments on work and stress were ignored, and explanations were demanded. In the end, purely to get off the phone, Meg found herself agreeing to take part in the local 5K Fun Run. Her mother was delighted. Meg was already wondering how she could simulate a broken ankle.

  She dropped her Android on the couch, picked up her PS4 controller, loaded Crash Bandicoot, and wondered what her mother would think of Chance. Meg’s parents had been married forever and a day. They were best friends. The love between them was only heightened by the fact that they shared so many interests in common. They hiked, they ran, they took part in all kinds of extreme sporting events, and they did them all together. What things did Meg have in common with Chance?

  Even though part of her knew it was way too early to be thinking along these lines, and not least because Chance still hadn’t told her what the hell was going on, Meg found herself considering what she and Chance had in common. She listed the things in her mind as she navigated Crash through the Temple Ruins. It was a very short list.

  She was down to her last life as she thought about what she actually knew about Chance. His job. Yes. She hadn’t seen his actual office, though, or learned anything about his other cases, assuming he had any. Where he lived. No. He hadn’t told her that. His family. No. His friends. No. Hobbies. No.

  Meg lost her final life in one of the fire pits. She threw the controller on the couch. This game drove her mad! So did Chance. Despite the fact that she had been as intimate with him as she had been with anyone in her life, she knew so little about him. That was going to change tonight.

  That
thought was firm in Meg’s mind as she opened the door to him a few hours later. He’d changed into khakis, a crisp white tee, and a pair of sneakers. He looked very young. Meg started. It occurred to her then that she didn’t even know how old he was.

  “How old are you?” she demanded.

  “Thirty-four.”

  “I just imagined what I was going to do if you told me you were twenty-one,” Meg said.

  “And?”

  “I’d be a cougar, wouldn’t I?” Meg said. She eyed the bags in his hands. “I’m guessing you found out my age in your research so that’s all good. What is this?”

  “Dinner.”

  Meg cast the kitchen a look. Breakfast had not gone down very well. Who knew that cracking eggs could be so difficult? Chance had gone out and bought them lunch whilst Meg had napped in the messy bed. Still, she’d had some vague idea that she might cook them dinner. “I was going to make something.”

  Chance laughed. “Which is why I brought it.”

  She rolled her eyes at that and ushered him inside. He placed the bags on the kitchen counter and began unloading them. Meg gave a little clap once she saw them.

  “Japanese?”

  “The place is just around the corner from me,” Chance said. “I’ve been a customer for years. I even went to a couple of their sushi classes last summer. I make a mean California roll.”

  “I love Japanese food,” Meg said as she placed bowls and cutlery on the table. “It’s my lifelong dream to go there.”

  “You’ve never been?”

  Meg pulled out a bottle of white wine, screwed off the lid, and gave them both a hefty glass full. She joined Chance at the table a moment later. He passed her chopsticks. Meg eyed her fork. “You say that like everyone should have.”

  “They should,” Chance said as he broke his chopsticks apart. “There’s nothing quite like that country.”

  “You’ve been?”

  “I lived there for a year.”

  Meg’s eyes widened at that. She’d traveled around Europe with her folks before starting college and had always considered herself well-traveled because of that. But Japan? She and Kate had talked about going for years, but they’d never managed it, and not least because it was horribly expensive.