Friday Night Flights

by Susan X Meagher

  ***

  Casey’s watch vibrated on her arm, giving her the gentle nudge she needed to get her butt in gear. As she moved her arm, it brushed across something warm and pliable. Jerking upright, she blinked in the pre-dawn, seeing that she was right where she’d been at ten o’clock the night before—lying on the polyester pod with Avery.

  Her mind started to race, and she moved away to stand up gingerly to have a moment to get her bearings. What now? Did she wake Avery? Let her sleep and sneak out of the house like a thief? Leave a note thanking her for…what? Being allowed to help wake up her sleeping sex drive? That wouldn’t be too weird.

  Having no idea which of the options was the right one, she took the easy way out. Her coat was hanging off a kitchen chair, and she slipped it on. But Avery looked so alone on that bare pod that she took a fluffy throw from the back of it and gently covered her with it. A note might have been better, but at least she was leaving with the message that she cared—at least enough to stop her from shivering.

  ***

  Casey knew she wasn’t going to be able to act normally until she had time to think about what had happened. But she didn’t have time to indulge in that kind of thing on a Monday morning. Her crew wouldn’t be in until eight, and that didn’t give her long to do what she needed to do to prepare for the start of the week.

  She began every Monday morning by double-checking the sanitation throughout the plant. Even though the staff did a thorough cleaning on Friday afternoon, you couldn’t be too careful. She’d learned her lesson early on when they’d had to dump thousands of gallons of beer down the drain when someone had been sloppy and hadn’t followed procedures. For a small brewery like hers, a mistake like that could cost them their entire profit for the month, so she’d gotten even more fanatical about everything from disinfection to general cleaning.

  After she’d used her keys and punched in the code on the rolling door at the loading dock, she tossed her coat onto the little refrigerator that rested right outside her office. Then she got down to business, grabbing a seat on some stacked pallets, then switching the bottling machine to test mode to watch it work its magic for a while. Doing something she could handle without much thought was helping, and she was pretty sure her hands weren’t shaking any longer.

  Then she got out her testing equipment and made sure the sanitizing water they bathed the bottles in was at the right temp. She worked backwards through the brewing process, testing each component to make sure it was within specs. After checking the CO2 levels of the bright tanks to make sure the pressure relief valves were sealed up tight, she climbed up to the top of one to take a look—even though there was nothing mechanical up there.

  The brewmaster Casey had taken over for had told her a tale of a stray bird building a nest on a tank, and what a pain it had been to sanitize everything after the chicks had hatched. So even though she was sure every tank was bird-free, she still took a look once a week. She was way up on a thirty foot ladder when Ben came in through the regular door.

  “Hello up there,” he called out.

  “Hey. Be down in a minute.”

  She saw him pause in front of their office, obviously noticing she hadn’t gone in yet, but he didn’t comment. By the time she’d finished her rounds, it was seven thirty, and she’d made tick-marks by each of the many boxes on her checklist.

  As she walked into the office, she tossed her clipboard onto the desk. “How’s it going?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

  “Fine.” He looked up at her, with his pale blue eyes seemingly able to look right through her. “What’s up with you?”

  “Nothing. Why?”

  “Mmm. You didn’t come into the office before you started your rounds, I don’t see your thermos, or your mug, and there aren’t any signs you had breakfast. Did you miss your alarm?” He looked at her more carefully. “Did you even comb your hair today?”

  She rolled her eyes. Why did she have to be close friends with the one guy out of a hundred who looked at her hair?

  “Got a late start. No biggie.”

  “Um…” He gave her another look. “You’ve never come to work in nice pants and a regular shirt. You look more like you’re going to visit a client than climb around the equipment on a brew day.”

  She just stared at him, unable to come up with a response that made any sense at all.

  “Did you hook up with someone last night?” His concerned look morphed into a smile. “Did you finally talk a woman out of her clothes?”

  “No,” she said, dropping into her chair so heavily the air left the cushion in a “whoosh.” “Everyone had their clothes on. But I did do something with someone I think I’m going to live to regret. Maybe in the next few hours.”

  “Not Avery,” he said, staring at her hard.

  “Who else do I hang out with lately, other than people from work?”

  “Oh, shit!” He looked absolutely stunned, and she was right behind him. “So? Is this good news? You don’t look very happy.”

  “I don’t know what it is.” She picked up a pen and stuck it into her mouth, gnawing on the plastic cap until her teeth hurt. “Other than weird.”

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she looked at the text.

  Just dropped the baby at my mom’s

  Have time for a coffee break?

  I’m stopping for a cappuccino and I can bring you one

  She gave Ben a grim look and said, “I’m going to make sure everything’s set for the guys, then I’m going on a coffee break. If anything comes up, text me.”

  “Where are you going to be?”

  “In the parking lot, I guess. Avery’s bringing me a cappuccino.”

  “Oh, boy,” he said, shaking his head. “When a woman has to look you in the eye after you have sex…”

  “We didn’t have sex.” She stopped and corrected that. “Well, we didn’t have real sex. Thanks for the vote of confidence, by the way,” she grumbled, heading out to pace around the production floor, waiting for her call.

  ***

  Avery was a nervous wreck. She’d woken as Casey closed the front door, and hadn’t been able to think of another thing since that moment. She was sure her mom was puzzled when Lisbet was in her arms an hour early, but if she didn’t have a minute or two with Casey alone she wasn’t going to be able to get a thing done.

  She’d just put her car into park when Casey came loping across the parking lot, still dressed in the nice clothes she’d worn the day before. She looked so cute it was hard to concentrate, with that oatmeal-colored jacket showing off the rich darkness of her hair, which was much more tousled than normal.

  The door opened and she slid in. Avery could see her bare hand shaking when she accepted the paper cup, and she didn’t think it was from the cold—even though every other person in town was wearing gloves, a down coat, and a hat.

  Avery steeled her nerves and spit out the first thought she’d had that morning. “Did I guilt trip you into doing something you didn’t want to do?”

  “What?” Casey was looking at her like she was talking gibberish, which was a good sign.

  “You heard me. I’ve been thinking that I might have made you feel sorry for me, and that I kind of maneuvered you into…”

  “Avery,” she said, her voice low and raspy. “You didn’t guilt-trip me into anything.” She took a long sip of her coffee, saying, “Even though it’s a little cold, this really hits the spot. I didn’t have time to get breakfast.” She gave Avery a slow smile. “It was so cozy lying on the pod that I almost slept through my alarm.”

  “So…we’re good?”

  “I’m good,” she said, with a slight smile showing. “Are you good?”

  “I’m very good. My dear friend helped me realize my baby-making parts could turn back into fun parts.” She turned a little in her seat so she could see Casey’s expression full-on. “But I want to make sure things aren’t weird between us.”

  “Well, it’s a little weird because
I now know you can nearly have an orgasm from having your ears nibbled on, but other than that…”

  “Oh, god,” Avery said, covering her face with her mittens. “That’s not something you should have to know.”

  “Let’s even it out,” Casey said, with an impish grin revealing itself. “Backs of my knees, and sometimes across my ribs. Kissing, nibbling… Just about anything works. I’m not sure I can get hot as quickly as you did, but I’m willing to make that my new goal.”

  “Thank you,” Avery said, grasping her free hand and squeezing it. “I was beside myself when I woke up, worried that my being so needy had screwed things up between us.”

  “You were needy,” Casey said, her voice filled with tenderness. “We all get needy. And the next time it happens to me, I want to be able to talk to you about it. I doubt I’ll need you to reassure me that I’m still desirable because…” She chuckled softly. “I’ve got a pretty good body-image. But I’m sensitive about other things. Next time one of them’s bothering me, I’ll want a sympathetic ear. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Avery said, grasping her hand again and shaking it. “Promise you’ll tell me if anything else comes up? I want to make sure our relationship is solid.”

  “As a rock,” she said, smiling once again. “Now I’ve got to go make sure we’re making our Dark and Stormy Ale according to spec. I don’t want my guys to get creative.”

  “Thank you again,” Avery said as Casey tossed the door open.

  “Thank you for the coffee. It’s hard to make good beer on an empty stomach.”

  “I didn’t bring you anything to eat! I can go get something. Really.”

  “Go home, Avery, and get to work. No one’s going to cover those stories in red ink if you’re not on the job.”

  “See you Wednesday? If not before.”

  “I’m bringing the birthday cake. If I’m not there, the party can’t start.”

  ***

  Casey was on the production floor for the entire morning, keeping a close eye on every element. She loved brewing in the winter, when the heat they generated made the whole building warm as toast. The smells the brewing process gave off also made her feel warm and cosy on an otherwise cold, glum day. She hoped she’d recall some of these pleasant thoughts when it was July and a hundred and five in the building, but she doubted she would. A hot plant sucked. Always.

  Every time she’d looked toward her office, Ben had his chair turned around, keeping an eye on her. He loved good gossip more than anyone she knew, and having to wait to hear what had happened with Avery was clearly driving him crazy. But she couldn’t take another break. It didn’t send a good message to her guys.

  They paused at noon on the button for lunch, and she went into her office to see Ben facing the door, eyes bright. He kicked the door closed and rolled his chair close to her desk. “Details. All of them.”

  “Damn, man! Don’t I get to eat today?”

  “Did you bring anything?”

  “I ran out of Avery’s house and didn’t stop. She brought me a coffee, but that’s not going to get me through the day.”

  He rolled back to his desk, opened up his brown paper bag, and handed her a sandwich. “I’m keeping the pulled pork. You get the chicken.”

  She looked at it suspiciously, with him adding, “Julie made it. It’s got avocado on it, which I know you like.”

  “I wouldn’t normally steal from you, but I can see you’re not going to let me leave.” She unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite. “Good. My compliments to the chef.”

  “Details,” he said firmly. Given he hadn’t taken a bit of his other sandwich, he wasn’t fooling around.

  She thought as she chewed, not wanting to reveal too much about Avery, but knowing her story wouldn’t make sense if she didn’t give away some pretty big details. “Okay. Avery had a tough day yesterday. She was feeling down about herself, her prospects, her sex life… Everything.”

  “Really? I’d think she’d have her pick of women. She’s cute as hell…smart…good sense of humor…calm…”

  “I know, I know. But she’s been single for a while, and she’s convinced herself she’s not going to find anyone. Her body took kind of a beating from having Lisbet—”

  “I think that’s true for most women,” he said, making a face. “Julie felt bad about her body for two or three years after she had Benji.”

  “Really? You never said…”

  “Really,” he said solemnly. “That’s the main reason I didn’t want to have more kids, to be honest. Having her body change so dramatically took a toll on her that surprised the hell out of me, since I was still as attracted to her as ever. Pregnancy screws with you.”

  “Yeah,” she said, grateful he got it. “So… We were sitting on her sofa, and I held her while she cried. We’ve never been close like that, but it felt like the right thing to do.”

  “Makes sense. Just for the record, I’d hold you if you ever cried.”

  “Same here,” she said, laughing at the image. “But we probably shouldn’t do it at work. People will talk.”

  “So you held her. She cried. That’s not enough to make you look like you’d seen a ghost this morning.”

  “It wasn’t. That started when she kind of fell to her side and I was still hanging on.”

  His eyes got wide as she continued. “Then I started touching her arm, and her leg, and one thing led to another…”

  “You went for it?”

  “I kind of did,” she admitted, ignoring the fact that his mouth had fallen open. “It was super weird at first, but then I started talking dirty, and she started to like it…”

  “You were talking dirty? Jesus!” He jumped to his feet and was staring at her like she was an alien life form.

  “It seemed like the right thing to do,” she said, feeling a little defensive. “I wanted to show her that she was desirable, and could enjoy sex again with just a little effort. And…” She held up her hands. “She did.”

  “God damn,” he said. He dropped back to his seat, picked up a folder from her desk, and fanned himself dramatically. “This is better than the day Pete told us about that threesome he fell into.”

  “Pete had a threesome? I’m surprised he can get a twosome.”

  “Alcohol was involved,” Ben said. “A lot of it from what I can tell.”

  “Well, I’m glad I’ve topped Pete in the hot stories at work competition. But if you tell the other guys…”

  “Never,” he said. “But I have to tell Julie. Even if I try not to, it’ll come out. You know that, right?”

  “I know that,” she said. “You can tell Julie anything I tell you. I consider you two a single person.”

  “So? How’d it go when you had coffee?”

  “Good. Better than I thought it would. She believes the stuff I said was made up, and is convinced I was just being a good friend.”

  “You weren’t?”

  “Oh, yeah, I was, I guess. But I meant all of the stuff I said. I’d give a lot to make love to Avery.”

  “Since when? You’ve insisted you’re not into her.”

  “I’m not sure,” she said honestly. “Things just changed kind of slowly. Once I’d convinced myself she wasn’t a jerk, I started to look at her more like a pretty woman than my new friend’s mom.”

  “Then…why don’t you go for it? I got the impression she’d be up for it. No?”

  “She might be.” She let out a sigh. “Okay. She would be. But things are great between us now, Ben, and I don’t want to screw that up.”

  “But you could have everything you want! A wife, a baby…”

  “And my wife and my baby would be in Brooklyn. Avery’s dead-set that she’s going to raise Lisbet in the city, and that’s not something I could ever do.”

  “No doubt there” he said, leaning back in his chair like the air had been taken from him. “You’re still grumbling about driving down there, and that was months ago.”

  “Yeah. Brooklyn’s only a
hundred miles away, but it felt like another planet to me. A planet I don’t want to explore.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not going to do anything now,” Casey said, having made up her mind in a matter of seconds. “But if she changes her mind and decides to stick around, I’d be willing to give it a try.”

  He smiled at her. “That’s not an overwhelming endorsement.”

  “Well,” she shrugged. “She’s kind of an intellectual, and I’m kind of not.”

  “You’re definitely not,” he said, laughing. “You’re a doer, not a dreamer.”

  “True. I think she’s into people like her, so she’d have to stretch to be into me.”

  “But you’re very open-minded when it comes to choosing a woman. You’ve been all over the map. An intellectual wouldn’t be a problem for you.”

  “Maybe. But I’ve let two women go when they left the Hudson Valley. I’d rather be single forever than move to Brooklyn, Ben. I’d say I’d hate it, but hate’s not a strong enough word. I’d be miserable, and the last thing Lisbet needs is a miserable…other person who’s not her mother.”

  Ben cocked his head, looking at her with a puzzled half-smile. She could have told him about the term, but he’d had enough gossip for one day.

  ***

  Avery was much less edgy when she arrived home after the chilly coffee break in the parking lot. Casey had seemed very much like herself, and that was a huge relief. But she was still thinking about it every few minutes, with the images from the night before pulling her out of her train of thought.

  Casey hadn’t technically done anything spectacular. Having someone slide their hand down her pants wasn’t a unique experience for Avery. But she’d done it in such a sexy way. A way that worked amazingly well for Avery’s libido.

  She’d had a good number of hookups through the years, and knew that you couldn’t always tell who you’d spark with. She’d been out with some women who were one hundred percent her type, and they hadn’t had enough chemistry to turn a reagent strip purple. But just a few gentle touches from Casey, and her body woke up from its long, long nap.