Fare Game

by Cade Haddock Strong

  The grocery store near her house was a zoo, and she cursed under her breath when someone rammed their cart into her heel while she was sorting through a mound of tomatoes. She turned around to give them a piece of her mind but aborted her rant when her cell phone jingled. She glanced at the caller ID. It was Ethan, her best friend since high school. She hesitated before answering. A little girl in a pink tutu was having a complete meltdown in the produce department and Kay was not sure she’d be able to carry on a conversation over the racket. Still, she decided to try. She hadn’t talked to Ethan since he and his husband Derek returned from their honeymoon. “Hey, Ethan.”

  Ethan’s deep laugh filled her ear. “Did you decide to adopt a child while I was out of the country?” he asked.

  “Hah, good one, Ethan. No, I’m in the grocery store and there’s this little girl, never mind, how was your trip?”

  “Fucking fantastic but let me call you later when you’re home. I’ll walk you through the photos Derek posted online. What are you doing at the grocery store, anyway? I thought you only ate takeout.”

  “Remind me again why we’re friends… For your information, I have a date. I’m cooking her dinner.”

  “Ooh, pulling out all the stops. Does she know you can’t cook worth shit?”

  “Just because I don’t cook doesn’t mean I can’t.”

  “Who is she? Last I checked, you were a swinging single.”

  “She works at Logan,” Kay said as she maneuvered her cart toward the meat department and away from the tutu meltdown.

  “Uh-oh, a coworker?”

  “You’re the lawyer, but last time I checked, it wasn’t a crime to have relations with a coworker. Plus, we’re in totally different departments. She works in Finance.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Anyway, when I was in Tokyo last week, we sorta happened to fall into bed together.”

  “I see. Mixing business with pleasure, are we?”

  “I’ve had a crush on her forever. It’s not like I fell into bed with any old coworker.”

  “Okay, okay. Speaking of which, how are things going at good old Logan these days.”

  Ethan was the only person Kay’d told about Concordia. “Not so great. I can’t get into it now, not in public, but the whole”—Kay paused to pull a number from the ticket machine at the meat counter.

  “The whole price fixing thing,” Ethan finished for her.

  Kay knocked over a display of Hamburger Helper. “Shhh. Jesus, Eth.” She tucked her phone between her ear and her shoulder and picked up the boxes she’d sent scattering across the floor. “It’s getting out of hand. I’m in deep and I’m scared shitless.”

  “Oh, sweetheart. I’m here for you.”

  “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you over the weekend.”

  Kay ended the call just as her number came up on the LED display above the meat counter. Ethan was right about one thing, she was a miserable cook although she could grill a mean steak. She ordered two ribeyes and set them next to the salad fixings in her cart.

  After a quick pass through the wine and cheese section, she paid and hurried back out to her car, but stopped dead in her tracks when she spotted a car that looked suspiciously like Greg’s, pulling out of a nearby parking spot. The tinted windows prevented her from seeing the driver, but how many canary yellow Porsches could there be in Atlanta? Greg lived on the opposite side of town, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She snatched the bags out of her cart and ducked behind a parked car until the coast was clear. Greg was the last person she wanted to see right now.

  Chapter Twelve

  A Taylor Swift song blared through the car speakers and Riley tapped to the beat as she made her way home Saturday afternoon. That morning she’d decided she hated every single thing in her closet and had promptly set off for the mall, determined to find something suitable to wear to dinner at Kay’s. She’d splurged on a new pair of jeans, which, in her opinion, were way better than the seven pair she already had, and a billowy orange top that the saleswoman said beautifully set off her rich blue eyes. She was such a pushover.

  It was almost five o’clock by the time she got home. That didn’t leave her much time. She was due at Kay’s at seven. She cut the tags off her new outfit and laid it out on the bed. After she’d showered and dressed, there was just enough time to put a few curls in her hair. On her way out the door, she grabbed the bottle of wine she’d bought earlier that day—being the good southerner she was, she’d no sooner run down main street naked than show up at someone’s doorstep emptyhanded.

  The clock on Riley’s dashboard read 6:59 when she pulled into Kay’s driveway and the front door opened before she was even out of the car.

  “My alarm dings when someone pulls in the driveway,” Kay explained.

  Riley climbed the front steps. “You mean you weren’t standing at the window eagerly awaiting my arrival?”

  “Busted,” Kay said with a laugh and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Come on in.”

  Riley handed her the bottle of wine and stepped into the foyer where she could see straight through to the back of the house. “Oh, wow, Kay. This place is amazing.” Like most of the other Craftsmen in the Virginia Highland neighborhood, the house was probably built in the 1920’s; however, its interior was extremely contemporary.

  “Thanks, and thanks for the wine. Let me show you around.”

  They wandered into the living room, its walls covered with what looked like African and Asian art, through a formal dining room and finally into the kitchen near the back of the house. “Okay, I have serious kitchen envy,” Riley said as she ran her hand over the polished concrete countertops and cooed at the six burner Wolf stove. “You must be quite the cook.”

  “Ah, not so much. I’m sorry to report this kitchen is woefully underutilized.”

  “That is a crime, you know that?”

  “Yeah, I know. I keep saying I’ll learn to cook… Here, let me show you my favorite room.” Kay took Riley’s hand and led her into a small sunroom off the kitchen. The room’s furnishings were overshadowed by a wall of floor-to-ceiling shelves full of books. “Oh. I see why you love this room. It’s so cozy, and in my opinion, you can never have too many books.”

  “Yeah, I spend almost all of my time in here, and you should see it in the morning. The sun just beams in.”

  They continued their tour, passing a small den and a powder room before heading upstairs where there were two small bedrooms, one with two twin beds and the other dominated by a massive wooden desk, a Jack and Jill bathroom between them, and a master suite. When they entered the master bedroom, Riley oohed and aahhed. It was much more spacious than the other bedrooms, and it had a nook outlined with more bookshelves. A large, colorful area rug covered much of the hardwood floors and two skylights floated over the bed. “Well, that’s the grand tour,” Kay said as they made their way back downstairs. “Now how about we get you a glass of wine? Would you prefer red or white?”

  “Whatever you have open is fine.”

  “I’ve got plenty of both. We’re having steak for dinner, but it’s unseasonably warm for this time of year. What do you say we start with white and move to red for dinner?”

  “That sounds perfect.”

  Kay opened a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and poured them each a glass. “Why don’t we sit out on the back patio? It’s supposed to get chilly once the sun goes down, but it’s still pretty nice out there.”

  “We might as well sit outside while we still can. Old Man Winter will be here soon enough.”

  “Winters here are nothing. At least not compared to those they get up in New York.”

  “I know, I’m a total softy. I go into full hermit mode when it drops below freezing.”

  Kay scooped up their wineglasses and nodded toward a small tray of cheese and crackers on the kitchen island. “Can you grab that?”

  Riley obliged and followed her outside.

  The backyard was beautifully landscaped. A low sto
ne wall encircled the flagstone patio, separating it from a small grassy area, and a tall wooden fence ran the perimeter of the property.

  Two lounge chairs and a small table were neatly arranged in front of a gas fire pit. “I know it’s a little warm, but do you mind if I turn on the fire?” Kay asked. “I love watching the flames and it doesn’t give off that much heat.”

  Riley settled into one of the chairs. “I don’t mind at all. That would be nice.” The sun was low in the sky and she could already feel a small nip in the air.

  Kay pressed a button to start the fire and sat down next to her. “They say it could drop into the forties overnight and they’re calling for rain all day tomorrow.”

  “Well, all the more reason to sit out and enjoy the nice weather tonight.”

  Kay propped her feet up on the fire pit. “I couldn’t agree more.” Just then the watch on her arm buzzed. She glanced down at it and grimaced. “Shit, that’s a call from Greg. I need to take it. I’m sorry. I’ll be right back.”

  Riley watched her retreat into the house. That poor woman. Greg never left her alone.

  Kay looked shaken when she returned to the fire. She took a long sip of wine and then apologized again for having to take the call.

  “I heard about that crazy low sale fare that was filed by mistake. Is that what Greg was calling about?”

  “Nah, he has a bee up his ass about, another matter,” Kay replied.

  “I figured he’d be furious about the fare mistake.”

  “He wasn’t happy about it, but let’s just say he’s got bigger fish to fry. That, and luckily, the transatlantic pricing team was pretty quick to get the erroneous fare out of the system.”

  Riley thought dealing with the aftermath of a forty-nine-dollar fare to London would be of umpteen importance, but what did she know. “Did you rip into the person who made the mistake?”

  Kay shook her head. “That’s not my style. The person who made the mistake feels bad enough about it. We all make mistakes and me causing a huge stink about it wasn’t going to fix the problem. Let’s just say, I feel confident that the person won’t make the same mistake again. The problem is, these types of errors are made so much worse in the world of Twitter.”

  “Twitter?”

  “Yeah, Twitter can be both a blessing and a curse in our business. Back in the old days, when a fare was filed by mistake, we might sell a dozen or so tickets before we caught the error. Nowadays, as soon as even one person stumbles on the fare, it goes viral on Twitter and other social media outlets and thousands of people snap up tickets before we have a chance to react.”

  “But I bet that also means Logan is made aware of the error sooner than they might be?”

  “True,” Kay said. “In that case, Twitter can be a blessing.”

  Riley shrugged. “I’m clueless about the world of pricing, but aren’t there safeguards built into the pricing software to catch an abnormally low fare before it’s filed and available for sale?”

  Kay chuckled. “Yes, our system has lots of protections built in and it generally does a good job, but airline pricing is insanely complicated. The forty-nine-dollar fare that was filed yesterday was actually legit, it just wasn’t supposed to be widely available. It was intended for one corporate client, but the restrictions were entered incorrectly, and just like that, it was available to anyone and everyone.”

  “I read somewhere once that, if you look around a plane, it’s likely every single person on that flight paid a different fare.”

  “I’d say that’s probably true. Like I said, airline pricing is incredibly complex.”

  Neither of them spoke for several long moments. The last sliver of light vanished from the sky as they sipped their wine and stared into the fire. Riley was again struck by how comfortable she felt in Kay’s presence. There was nothing awkward about the silence and it was refreshing to sit with someone and not feel compelled to speak. She reached over and curled her hand around Kay’s.

  “I suppose I should go ahead and fire up the grill,” Kay said eventually.

  “Well, you did promise me dinner,” Riley said with a smile, “although I’ve got to admit, you’re going to have a hard time dragging me away from this fire.”

  Kay stood and walked over toward the grill. “If the temperature doesn’t drop too quickly, we can eat out here.”

  “I’d like that. What can I do to help with dinner?”

  “Nothing. We’re having steak and salad, pretty simple. Just sit and enjoy the fire.”

  After dinner, Riley insisted on helping with the dishes. “You cooked, it’s the least I can do.”

  “More wine?” Kay asked when they were done.

  “Yes, please. I’d love some more of that red we had with dinner. It was delicious.”

  “It is good, isn’t it? I’m embarrassed to admit I only bought it because I thought the label was cool.”

  Riley laughed. “I like you more every minute. All my wine buying decisions are based solely on whether I like the label or not.”

  “Why don’t you make yourself comfortable in the sunroom and I’ll bring you out a glass?”

  “Okay, thanks.” She wandered into the adjoining room and scanned the photographs that dotted the bookshelves. There was one of Kay with a group Riley assumed was her family at a ski area, and then another one of Kay at the controls of a small aircraft. She chuckled when her eyes moved to a teenage Kay posing with her soccer team. Kay was holding a big trophy and her baggy uniform stood out next to the short shorts and snug tops worn by her teammates.

  “What’s so funny?” Kay asked when she entered the room.

  Riley turned to face her. “Just looking at some of your photos. I love that you were such a little tomboy.”

  Kay handed her a glass of wine. “Yeah, big time. Still am.”

  “What was the trophy for?” Riley asked.

  Kay gave her a blank look and Riley pointed toward the bookshelf. “In the photo with your soccer team.”

  “Oh, we won the state championship,” Kay said. “I think that picture was taken my senior year of high school.”

  “You don’t remember what year you won the championship?”

  “It’s just, well, we won the championship all four years I was on the team.”

  Riley rolled her eyes playfully. “Of course you did. What position did you play?”

  “Forward.”

  “Let me guess. You were the team’s leading scorer.”

  Kay blushed slightly. “Only my junior and senior year.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  Kay took a sip of her wine and eyed Riley over the rim of her glass. “Did you play?”

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t that great. I made varsity but I spent most of my time warming the bench. I liked it though. Being part of a team, I mean.”

  “Yeah, that was my favorite part about it too. The camaraderie and all that. I actually miss playing on a team like that,” Kay replied. “We should kick the ball around sometime.”

  Riley nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, that would be fun. It’s been ages since I touched a soccer ball. As you know, I play on one of the Logan softball teams but I’ve always preferred soccer as a sport.”

  “I’m with you. Softball is okay, but I was always a lot more passionate about soccer.”

  Riley glanced back at the photos on the bookshelf. “What about this one?” she asked, pointing to one of Kay in a dress. “It must have been a special occasion.”

  “Ha, yeah. It was my oldest brother’s wedding. I was still in high school. In fact, that may have been the first time I ever wore a dress, or at least the first time I wore one without shorts underneath. I refused to wear a dress until I was like sixteen.”

  Riley giggled. “Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear a dress. You rock the high heels, though,” she said, “and your power suits are as sexy as hell.”

  Kay gently nudged Riley with her hip. “Oh, they are, huh?”

/>   “Yeah, when you strut around the office in one of those—”

  “I do not strut.”

  Riley burst out laughing. “Uh, yeah, you kind of do. Don’t get me wrong. It’s hot, really hot.”

  Kay set her wineglass down on the bookshelf and snaked her arms around Riley’s waist, pulling them together. Riley let out a whimper when their lips touched. The kiss was tender but incredibly sensual and it left her feeling completely dazed. How was it that one kiss from Kay could throw her so off balance?

  “You okay?” Kay asked.

  “Yeah, it’s just, kissing you… It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced.”

  “I hope in a good way?”

  Riley nodded and gave her a soft smile. “Yeah, in a really good way.” She tugged Kay’s shirt gently and pulled her into another, deeper kiss. When they broke apart, Riley’s body was on fire. She brushed tentative fingers over Kay’s breast.

  Kay arched back against the bookcase.

  “Kay?” Riley asked, her voice cracking slightly.

  “Yeah?”

  “Will you take me to bed?”

  A smile crossed Kay’s face. “What happened to getting to know each other better first?”

  “Hmm, yeah that. Around you I have no willpower. Zilch.”

  Without another word, Kay grabbed Riley’s hand and led her upstairs to the bedroom. The room was dark, absent the moonlight shining through the skylights over the bed. Kay wrapped her arms around Riley’s waist and left a trail of soft kisses along her neck. A moan escaped Riley’s mouth as Kay nibbled the soft spot behind her ear, and when their lips finally came together, the throbbing in her groin was on full blast.

  Without breaking the kiss, Riley drew Kay down to the bed and attacked her mouth with renewed vigor. When their lips finally broke apart, Riley rolled over and straddled Kay’s waist. She reached up and pulled her own shirt off before turning her attention to the buttons on Kay’s blouse. She ran her fingers over Kay’s taut stomach before reaching back to unlatch her bra. Her hands slid over Kay’s silky bare breasts, her arousal flaring as she felt nipples harden in response to her touch.