The Christmas Gamble

by Sienna Ciles

  “For sure, she never seems to post much about what she does outside of work,” someone pointed out.

  “I just don’t ever think to talk about things I do in my free time,” Bethany said, shrugging it off.

  “Why not? It seems like everyone’s trying to live that aspirational life,” one of the women at the table--I was pretty sure she was some kind of marketer--said.

  “I think--if I can speak for you, babe--that Bethany’s so busy living her life to the fullest that it just doesn’t come up,” I said.

  “That’s exactly it,” Bethany said.

  The dinner was good enough that I could comment on it; apparently one of the people at our table had been involved in the planning for the events somehow, so I could pretend to be an expert, commenting on the doneness of the steak, or the sauce on the chicken--things like that. Everything started going more smoothly at that point as people started drinking and just took for granted that of course Bethany had a date, and of course I was who I said I was.

  I wondered just how long the whole thing was going to be--it didn’t seem like the kind of event that was designed to be hours long, but everyone seemed to want to talk to everyone. I met Bethany’s best friend, Jess--who gave me a knowing look and took Bethany aside for a few minutes. I wondered just how much Jess knew about Bethany’s real life, and whether Bethany had clued her friend in about our scheme.

  “James, you said that you and Bethany have been living together for six months?” someone asked.

  “Yeah--she finally agreed to let me stay with her,” I replied.

  “I thought she’d moved in with you?”

  I shook my head. “No--I moved in with her. Her place has the bigger kitchen,” I said with a grin. “And a bigger bedroom.”

  “When is your anniversary?” the woman asked.

  I blanked--I absolutely blanked. We hadn’t even set a specific date for when we would have started dating.

  “Don’t tell her,” I told the woman, leaning in, “but I was hoping to make it an anniversary week--I’m working out the details now.”

  “What kind of details?”

  I grinned more broadly. “Hotel room, out of town, the whole nine,” I said. “Thankfully I have plenty of friends in the industry to help me out with prime places to stay, and a few of my classmates are willing to hold a table for me at their restaurants.”

  “It sounds like a dream,” the woman said, shaking her head slowly, almost in disbelief.

  I had to fight back the urge to laugh again, thinking about how ridiculous everything Bethany and I had claimed was.

  Bethany came back then and I gestured to the woman to keep her silence on my supposed plans--I’d need to figure out with Bethany later when to say our anniversary was. After the dishes were all cleared, someone put on some music, and while one or two people got up and danced a bit, it wasn’t really the right vibe for it, so Bethany and I just wandered around, hand in hand, talking to people.

  I pulled her aside at one point, pretending I wanted to get her alone for reasons other than talk. “When’s our anniversary?”

  “Oh shit,” she said, staring at me. “We never even thought of that.”

  “Well, figure out which event I was supposed to have catered, and we can go from there,” I suggested.

  “Did someone already ask you about it?” she asked, her forehead crinkling with worry.

  “I told them I was going to try and make us an anniversary week, and I think she bought it,” I told her.

  “Good, good,” Bethany said. “I’ll have to figure something out once we go home--figure out when to say we started dating.”

  “I mean, we could pick a date more or less at random,” I pointed out. “As long as we both go for it, nobody can really question it.”

  “But I want to make sure it’s feasible, in case someone remembers me posting about the catering at one of the events, or something like that,” Bethany countered.

  “First of all, I doubt anyone remembers more than maybe a quarter of what you post in terms of specifics,” I said. “Secondly, as long as it’s just about a year ago they’re not really going to think about it too hard.”

  “Yeah well--you thought we knew all we needed to about each other when we came in, and we obviously didn’t,” Bethany said.

  I had to admit she had a point about that.

  “I’ll keep up the ‘week-long anniversary’ thing for now,” I suggested.

  “And if anyone asks me, I’ll just say that I don’t remember the specific day of our first date, but it’s in my calendar,” Bethany said.

  I snickered. “We’re setting ourselves up for me to be the romantic, I guess?” I leaned in as some people passed by, trying to make it look like we were kissing in the dark little alcove.

  “We? You’re the one setting that up,” Bethany pointed out, grinning slightly. “I like it though, don’t get me wrong.”

  “No woman in her right mind would dislike it,” I said. “We’ll get through the night well enough, and tomorrow we’ll figure out how to make the rest of this happen without any catches.”

  Bethany nodded. “We should head back to the table, I think the event’s almost over,” she suggested.

  I took her hand and led her away, wiping at my mouth surreptitiously to make people think I was trying to make sure I didn’t have any lipstick there.

  Chapter Nine

  Bethany

  Just as the dinner was wrapping up, the president of the class stood and came onto the PA system that the cafeteria maintained.

  “I don’t want to alarm anyone, but according to a report from the airport, they’ve gotten a weather advisory for this weekend,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?” Someone--I thought it sounded a bit like John Hill, one of the class clowns from when we’d been in school--called out from across the room.

  “We may need to make some changes to the events schedule, and we all might be trapped here for an extra day or two. According to the National Weather Service, we’re going to be snowed in with extremely low temperatures through the weekend.”

  Groans echoed all around the cafeteria.

  “What does that mean for the events? And why are we going to be trapped?” someone asked.

  “If the temperatures get too low, it’s actually dangerous to fly, apparently, and the snow is going to be thick--they’re saying that they can clear the streets within the town, but roads out might be blocked, and the airport will be snowed in,” Madison explained. “So, we’ll move some of the events inside, and we might have to stay an extra day or two--all of us--until they’re able to clear the roads out of town.”

  There were grumbles throughout the cafeteria, but I wasn’t all that worried. I’d driven into town, and I could work from home if I had to. Madison finished by telling us that the snow was supposed to start in a few hours--earlier than they’d originally expected--and that we should all probably get back to our hotels or whatever houses we were staying in, to settle in for the night before the weather got too bad.

  Ransom and I gathered up my purse and keys and said our goodbyes, and headed out with the rest of the people who weren’t staying within blocks of the school. Some of the people at the dinner were staying behind to help clean up and make sure the cafeteria was closed down properly, but I didn’t have any responsibility or obligation.

  “Here, take my jacket,” Ransom suggested as I shivered in the cold. The temperature was really dropping fast, and I thought it had to be below freezing already--it would definitely be frigid in a few hours, and not worth even wanting to go outside by morning. Ransom draped his jacket over me and I huddled in it until we got to my car.

  “You drive,” I suggested, handing him the keys from my purse. It would--I thought--look more couple-like for him to drive us, even if the thought of someone else taking the wheel of my precious car was enough to put me on edge.

  “You’re really committed to looking like we’re together, aren’t you?” Ransom did
n’t argue with me though, and in a moment or two we were in the car, the heat turned up as high as it would go.

  “How do you think we did?” I asked.

  “I think we did fine,” Ransom replied. “We had to improvise a couple of times, but like I said before, even people who have dated for years don’t know some things about each other.”

  “We need to work more on your cover,” I pointed out. “And I almost slipped once or twice and called you Ransom instead of James.”

  “We can cover for that if it happens again,” Ransom said.

  I frowned. “I don’t know. It just...I want it to be airtight.”

  Ransom looked at me from the driver’s seat and shrugged. “I mean, if you really want to show off, we could get a hotel room where the rest of the class is staying--the people who don’t have houses here--and that way we’d be on display pretty constantly.”

  I thought about that. “We’d have to share a room,” I countered. “And we’d have to get a one-bed suite.”

  Ransom laughed. “Do you really think people would check?”

  “At some point, if we’re staying in the same hotel as other people in the class, they’re going to come visit me,” I told him. “If they see us sharing a room that has two beds in it, they’re going to suspect something.”

  “Not everyone is staying at the same hotel,” Ransom observed. “We could just pick one that doesn’t have a lot of people at it.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I thought about it for a long moment. If they were going to make changes to the program for the reunion weekend, it might actually be better overall to be close to some of my classmates; that way I’d know what was happening. “Fine--let’s go to the Clairmont,” I suggested.

  “The Clairmont? Oooh la la,” Ransom said, turning the car around to head in that direction. “Fancy.”

  “It’s where they’re supposed to be having the big dance on Sunday,” I said. “I figure there’s probably a handful of people staying there, and at least a few of them are probably the people in charge.”

  “And that way we can flaunt what a good couple we are for the people most likely to gossip about it,” Ransom added.

  I grinned; I couldn’t help myself. “If I’m going to have a big phony boyfriend with me at the events and stuff, I might as well make the most of it.”

  “We’ll get the room and then--if you’re okay with it--I’ll go back to your place and get our stuff,” Ransom suggested.

  “I didn’t unpack very much,” I said, more thinking out loud than actually saying anything meaningful. The thought of Ransom going up to my room and gathering up my things gave me a combination of thrills and worry. There was something about him that I couldn’t quite shake--something that had actually deepened on seeing how he danced to the beat of the social atmosphere at the dinner. He’d been everything a girl could want in a boyfriend, and I had to admit that if I’d had any interest in actually dating anyone, it would probably be someone like him.

  “I promise I won’t snoop in your underwear drawer,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Let’s just see if the Clairmont has a room for us. If they do, we’ll figure out how to get our stuff there. If not, then we’ll just go home and it won’t matter,” I said.

  Ransom nodded his agreement and we passed by the school again. I could see that more and more people were leaving, heading in different directions.

  “You’re sure you want to try this?” As Ransom pulled into the parking lot for the Clairmont Hotel, he almost seemed to want to stop the car before we even made it to a space.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” I asked.

  Ransom looked over at me and held my gaze for a long moment. “Because if we get a room here, and your classmates are in the hotel, too, we’re going to have to be ‘on’ constantly.”

  I took a deep breath. “As long as we’re alone in the room it won’t be a problem--will it?”

  “We should be fine there,” he admitted.

  “And I’m guessing that we won’t constantly be surrounded by people from the school. There’s bound to be some time when we’re at breakfast or whatever that there’s hardly anyone,” I pointed out.

  “As long as you’re sure you want to go this route, I’m down for it,” Ransom said. “Just wanted to make sure you were one hundred percent.” I looked at the entrance to the hotel, and spotted two of my classmates going in. It would increase the pressure, but I’d always worked well in stressful situations.

  “Let’s do it,” I said. “Even beyond everything else, it’s going to be so cold I’m not going to want to deal with running around in this weather--we might as well be at the center of things.”

  Ransom nodded again, and pulled into a spot, and I mentally set myself to put the show back on. It couldn’t be that much harder, after all, and it would--hopefully--make the point even more strongly, that Ransom and I were staying in a room together. We could work out the details as we went along.

  Chapter Ten

  Ransom

  There were about a half-dozen people waiting around in line at the reception desk at the hotel, and I recognized one of the people Bethany and I had talked to at the dinner; clearly we weren’t the only ones from the reunion who’d decided to stay close to the center of the action.

  “How are we going to do this?” Bethany asked.

  I looked at Bethany, confused. Hadn’t we only just discussed that issue? “What do you mean?”

  Bethany raised an eyebrow as we came closer to the line. “I mean, who’s going to pay?”

  “I’ll cover it on my card,” I said, reaching an arm out and pulling Bethany closer for the sake of the visual. She fit just perfectly next to me--that helped, at least. She came up just about to my chest, the way we were standing. Ideal height for a woman: just tall enough. I hadn’t really noticed it before just because we were so busy making a show for everyone. “You can reimburse me after the mission, if you feel like you have to.”

  “I’d feel better paying it myself,” she said.

  I gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You’re my girlfriend, and I’m a guy with a decent job--an independent contractor and business owner. I should pay,” I insisted.

  In truth, it was just that I didn’t particularly care. I had plenty of money to play around with, and looking around at the Clairmont lobby, it wasn’t an especially expensive hotel. If I remembered correctly, they had a decent ballroom--that would be a good setting for the reunion “prom”--but they weren’t the most up-to-date, and they were in a town where they really couldn’t afford to price themselves out of range.

  “Fine, fine,” Bethany said. We were finally up to the group hanging out waiting for rooms, and Bethany said hello to one of her old classmates.

  “I thought the two of you were staying at your parents’ place,” the woman--I thought I remembered her name being Chelsea or something like that--said.

  “We decided it would be better to stay close to the action,” I told her.

  “Besides which, we can always make a run to the house if we need anything,” Bethany added.

  “That’s a good point. I was going to stay at my mom’s place, since she’s down in Barbados for the weekend, but it’s so cold and I don’t want to end up stranded there if the blizzard locks us all down,” the friend agreed.

  I zoned out a bit, taking part in the conversation just enough to make it look like I was paying attention, and waited. I wanted to get our room, and get Bethany set up there, and get my stuff from her place--and sure, her stuff too, assuming I had any way of figuring out what she wanted me to bring. I was tired of being around a bunch of people I didn’t know, and pretending to be in love with Bethany. It wasn’t that it was hard to be around her, exactly, but it was tiring to keep up the facade, especially with all the socializing. It’ll get easier over the weekend, I reminded myself. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t done before, after all.

  I also reminded myself that it would all be worth it. The information Bethany
had access to would give me the final bits and pieces I needed for my personal mission. I’d come into town to work on a project--that much had been the truth in what I’d told Bethany. But I hadn’t told her that the project in question had to do with me. I’d hit the wall when it came to getting information in the normal ways, and I’d hoped that I could find something at my parents’ place--but the details that I could get when Bethany gave me access to her organization’s database would be even better than that shot in the dark. If I was lucky, I could get all the details.

  By the time we got to the reception desk, more people had come in behind us, and I took my wallet out as the woman working--a dishwater blonde with sea-green eyes who had a look on her face like she was determined to stay calm--finished up something on the computer before looking up at me. “Are you with the reunion group?”

  “I guess so,” I said, giving her a smile. I pulled Bethany close to me again. “We need a room for two.”

  “Single king-sized bed, or twin beds?” the receptionist asked.

  I looked at Bethany and put as much of an arch into my eyebrows as I could. “What do you think, sweetie? Do I need to be in a separate bed from you?”

  Bethany laughed and pretended to tweak my ribs. I yelped and half-jumped away from her and then turned back to the front desk manager.

  “We’ll take a single bed,” I said. It wouldn’t make sense for a couple like us--as we were showing ourselves to Bethany’s classmates--to have two beds. It’d just open up questions.

  “I dunno, James. The way you snore I might want to put some space between us,” Bethany said, giving me a quick, hidden look.

  “I guess we can just push them together for everything else we have in mind,” I countered, returning her look. What was she thinking? I’d thought the bed arrangement would be straightforward.

  “That sounds like too much trouble, now that you mention it,” Bethany said. “Give us the single bed--and I’m sorry we’re holding you up like this.”

  The woman behind the desk gave Bethany a warmer smile than she’d given me and I wondered if she was into women. Thoughts of Bethany and the woman behind the desk hooking up flitted through my mind and I had to cut them off fast before I started getting turned on by the idea. Maybe she just didn’t try hard enough with the girl she hooked up with, I thought idly. But no--I would have thought Bethany would have said something about it if she’d actually had any inkling that she was better off with women than men.