A Fool’s Game
1. Ainsley
Chapter 1
Ainsley
“ H ome is great, Dad, but it’s not worth going to jail over.”
“You were never going to jail, Ainsley. It’s Christmas. I know you’re an adult, but still. I don’t like the idea of you all alone over there.” Even over speakerphone from thousands of miles away, the man’s voice still commands authority.
Luckily, I’ve spent my life strengthening against it. Or trying to, anyway.
“I’m not alone. I have Doc.”
“I could have a flight ready for both of you in an hour.”
“I’m staying here. We talked about this.”
“Yes, and I don’t see how one day makes any difference.”
“It makes a difference because I’ll be able to show up there first thing tomorrow morning and get started on my community service. The office opens at eight. I can put in a full day. I want to get as many hours as I can before classes start again in January. You know this already.”
“I know, I know. And I’m proud of you for taking the initiative on this. It’s just…Christmas, Ains. ”
The first one we’ve ever spent apart.
Even in my vagabond gap years, when I spent most of my time avoiding him and hiding from my imminent future as a college student, I always flew back to New York for Christmas. It’s not a day I’ve ever been willing to leave my dad alone for.
The last few years, when he wasn’t alone at all, but in the company of his new fiancé, I still joined them.
And won the trophy for most awkward Christmas morning ever.
“Well, promise me you’ll go out and get a good meal, at least.”
“I’m getting ready to head out now.”
I’m sure he’s picturing me sitting in front of the floor to ceiling waterfront windows of Canlis, being served a full holiday meal by overenthusiastic hipsters, not the fish and chips dive bar on Portage Bay where I’m actually planning to go, but I’m not about to correct him.
“Merry Christmas, Ains. I love you.”
“Love you too, Dad. Give Victoria my love.”
“Will do. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I toss my phone on the granite kitchen counter of my harbor-view townhouse and let out a sigh.
This year isn’t shaping up to be anything close to what I imagined for my senior year at the University of Washington.
After a teeny existential crisis and transfer to the other side of the country halfway through my sophomore year at Columbia, I thought I’d figured out what I wanted to be doing with my life. I settled right into my new engineering program and expected to be spending winter break finalizing my internship applications at the WHO and the CDC.
Instead, I’m scrambling to find enough community service hours that work around my class schedule so that I can dig myself out of the self-inflicted disaster I crashed into over the summer.
I’m familiar with the jokes people make about rich kids and consequences, and you know what? That shit is true.
Not that I was ever a delinquent teen or went on any crime sprees, but the few jams I found myself in over the years, my wealthy lawyer father always managed to make disappear.
And that’s the very reason I got the book thrown at me in court last month. Either I caught the judge on a bad day, or I got one who was sick of the inequality of it all. Maybe both. My dad was kind enough to point out that if I was still in New York, he could have gotten me off scot-free.
He didn’t stoop so low as to remind me that if I had just stayed in New York, I never would have gotten myself into trouble in the first place.But I know he was thinking it.
I pull on a heavy coat and step into my boots in the entryway just as a light dusting of snow starts to fall. Slipping gloves into my coat pocket, I decide to walk the six or so blocks down to the waterfront bar rather than call a car or pull my own out of the underground garage. I could use a few minutes to clear my head after that guilt trip from my dad.
He didn't say the words, but I could hear them. He wants us to be together on the somber anniversary that always casts its shadow across what would otherwise be a happy celebration of consumerism and gluttony.
Between the falling snow and the fact that it’s five pm on Christmas day, the street is eerily, beautifully quiet. I can hear the powder crunch under the tread of my boots as I make my way down the block. When I glance backward, the line of my footprints is the only scar across the otherwise perfectly white sidewalk and street.
It’s almost apocalyptic to see the usually busy street reduced to this, and I pull out my phone and photograph the scene. Not that I have anyone to show it to.
The shots don’t come close to capturing the beauty of the moment, as is often the case with pictures, so I sigh and put my phone away without trying again.
The bar is a beacon in the distance with rope lights on the gutters glowing gold through the falling snow. When I push open the heavy, padded vinyl door, I’m greeted by a rush of warm air and far more people than I expected.
No one looks my way as I hang my wet coat on a hook and take one of the only remaining seats at the bar. After a moment, a bartender stumbles over and slaps a menu down in front of me.
“We’re out of everything except fish and chips and beer.”
I have to smile as she leans heavily on the bar in front of me, crooked smile and cleavage for days. “Are you drunk?”
She laughs and shrugs. “It’s Christmas.”
I nod. “Yeah, I suppose it is.”
“Fish and chips and beer, then?”
“Sounds great.”
She slops a pint of something light and foamy in front of me and hurries off to join a group of guys singing a dirty rendition of Silent Night on the tiny karaoke stage.
My dinner order is probably a lost cause.
I'm just finishing my pint with a growling belly, glancing around to see if anyone still works here, when someone slides onto the stool next to me. It’s not so much the person I notice as the smell of their giant basket of fish and chips.
I know I’m staring, hell I’m probably drooling, but I can’t help myself.
“How did you manage to get…” My question trails off as I look into the sparkling green eyes of my new bar mate.
She’s smiling, cheeks rosy from the cold or beer, and her long, honey-colored hair falls over her shoulders in soft waves. Familiar, but in that “ do I know you from somewhere” kind of way that I should be used to after attending a college of over eight thousand undergrads in a small neighborhood. It seems like I run into someone I should remember from class almost every time I go out. It’s especially awkward because they always remember me.
“You gotta order food at the window.”
Her answer shakes me out of the trance her heart shaped mouth apparently put me in. I look back down at her paper-lined basket of crispy fries before following her gaze across the bar to the kitchen, where there is indeed a line of tipsy-looking people waiting to order.
I shake my head and turn back to my empty glass. “Well, now I know.”
She must take pity on me, because next thing I know, the woman is pouring beer into my glass from a plastic pitcher she produces out of nowhere.
I sit back and let her fill it, laughing and shaking my head. “Is there a secret line for beer I should know about as well?”
“Honestly, I just went back there and poured it myself. There doesn't seem to be anyone working here.”
She pushes the steamy basket of food between us. “I have way too much food, as well. You’re welcome to share.”
“I’d love to be the strong man who can turn down an offer like that and let you eat in peace, but I’m starving.” I take a few of the offered chips and shove them in my mouth.
Now that my empty stomach isn’t taking up all available brain space shouting at me about imminent death, I’m able to think more clearly. “Do we have a class together?”
She cocks her head to the side, finishing her own bite before answering. “What do you mean?”
I shrug, lifting a piece of fish and dipping it into the tartar sauce. “You look so familiar.”
She’s quiet through another bite. And then another. After she takes a long sip of her pint and still hasn’t answered, I start to get nervous.
This woman knows who I am, and for whatever reason, I should definitely know who she is as well.
“I’m sorry,” I say finally.
“No, you’re not.”
I look over at her. “I am. Really. I seem to be getting worse and worse at remembering people. I blame the last three and a half years of five classes a day. Names and faces all seem to blur together.”
She glances down at her hands, still saying nothing.
My nerves give way to dread. I’m not the kind of guy who sleeps with women and doesn’t remember them afterward, so at least I have that going for me. The drunker I am, the less likely I am to end up in bed with a stranger—unlike the majority of my classmates. But the vibes I’m suddenly getting from this encounter don’t sit well.
I decide a good old-fashioned introduction is the way to go.
I wipe my hand on my jeans and hold it out to her. “I’m Ainsley. I go to U-Dub. I live down the street.”
She looks at me then. Really looks at me, eye-to-eye, straight into my soul. “Gem. I go to U-Dub as well. And I used to live at your dad’s house.”