Even Odds (3 page)

Isabel couldn't shake the feeling that her encounter with Ryan never would have happened if she hadn't dated Adam first. Once she let them see her as a sexual being, the harassment felt inevitable. Her coworkers there had been mostly assholes, though, and her PI Games coworkers were pretty nice by contrast. In the four years she'd worked there, she'd had no trouble. Breaking her “ice queen” persona was not to be undertaken lightly, though, not when she had fought so hard to earn their acceptance and respect.

But after so long without any sexual contact at all—eight months since her last failed relationship, but who was counting?—the idea of taking a strange man to bed was deliciously tantalizing. Isabel bit her lip and glanced at the clock: 3:30
P.M.
She had an hour and a half before they were supposed to meet up. The room was silent, no sound from the room next door. She hoped this was due to thick, sound-deadening walls, because she was about to test them.

Isabel dug in the nightstand drawer and pulled out her Hitachi. After unfastening her jeans, she pushed them and her silk underwear down her hips, all the way to her ankles, and spread her knees to the side. Better not to undress all the way, in case she was disturbed, plus it was more illicit this way, out in the open where anyone could find her. The Magic Wand was loud, the buzz probably carrying if these walls were anything but soundproof, and it would be smarter to get under the covers. Right then, though, Isabel didn't care about smart. She was never reckless, but this weekend, maybe she'd give recklessness a try. Staying on top of the comforter, she brought the wand's large round head to her clit.

As soon as the vibrator made contact, she stopped caring about anything else. She shouldn't be this turned on, not really, not enough that she felt herself dripping wet, just from contemplating a one-night stand. Apparently recklessness agreed with her. She closed her thighs, holding the vibrator tightly in place, and rolled onto her side. She loved using the toy like this, letting her body hold it steady, rocking her hips to rub against it. The pressure was intense, nearly unbearable, and she had to work consciously to keep from crying out. The orgasm tore through her after only a few minutes, her mind going blank with stimulation, and she muffled her cries with a hand over her mouth. She quickly turned off the vibrator, the overstimulation easily becoming too much, and lay back on the bed with a sigh.

For a moment, Isabel just lay there with her heart pounding, expecting a knock at the door that never came. After she had caught her breath, she wiped down her vibrator, unplugged it, and tucked it into the nightstand drawer, right next to the Bible the Gideons had thoughtfully left for her in case she wanted to pray the sexy away. Then she slipped her jeans back on. Her head felt clearer now, her body more relaxed, but she could still feel an underlying tension. Masturbation wasn't going to cut it this time.

She wanted a fling.

———

“Caleb Portland? I have a reservation.”
Caleb set his suitcase on the shiny tile floor in front of the reception desk and pulled out his wallet.

The neutral-faced woman at reception scrolled through the computer. “Yes, sir. I have you right here. Two queen beds?”

“I only need one now. Do you have a room with a king?” He didn't really mind that Henry had been scheduled to work and had to back out of DiceCon. Well, maybe he minded a little. He and Henry had started making DiceCon an annual tradition in college, a tradition they'd continued after starting their gaming company, moving from guest to vendor. He'd hoped to keep the tradition strong this year as well, but Henry had gotten a grown-up job and couldn't get away for the weekend. Being here alone felt like the end of an era. He tried to look on the bright side. With a room all to himself, he had a better chance of scoring that weekend. If the environment felt right, he'd pick up some cute geeky chick, bring her back to the room, and not have to leave a Do Not Disturb sign on the door to keep Henry out.

The hotel clerk tapped an impossible amount of things into the computer. She must be transcribing her entire life story, because there was no way it took that many keystrokes to search for “king bed.” While she searched, he checked her out: her dark hair was slicked back into a bun at the nape of her neck, her entire demeanor that form of severe professionalism common to both reception clerks and flight attendants. She wasn't Caleb's type. He liked them a little looser, a little less uptight. After another series of taps, her long fingernails clacking on the keys, she nodded. “It appears you're in luck, yes. We've been all sold out for the convention, but someone just canceled a king room this morning.” She smiled, teeth white against her bright red lipstick. “It must be your lucky day.”

The words made Caleb itch to check his email again and see if PI Games had sent him anything. He'd been good for the entire hour-and-a-half drive up from Yarmouth, managing not to check his email once while he was driving, knowing it was getting to be an obsession. He couldn't help it, though. Will had told him they'd make the decision by Friday night. It was Thursday afternoon. If he had the job, he should hear soon. Even as he felt the surge of hope, a darker mood settled over him. He'd been down this road before. He'd applied to a dozen companies with no luck since his and Henry's company had folded, always edged out at the last minute by someone better qualified, someone who didn't have a glaring business failure on their record. True, he'd never advanced to the point where they'd called his references, but putting too much hope on PI Games was going to ruin his whole weekend when he found out he didn't get the job. He should accept now that he wasn't going to be hired, and that was it.

The hotel receptionist swiped his credit card, then slid a paper envelope with his key card across the counter. “You're in room 468. Elevators are around the corner at the end of the hall. We hope you enjoy your stay at the Boston Marriott.”

Room 468 was the very last room in the hallway and looked like every other hotel room he'd ever stayed in before. Nondescript furnishings, same beige wallpaper, same windows looking out on the washed-gray landscape of Boston. At least the bed looked comfortable. Tossing his suitcase onto the floor next to the bed, he lay on the plush white comforter and stared up at the ceiling.

No sooner had he stretched out than his phone rang. He grabbed it off the nightstand and looked at the caller ID. It was his mother. He could just let it go to voice mail, but he'd done that the last time she'd called, and to do so again was downright hostile.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Caleb! Long time no speak.” She was smiling, the “e” sound in her words more pronounced, but he didn't trust it. Growing up with two lawyers in the family should make him
more
trusting of lawyers, not less, but it hadn't actually worked out that way for him.

“Sorry. I've been busy.” He'd actually been busy working on his sculptures, but to bring those up was to invite criticism of his career choices. “How are you and Dad?”

The next part of the conversation was predictably banal. A few stories about particularly difficult clients at the law firm, just enough not to breach confidentiality, laced with the passive-aggressive commentary he'd come to know so well.

“Caleb, honey, your father and I have been talking.”

Oh, here it was. Caleb glanced over at the hotel minibar and considered cracking into a very tiny, very expensive bottle of something alcoholic. Instead, he just closed his eyes. “Yeah?”

“It's been three months since you left the firm, and we know you haven't found another job yet. We want you to know that if you'd like to come back, we'd be happy to find you some work. I know it's not what you want to be doing, but, honey, art just isn't a reliable way to make a living, and that mess with the Asian kid—”

Caleb interrupted, gritting his teeth. “Henry. His name's Henry.”

“Fine. Henry. Anyway, that mess with Henry should have taught you that you don't really have a head for business. You're good at so many things, sweetie, but your father and I hate to see you struggling when we could help you out.”

Caleb took a breath in through his nose and then released it. He'd learned some meditation techniques that were helpful in these moments. “Thank you for the offer, Mom. I've actually got a good lead on a job as a creative manager for a game design company.”

There was a long pause. If Caleb hadn't been able to hear his mother's breathing, he'd have thought she hung up. Finally she asked, “Another one?”

Caleb took another deep breath and let it out, her words twisting within him. Of course she'd bring up the fact that he'd been turned down for all the jobs he'd applied to so far. “Yep, another one. They're calling my references, so I should hear soon.” He paused. He hadn't wanted to tell her this, not when it probably wouldn't even happen, but he found himself saying the words anyway. “It's in Tampa.”

“Tampa, Florida?” Her voice had regained the hard edge she so commonly used with him. “You're thinking of moving to Florida?”

“Yeah, Mom. If I get the job.” Caleb absentmindedly held his hand up to examine it. He still had some grease under his fingernails.

“But what about Katie?”

“It's over between us, Mom. It's been over for more than a year now. You've got to stop bringing her up.” Caleb rolled onto his stomach. The problem with dating a girl his parents really liked was that when he discovered she'd been cheating on him and had ended it with her, they'd been far too eager for him to give her another chance. Bullshit.

“I still think that if you give her another chance . . .”

“It's not going to happen.” Caleb felt his blood pressure rising.

“But if you're in Florida, you'll never be able to—”

“Yup, I know. It's okay. It wouldn't be that bad, you know. It's a lot cheaper to live down there than up here.” That much was true. He'd scoped out apartments, and even in downtown Tampa he could live for much less than what he was paying now. That was all contingent on getting this job, though, and that seemed like a pretty big “if” at the moment.

Long silence. “I suppose it would be a nice excuse for your father and me to visit.”

Caleb exhaled. That was less argument than he'd expected. “Sure, maybe.” And maybe his relationship with them would be better if he lived fifteen hundred miles away instead of fifteen minutes. He didn't say that part out loud.

Mercy of mercies, his mother then moved on to a subject he actually enjoyed.

“So, your brother called yesterday. He's bringing the family to visit this summer.”

“Really?” Caleb pictured his brother, Jeremiah, with his wife and their three children, his nieces and nephew, his favorite people in the world. It had been months since they'd been together, last Thanksgiving when his brother had flown his family out from Michigan. They'd all had a moderately pleasant meal, and he'd gotten to introduce his youngest niece to the wonder that is graham cracker pie. “I'd love to come for that. Florida or not. Let me know when you have some dates.”

“I will. And you'll let us know when you hear about this job, right? We only mean well, Caleb. I get so sad when you keep things from us.”

Caleb rubbed his beard. He needed to extricate himself from this conversation now that it had turned toward guilt. “I know. I'm sorry. We'll figure out a time for me to visit soon. Listen, I've got to run. I'm actually up in Boston for a convention and it's about to start.”

Long pause. “All right, Caleb.”

A few more goodbyes and he hung up, feeling his breathing ease. Tampa was looking like a better alternative with each passing hour.

Within ten minutes of turning
on the television, Isabel had exhausted the options for shows. The weatherman said it was unseasonably cold for the first week in March and they couldn't rule out the possibility of a snowstorm over the weekend, which was tracking up from the south and expected to run into a cold air mass of blah blah blah. She changed the station and ended up watching some terrible movie on Syfy about giant killer bugs. It was actually a sequel, so presumably there was an earlier movie also about giant killer bugs. The movie was so bad that it was good, though, and by the time she realized what time it was, she was ten minutes late to meet with Matthew and the rest of the team. Without even putting her shoes on, she grabbed her key card and headed next door.

She should have known there was no real reason to rush. Matthew had left the door propped open on the metal security latch, and when she entered, the three guys were clustered together in the far corner of the room and all reading something on a single sheet of paper.

“Hello?”

All three heads looked up, and Dan hurriedly shoved the paper into his pocket. “Oh, hey, Isabel.”

Isabel narrowed her eyes. She hated feeling left out, and this was clearly some kind of secret she wasn't privy to. “What's that you're reading?”

Dan gave her his best wide-eyed innocent look. “Nothing.”

That piqued her interest. Five years of working with mostly men had left Isabel with a fully functioning bullshit detector and a low tolerance for secrecy. “No, really.”

Matthew looked up from his iPad, which he'd picked up after they stowed the paper. “Show her, Dan. Isabel's all right. She might get a kick out of it.”

“I don't know.” Lloyd looked Isabel up and down. “You might scar her for life.”

“I'm sure I'll be fine.” Isabel held out a hand, apprehensive about what sort of crude innuendo she'd find but determined to keep face in front of Lloyd.

Dan brushed his hair out of his eyes as he pulled the crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket. He looked down at it as if questioning one more time his decision to share it, then passed the sheet to her. “It's just something Matthew and I do at DiceCon. Makes the convention a little more fun. Nothing serious. Lloyd was interested in joining us this year.”

The paper was titled “The DiceCon Scavenger Hunt and Challenge.” As she read on, she saw a list of items and tasks. Some seemed easy and fun: “Collect twenty different pieces of swag from the booths,” or “Get a photo with a
League of Legends
cosplayer.” Others were more complicated. “Get invited to at least one private party” was followed by “Get someone to buy you a drink.” The entire bottom section involved acts of sexual congress. “Get someone to ask you back to their hotel room. Engage in any sexual activity on convention center property.” The list continued, and by the time she'd reached the bottom, Isabel knew her eyebrows had to be up by her hairline.

“Are you kidding me?” Isabel tossed it back to Dan. “This is what you guys do at these conventions?”

Matthew shrugged. “It used to be just an informal thing. Last year we thought we'd institute a point system. Loser buys the winner a first-class upgrade on the flight home.”

“But I'm in now, so you guys can split the cost of my upgrade.” Lloyd leaned back in the chair and folded his arms.

Isabel felt nauseated. “So you're going to coerce random people to have sex with you? That's despicable.”

“No, there's no coercion allowed.” Leaning over, Dan pointed to the line of print at the bottom. It read, “Any attempts to bribe, coerce, threaten, or intimidate a person to perform any of these tasks will result in forfeiture because you're a douche bag.”

Isabel snorted. Small comfort.

Reading the judgment apparent on her face, Dan shrugged. “What? It's all there. It's totally legit. We're not scumbags, Isabel.”

“Yeah, we're just trying to liven things up a bit.” Matthew swiveled back and forth at the desk chair. “So Lloyd's in. How about you, Isabel? You want in?”

Dan and Lloyd both looked at him with their eyebrows raised, but Lloyd spoke first. “Seriously? Isabel?”

Matthew smiled. “Yeah, seriously. You want to join us on this? Make the Con a little more fun?” He tipped his chin up to her, a friendly challenge in his eyes. Matthew knew her better than anyone else at PI Games, but she never thought he might imagine her as capable of this kind of recklessness. She found she didn't mind. Maybe she could be one of the guys this weekend.

Lloyd looked down at the list again, plucking it out of Dan's hand. “It's not really fair, though. This stuff's easier if you're a girl.” He looked over at Isabel. “Except it's you, though. So . . . maybe it's even.”

Really? At the comment, Dan and Matthew looked at each other. Matthew said a weak, “Dude, not cool,” but that was all.

So much for the warm fuzzies. Isabel felt a mix of anger and resentment flood through her and glared at Lloyd. “What do you mean, it's even? Are you saying I'm not a girl? Or is it because I'm a geek girl?”

Lloyd laughed. “Oh come on. I was just teasing. Isabel, every chick here is technically a ‘geek girl.' ” He made air quotes, rolling his eyes. He had the kind of wide-set, beady eyes that looked more at home on rats than on people. How had she never noticed before that he had rat eyes? “Nah, it's just that you're so uptight. I never see you with a guy. Or a girl. What, you into that?” He leered at her, his eyes sparkling with interest.

“I don't think it's really any of your business.” She folded her arms, feeling awkward in her body at that moment and hating Lloyd for it. She never really got used to these kinds of comments, the ones that could just be played off as “joking around,” that made her the bad guy for being unable to just roll with the punches. But these morons hadn't had to face what Isabel had—discrimination, outright sexism, unwanted advances. They could just sleep their way through a convention and make score cards tallying their sexual exploits, and no one would bat an eye, no one would call them sluts or whores. Well, you know what? It was time to even the playing field. Right now. “I'm in.” She snatched the sheet out of Lloyd's hand. “Want to make me a photocopy of this, Matthew? There's a business center downstairs.”

“You're in?” Dan looked shocked, eyebrows raised again, but Matthew threw her a beaming smile.

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “I'll copy it on our way out tonight. Good to have you on board.”

Isabel felt a rush of adrenaline and guilt and apprehension all at once, making her stomach twist. She looked out the window at downtown Boston, which looked like a pattern of lights and figures rushing past them. This would make the convention a little more fun, wouldn't it? And yes, she had been thinking about bringing some random stranger back to her hotel room. Now it felt like more than a remote possibility, and she couldn't help the way her heart was pounding at the thought.

“So who's keeping track of the score?” Lloyd asked with a sidelong glance at Isabel. “Just to make sure there's no favoritism.”

“I'm keeping track.” Matthew held up his phone. “I made a spreadsheet. You can all keep the specifics of your debacles private from everyone but me.”

This, at least, gave Isabel a sense of relief.

“And what if I don't want to keep them private?” Lloyd crossed one ankle over his knee, spreading his arms across the back of his chair.

“You can brag as much as you want, dude.” Dan looked over at Matthew, and they exchanged an exasperated glance that Isabel caught while Lloyd stared out the window. At least she wasn't the only one annoyed by their traveling partner. Maybe this wouldn't be a terrible weekend after all.

Matthew opened up the schedule on his iPad. “Okay, enough of that. We're here for business. Let's talk schedule.”

———

While walking into the
convention center, Caleb caught a glimpse of his shirt in the mirrored surface of the building and recoiled. The shade of yellow picked by the DiceCon staff for their volunteer security squad was not a sunshine yellow, or even a pleasant daisy color. Instead, they'd chosen a garish, crossing-guard yellow, the kind that made you want to look away for fear of being blinded. That was probably the theory: they'd deter problems by their mere presence, making wrongdoers flee in horror. He grimaced and turned from the reflection, but the afterimage was already burned into his eyes. There was no way he was going to be able to pick up a girl wearing this. Sadly, it was the price he paid for volunteering and getting in early to the event, which he might not have done if he'd known about the hideous color scheme. Somehow this felt like a greater indignity than being part of a failed company. Last year, he'd been a vendor at an upstart game company with a bright future. This year, he was Captain Yellowshirt. He shuddered.

After a brief check-in with the volunteer coordinator, he was let loose out on the floor to supervise exhibitor setup. The really big exhibitors, the headliners with major real estate on the convention floor, had already finished their setup earlier that day. Most of the convention wasn't these headliners, though: the real heart of DiceCon came from the smaller businesses, the individual ten-foot-square booths laid out in a ribbon snaking across the expo hall floor. He'd been one of those just last year, and he hadn't expected how much it would make his heart ache to no longer be part of it. The arena was currently a chaos of boxes and banners and the chattering employees of a thousand different game companies. If he put aside his bad memories, this was a pretty sweet supervising gig: he could wander around and get a sense of the convention's greatest hits before the crowds descended in the morning.

As he reached the middle section, just past the giant Final Fantasy booth, a steady stream of Spanish caught his attention from off to one side. He didn't know any Spanish, but from the inflections, it definitely sounded like someone cursing fluently and emphatically. Turning, he spotted the source: a woman kneeling on the floor with an Ikea shelving unit spread out in pieces all around her, the pictograph directions open in the middle of all the mess. He watched for a moment, amused at her bottomless well of profanity.

“Can I help?”

She looked up sharply and then smiled sheepishly, averting her eyes in embarrassment. “Sorry. My asshole colleagues went to grab dinner and left me alone with this. I thought it would be easy.” Despite her fluency in Spanish, her regular speech was unaccented. She looked back up at him. “I hate Ikea.”

Caleb was happy for the excuse to look at her, because now that he could see the whole package, she was flat-out gorgeous: golden-brown skin, long black curly hair, dark eyes framed with thick lashes. He was a little surprised by her outfit—a baggy T-shirt and a pair of old jeans that must have been a size too large—but hey, maybe she was one of those women who didn't mind leaving things to a man's imagination. He had room to do a lot of imagining. She was obviously checking him out, too, and finally smirked. “Nice shirt.”

Oh right. Of course she'd notice the cloth traffic sign. He looked down at the shirt with its obnoxious DiceCon Security Volunteer lettering right across the front. At least the font wasn't Comic Sans. “Yeah, I try to get my entire wardrobe in this color. I have a terrible fear of being hit by a car.”

She laughed, a pleasing chuckle. “Nice. I'll bet it's very effective.” Looking back down at the instructions, she started to press one of the wooden pegs into its hole and grimaced.

“The offer to help still stands, if you want.” He wasn't usually this forward, but she was good looking and there was nothing else to do. “I think my entire apartment is made out of this shit. It's like the required furniture for poor art students.”

Shrugging, the woman gestured to the carpeted space in front of her. “Suit yourself.” When he'd settled, she extended a hand. “Isabel Suarez.”

He took her hand, her skin smooth against his rough palm. “Caleb Portland. Like the city.”

“Nice to meet you, Caleb. Hopefully you're better at this than I am.”

He looked over the directions. “I think I've got this exact same shelving unit in my closet.”

“Have at it.”

He was immediately engrossed in the assembly process, figuring out where all the little wooden pegs fit into their holes, the cam screws with their cam nuts. After a few minutes, he realized she wasn't even helping anymore, just sitting back and watching. Self-conscious, he paused. “What?”

Isabel shrugged. “I was just wondering what horrible breaches of security were happening because you aren't currently wandering the floor in your neon shirt.”

Caleb glanced around, unable to see much from his spot on the floor. “It's not a big deal. There's nothing to do on setup night anyway. The real craziness starts tomorrow.” He got up on his knees and started putting the major pieces together.