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Anthony considers fratricide. It’s not the first time that he’s thought about killing Colin, really, but this time he means it. Because as Anthony blinks down at his plane ticket – the plane ticket that Colin begged Anthony to let him book, to make his life easier – the seat number is unmistakable.
He blinks again. Maybe if he blinks hard enough the numbers on the ticket will change. Surely, it’s a typo. Surely, the seat number says 4 and not 40, putting him in first class, where he’s supposed to be.
But they don’t, and Anthony’s jaw is set tight as he pulls his phone from his pocket, thumbing the screen to open his flight app.
And it says it right there, electronically, unmoving, like it’s mocking him:
INTL
BRIDGERTON/ANTHONYEDMUNDMR
BOARDING BEGINS 11: 50A
SEAT 40K MIDDLE ECONOMY
BOARDING GROUP 7
If his eyes could burn a hole through his phone screen, they would. Not only is it a seat in economy, which was bad enough, Colin booked him a middle seat. On an international, overseas flight.
Fratricide wouldn’t be enough. No, that would be too merciful. Anthony was going to kill Colin, bring him back to life, and then kill him again. This was ridiculous. He didn’t even know that boarding group numbers went that high. He’s never even seen the back of an airplane.
He knows he’s being a brat, fuming in the middle of Heathrow about having to sit in a part of an airplane that, statistically, most people sit in. But he’s not most people. He’s Anthony fucking Bridgerton. He’s a senior executive of Bridgerton Enterprises. He’s technically nobility, for God’s sake, if anyone cared about that anymore. He never asked for the silver spoon to be stuck in his mouth the moment that he was born, but he sure was going to eat with it.
Oh, God. The thought of food makes the corners of his lips turn down and the wrinkles between his brows deepen. He’s going to have to eat the shitty economy mound of mash instead of an actual meal today.
Shaking his head, Anthony checks his watch and then his ticket again. It’s only 10:57, and he has plenty of time to stalk off and grab something that’s actually edible before the flight takes off. He stands up, grabs his rolling carry-on that he had hastily packed when he found out he needed to make a last minute, weekend-long business trip, and stalks off to find the nearest restaurant, bar, or – anything, really.
On the way, he texts Colin a picture of his ticket and a single sentence: What the fuck is this?
Anthony watches the three dots appear, then disappear, then appear again.
Colin: … your ticket?
Anthony tries to bite back his annoyance. He does. But he can’t help the harsh exhale that goes through his nose as he responds.
Anthony: And why does it say that I’m in 40K? In a middle seat? In ECONOMY?
Colin responds faster this time.
Colin: because that’s where you’re sitting
Three times. Anthony is going to kill Colin three times, in fact. He’s fantasizing the way that he’ll carry out the first time when he gets:
Colin: i don’t know what else you expected anthony
Colin: you booked a ticket to new york the same morning as the flight and thought there would be a first class seat open?
Colin: you’re lucky there were any seats at all. there were only two left and both were middle
And then:
Colin: i believe the words you were looking for were “thank you, my dearest brother, for taking one thing off my to do list this morning as i ran around like a chicken with my head cut off” right?
Anthony doesn’t respond. He does roll his eyes, but he doesn’t actually respond. He has his read receipts on, so he knows that Colin knows that he is deliberately not responding. Instead, he eyes a restaurant with a bar that’s only moderately crowded and heads in that direction.
He gets one final text before he clicks his phone screen off.
Colin: may god help your seat partners lol
When Anthony walks into the restaurant, he spots an open seat that’s blocked by a carry-on. If it were any other time, Anthony would’ve been polite, he swears. But he’s already teetering on the wrong side of enraged, and it seems that he must’ve forgotten to pack his manners in his bag this morning. So he stalks up to the seat, gives the bag a quick kick with his foot, and says to the person in the seat over, who must own the bag, “This is in my way.”
The bag’s owner looks up sharply, and Anthony’s mood sours even more. Of course she’s gorgeous. Of course he just ruined what could’ve been his own meet-cute by being an arse.
Not that he believes in those. But it’s something that Daphne, or even Hyacinth would say.
He’s still pondering over this as he holds the bag owner’s steely gaze. She hasn’t replied, and that makes Anthony even more annoyed, so he says, “I said—”
“I heard you.” Her tone is sharp. Her eyes narrow. He doesn’t like the way that she’s looking at him. She’s like, dissecting him or something. It makes him deeply uncomfortable, being scrutinized his way by a total stranger, and he shifts on his foot, ready to abandon the whole thing. But then she snatches her luggage out of the way and turns away from him without another word.
“Thanks.” Now that he’s gotten what he wanted, he’s a bit embarrassed, and the word comes out gingerly. He takes the seat, rolls his luggage next to hers, and peruses the menu that’s tacked up behind the bar. At some point the bag owner chances another look at him when she thinks he can’t see, and Anthony starts to feel a bit bad about the whole thing. So he clears his throat and offers, “Can I buy you a drink?”
“No.”
The rejection is swift, and honestly, Anthony wasn’t expecting the biting tone. He doesn’t get rejected by women often. Or ever. “Oh.” He peers at Bag Owner, cheeks heating, and starts to feel defensive. He feels the need to clarify. “I’m not hitting on you—” (her eyebrows raise, and he already feels like he’s floundering) “—I’m apologizing.”
“Okay.” Bag Owner draws the word out. It sounds nice in her voice. “So just apologize.”
“Sorry,” he starts, and she looks at him like he’s the dumbest man in the world. For a second, Anthony thinks that maybe he is. He runs a hand over his face, down his jaw, across the stubble that he didn’t have any time to shave. “I’m just – I’m not having the best day. This trip was sort of, well, very last minute, and I wasn’t prepared to have to do this, and then my brother booked me the shittiest seat imaginable, so.” He stops there, because he knows he’s about to start rambling. This is the point where Eloise would very pointedly pick her book back up, or Benedict would let out a very dutiful hum, clapping his brother on the back, as if he hadn’t tuned out five words ago. “But that’s not your fault, obviously, so sorry for being a prick.”
Bag Owner lets out a very dutiful hum.
Anthony doesn’t say anything else in response, waving the bartender over. He orders himself a quick meal, scarfs it down, and then snatches his own bag back and steers himself clear of Bag Owner’s presence. He finds a place to hunker down until it’s time to board (Boarding Group Seven), and tries to mentally prepare himself for what he knows can only be an agonizing flight.
“I’m sorry, what?”
The agent looks at him wearily. She’s probably said this a thousand times today already. “Carry-on storage is full. You can gate-check your luggage for no extra fee.”
Anthony is perplexed. He’s simply never heard of this. What does she mean it’s full? How can the plane run out of room? Don’t they plan for this exact thing?
“Sir.”
His head snaps up, and he accepts whatever tag the agent is handing him. She’s explaining something about how he doesn’t have to go to baggage claim, how the bag will be there at the gate, and the tag number – that she rips off, and hands to him – will be matching. He half-listens, but he really just can’t believe that the airplane is out of room. Logically, it just doesn’t make sense. He’s considering this as he shuffles his way to the back of the plane, jealously burning in his chest as he whisks past first class. He’s scowling by the time he gets to row 23, frustrated as a man is still standing the aisle, fumbling with something in the overhead bin, holding them all up. They finally start moving again, and Anthony is glad that, at the very least, he’s not seated next to the restrooms.
It's not until he’s squeezing past his seat partner that has the aisle, trying to do that awkward shuffle where you don’t actually touch one another, that he hears it.
“Oh, shittiest seat imaginable, huh?”
His head whips around. Directly behind him, in seat 41K is Bag Owner. She’s not done speaking. “When you said that, I thought maybe you were right by the loo. Directly in it, even.” She cocks her head. “But no, you just can’t believe that you have to sit with us normies.”
His mouth falls open a bit, embarrassingly so, but he can’t seem to sputter out anything because he knows, and more importantly, she knows, that she’s right. She raises her brow, challenging him. But challenging him to what?
It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, he’s lost it and she’s bested him.
He tries to recover. “I’m just too tall for this.”
“Oh, because you’re the only one on here with legs. My apologies.”
Anthony’s cheeks are burning. It’s one thing he’s always hated about himself, how easily he blushes with embarrassment and shame. He doesn’t know which one it is this time. Maybe both. Bag Owner’s lips quirk up like she’s satisfied, and she leans back in her seat. “I’ll be nice and only kick your seat for half the flight. Maybe. If you bring back that offer of buying me a drink, I’ll be nice and reduce it to a third.”
Banter. Anthony can do banter. “Make it a quarter and you have a deal.”
Bag Owner scoffs. It’s an unpleasant sound and it twists her face, and yet she’s still so pretty. The sound goes straight to his groin. Anthony’s always had a thing for pretty women that think he’s a bit of dick. He should probably see someone about that.
His gazes falls from her wide, brown eyes to her lips as she speaks again. “No way. My deal, my rules. You’ll have to buy me two drinks for that kind of special.”
He gives her a little grin. “I think I can manage that.” He’s chuffed, a little bit, alright, he’ll admit that. He doesn’t know what made Bag Owner go from disgust to playful, but he likes it. He goes to say something else, maybe ask for her name, but then the flight attendants are sweeping through the aisles, telling him and any other standing passenger to sit down, and the moment’s gone.
Anthony has a terrible flight. It’s not until after they’re decidedly in the air and he reaches to take his laptop out of his bag that he remembers that he doesn’t have his bag. He glowers and fiddles with his phone for a bit, but he only has 32% battery and his charger is in his bag too. Sighing, he switches to the in-flight entertainment. He doesn’t have his headphones either, and he tries using the cheap earphones that the flight attendants had handed out earlier, but the sound of his movie is plasticky and tinny and annoys him more than anything else. He switches to just reading the captions.
His window seat partner has the sniffles and seemingly no tissues. She sniffs approximately every eleven seconds – Anthony started counting. His aisle seat partner has no concept of personal space and steals the armrest that Anthony is pretty sure should be his. He can’t stretch out his legs, and he can’t even go for a brisk walk up the aisle because he doesn’t want to brush past the aisle seat again.
At some point, Sniffles falls asleep. Anthony is briefly grateful. And then she starts to snore.
Anthony pinches his nose and tries to fall asleep himself. But he has no eye mask, and Sniffles left the window open before falling asleep. The sun is blaring inside and he feels it would be weird to reach over her sleeping body to close the shade.
The economy blankets are thin, terrible, and scratchy. The AC is blaring from the little fans above his seat. He turns it off. Wordlessly, Aisle Seat turns it back on. Anthony doesn’t touch it again.
The food actually isn’t that bad. He ordered some grilled chicken meal, figuring that it was the safest option. It wasn’t that bad but it wasn’t that good either. It was passable, probably because he had extremely low expectations to begin with.
By the time the flight is over and they’ve touched down in New York, Anthony is irritable. Even more so than he was when the flight began. He does feel slightly validated that his flight was so terrible though, because he knew it would be the moment that he saw that he was sitting in economy.
He doesn’t understand how people willingly choose that.
He rolls his shoulders as he joins the shuffle down the aisle to exit the plane, glaring at the people that have the fortune of taking more time and space because they have bags to retrieve from the overhead bins. He takes the time to examine the ripped off ticket stub that the gate agent had handed him before boarding. He still doesn’t really know what to do but once he spots the growing group of people gathered at the end of the jet bridge and an equally growing number of bags being deposited there, he figures it out pretty quickly.
Once he spots his bag he double checks the numbers – they’re correct – grabs it, and whisks off to go find the car that’s waiting for him. It’s not until he’s on the way to his hotel does he remember Bag Owner, and his heart pangs a bit at the fact that he’s never going to see her again.
He never got around to buying her that drink.
Sophie really owes her, and Kate tells her as such as Sophie tosses Kate’s bag in the back seat of her rental car.
“I know,” she says sincerely, “and I also know that you’ll never let me forget it.”
Kate shoots her a look, but there’s not any heat behind it. And Sophie doesn’t owe her, is the thing. Kate chose to come. But really, how could she miss her best friend’s hen do (“Bachelorette party,” Sophie had tsked through the phone, because she was just so American now) just because she decided to fuck off across the pond for grad school?
So here Kate was, spending her weekend in New York City, planning to celebrate her best friend meeting the love of her life before returning to London on a Monday morning red eye.
“I met this guy at the airport,” Kate starts as a way of small talk, fiddling with the AC in the car. Sophie turns to Kate for a half a second to waggle her brows before her head whips forward again, she slams on the brakes and yells obscenities at the car that just cut them off. “Oh God, you even drive like a New Yorker now.”
Sophie smiles drily. “Tell me about the guy.”
“Well, it wasn’t like that, really—” (Sophie spares her a glance) “—please watch the road, I promise I’ll keep talking—” (Sophie snorts) “He was kind of hot though. But he was a prick. Major. And so posh. He was so offended that he had to sit in economy. I sat behind him on the flight and he said he was going to buy me a drink. Maybe two. And he didn’t.”
“Bummer.” Sophie nods at the grand disappointment, eyes trained on the road still. They’re finally easing out of the traffic of the airport. “But he was hot?”
“That’s all you heard?”
“That’s all that matters. What was his name?”
“I don’t know?” To be honest, it never occurred to Kate to ask his name. She’d been trying too hard to balance out both the annoyance and attraction she was feeling towards the man to ever ask him his name. “It doesn’t matter anyway. He was just a guy.”
Sophie makes a noise like she disagrees, but lets the conversation drop. Instead, they start talking about their plans for the rest of the weekend. It’s Thursday, because it was cheaper for Kate to flight in this day, and the rest of the bridesmaids don’t get in until Friday. That’s when the Real Party (said very suggestively, brows waggling) will begin, but for today the duo is going to take it easy. Sophie knows that Kate’s probably tired and Kate’s grateful for that. The first course of action is to get Kate to the hotel – they allow early check-in, she made sure in advance. Then after freshening up, they were going to grab a meal, do a little walking around as some casual sightseeing, and then turn in to the hotel early, maybe watch a movie or something. All very lowkey.
After getting her key, Sophie sprawls out on the sofa in the hotel room as Kate hoists her carry-on onto the bed to pick out a pair of jeans and a nice shirt. When she unzips the bag and flips the top open, she feels bile rise in her throat.
This is not her bag.
“This is not my bag!”
Sophie looks up from where she’d been scrolling on her phone. “Mmh. Yeah it is, babe. You’ve had that same suitcase for like, seven years.” (It was a part of the very nice luggage set that Mary had bought for Kate one birthday, knowing that Kate would never allow herself to buy something so nice.)
“No,” Kate is incredulous, because Sophie isn’t getting it. “This is not my bag.” She spins it around and tilts it for Sophie to see. The laptop that had been tossed on top of a mound of unfolded dress clothes slides off and onto the bed. She holds up a clean, rumpled white button-down. “This isn’t mine!”
Sophie’s a bit more interested now, sitting up. “Well what does the tag say?”
Kate yanks the handle of the bag towards her, eyes frantically moving between the numbers on the tag of the bag that the airline had slapped on when they gate-checked her bag, and the ones on the part of the tag in her hand. “It matches. But this isn’t mine.” She’s dumbfounded. “And where’s my luggage tag?” Kate always adds a luggage tag. It’s the flimsy free paper one that’s complimentary from the airline, sure, but she always adds it. She knows she added it; she filled it out and added it at the bar right before that stupid, but hot, stranger tried to kick her bag out of the way like he owned the place.
“Maybe it fell off.”
“It’s never fallen off.” Kate gives Sophie a withering look. “And even if it did, this clearly isn’t fucking mine.”
Sophie raises her hands in surrender. “Well. Sorry for troubleshooting. Call the airline while we go for food? I’m starved.”
“I can’t believe you’re not taking this seriously. Some creepy old man is probably sniffing my knickers right now.”
“Not the kind of action you were expecting this weekend, I gather?”
This isn’t his bag.
Anthony closes the luggage, then opens it again like the contents will change. They don’t. A slinky, lacy set of lingerie is still folded on the very top of the other clothes, like it was a last minute, but anticipated addition. His mouth goes dry as he thinks of who the owner could be.
He checks his phone – 11% now – and curses. He doesn’t really want to go through a stranger’s bag – it seems invasive, and especially so given what he’s discovered first. But then he thinks about it a half of a second more, decides it probably can’t get any more personal than the lingerie, and hunts for a phone charger, hoping that outside of sharing the same style of luggage, the stranger also shares the same style of phone.
After successfully putting his phone on charge, Anthony considers what could have gone wrong for this to have possibly happened. He concludes that it was probably his fault.
Importantly, he needs to solve this. Clothes be damned, his luggage has his work laptop, and he needs that for his meeting that starts bright and early Friday morning. He needs to figure this out. He doesn’t have a choice. He looks at the tag that the airline gave him, and the numbers in his hand. They match. So how…?
It occurs to Anthony, then, that just because he never puts luggage tags on his bags doesn’t mean that nobody else does. It’s something that his siblings and his mother always ribbed him about, saying that one day he would lose his luggage and he would never be able to find it. But until this point, it’d always been fine. Anthony almost always makes short trips, almost always has a carry-on, and it almost never leaves his grasp. So why would he need a tag?
He really hopes that whoever has the impeccable taste in lingerie has better sense than him. He has to turn the bag over a bit, because the tag had twisted underneath it a bit, and Anthony exhales because at least it’s there.
He looks at the tag. It only has a name and email, the stranger obviously wary of having her phone number or anything else more personal on the tag. Written neatly, it says:
Kate Sharma
Anthony grabs his phone and types the name into Google. It doesn’t matter who the real owner of the bag is, not really. He just wants to put a face to the name, that’s all. It has nothing to do with putting a face to the lingerie, or the subtly familiar perfume that’s staring back at him.
Clearing his throat, Anthony clicks the first link which leads him to LinkedIn. And his eyes go wide at the professional headshot beaming back at him.
He’s confused, but only for a moment, and then he knows exactly how it happened. After eating at the bar he was in such a hurry to get out of there that he just snatched his bag and scurried away. He didn’t check that he had grabbed his own because it seemingly was. And he hadn’t opened the bag before boarding, so he had no idea.
Anthony lets out a sigh and opens his email.
They’re eating pizza when Kate gets an email.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Switched Bags
Kate,
Sorry to bother you yet again. It seems that I grabbed your bag when I left the restaurant.
I hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience, but I would love if we were able to swap bags back tonight. I have a meeting early in the morning and I need my laptop.
For your trouble, I’d buy you two drinks. I believe that I still owe them to you. Deal?
Sincerely,
Anthony Bridgerton
Kate snorts at the formality of the email, but her breath also gets caught in her throat at the prospect of seeing the stranger from the airplane again. She almost doesn’t want to believe it’s him. But it has to be him, right? Based off of the details in the email, it has to be him.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Sophie says, sipping from her cup of water. “Did the airline email you or something? Is your luggage gone forever?”
“Um, no, actually.” She angles her phone so that Sophie can see the screen of her phone, but not really enough for her to read the email itself. “It was the guy from the airport that I told you about. He grabbed my bag on accident at the bar we were in before we boarded.”
“Wait, I thought you only sat behind him on the plane? And he didn’t buy you a drink?”
Kate sighs. “Well yes, but also…” She fills Sophie in on the full story as she as she types Anthony Bridgerton into Google. You know, just to make sure that it’s the same person. Not because she wants to see his face again, or anything. Her eyes widen when the search loads – it takes a minute, because she didn’t buy an international data plan and the pizza joint’s wifi is painfully slow. “Soph. He’s got a Wikipedia page.” She clicks on the link, eyes skimming the brief bio, deciding not to click on Early Life because that seems a bit too intimate. She clicks on Business Ventures instead, right as Sophie reaches for the phone with greasy hands.
“I want to see!”
Kate recoils quickly. “After you use a napkin, you freak. It’s not that long. He’s CEO of his family’s company, apparently.”
“Oh,” Sophie says, making a big show of forcefully smudging her fingertips into her napkin before plucking Kate’s phone out of her hands. “So he really was too good for Economy.” She scrolls back to the top of the page. “And he is hot.”
“Did you think I was lying?”
Sophie gives her a one-shouldered shrug. “Your taste is questionable sometimes. But yeah, hot enough that you should return his bag.”
“I was going to do that anyway. He needs his laptop.” Kate goes to return the email, and it’s very shortly after that when Anthony responds. It’s almost like he was waiting for her to answer him, and Kate realizes, considering that she has his livelihood in her possession, he probably was.
Sophie had been smart enough to suggest chucking the suitcase in the boot of the rental car when they left for food, meaning that after Anthony gives Kate the address to his hotel, where he would meet her at the hotel’s bar, they could go straight there instead of having to swing by Kate’s hotel first.
Kate has to double-check the address when they pull up to the tall, sprawling building. Sophie lets out a low whistle.
“If I could afford to stay in a hotel like this, I’d pitch a fit about being crammed like sardines in a plane too.” She turns to Kate with a smile. “I’ll be around but I’ll make myself scarce. There’s an art exhibit nearby that I’ve been meaning to check out. Text or call me when you’re done!”
When Kate’s about to enter the hotel, luggage handle in hand, Sophie rolls down her car window again, blowing her a kiss. “Have fun!”
She’s enjoying this far too much.
Kate walks into the hotel slowly, but purposefully. She tries not to look like she’s completely out of place, which she is. She’s not even close to rich enough to even think about breathing the air in this place. She’s still wearing her leggings, ratty jumper, and trainers from the plane. The front desk workers probably think she’s going to steal from the lobby or something. At least that’s what she’s telling herself when she finally meanders far enough into the hotel to spot the bar and lounge.
She spies Anthony before he spots her. He’s sitting at the bar, drinking something that looks like it could be whiskey, maybe, leg jiggling impatiently. His jaw is set like he’s very tense, and his eyes flit around the bar, down to his watch, over to his phone screen, and around the bar again. Kate wonders if any woman has ever made him wait, and then – no, because why is she even thinking like that? She’s here to drop off his suitcase and get her own back. Who cares that his forearms flex when his hand is tight around his glass, or –
Anthony spots Kate, breaking her out of her very dangerous train of thought. “Kate!” He gives her a tight smile, hopping up to stand like he just can’t contain his energy enough to stay seated anymore. “I was starting to think that maybe you wouldn’t show. I sent another email and you didn’t respond, so –”
“I didn’t have internet.” When Anthony looks at her dumbly, she continues, “On the drive over.” When he continues to look at her dumbly, she says, “You know you have to pay to use your phone in a different country, right?”
“Right, of course. Right.” He gives her another easy smile, and Kate knows that he didn’t know, but she decides not to call him out on it. That decision makes her uneasy, because why is she giving this guy passes, now? All she wanted to do was annoy this man a few hours ago. She’s too sober to be falling for this Charming Guy act already; she knows what he’s really like. She needs to correct this immediately.
“You know, when you were doing all that complaining about being too tall for Economy, I didn’t think that we’d be almost the same height, standing up.”
“I didn’t—” Anthony looks affronted. “I complained about that once.”
“Really?” Kate asks, pretending to think. “Because it sounded like a whole lot of whining to me.”
He scoffs at her, but Kate knows that he didn’t actually take it to heart. She’s both disappointed and relieved, and tries not to think about what that means when he offers her a seat. “So how was your, well, what I assume to have been your, first flight in Economy?”
Anthony groans, launching off into a tirade about everything that went wrong with the flight on his end as he beckons over the bartender so that Kate can get a drink. He goes on about his seatmates, about the terrible earphones, about how he couldn’t sleep. His face is animated in his retelling, brows expressive and eyes bright, and Kate tries not to think about how attractive his features are when he’s not using them to scowl.
She in turn tells him about how the flight was pretty standard and uneventful for her. He asks her what she’s doing in New York for the weekend, and she tells him about Sophie’s bachelorette party. He tells her a bit about the business, but doesn’t get too into it because he says the last thing that he wants to do is talk about work when he doesn’t have to, because he always has to. They find out that they’re taking the same flight back, and when Kate jokingly tells him that he better make sure that his seat is in first class he sheepishly admits that he already had. He tells her that she should upgrade to first class on the way back so she could see what she’s been missing out on, and so she could fully understand that Anthony was entirely within the right to be upset.
When Kate tells him that she could never afford that, Anthony says that he would pay for it, obviously, since he was offering the idea. He says it so casually that Kate can’t even sputter out that she couldn’t let him do that before he’s already opened his flight app to see what seats are still available for their flight.
“Ah,” he says, turning his phone screen to her so that she can see it. “No seats.”
Kate gives him a little shrug, taking a sip from her glass. It’s almost empty, and Anthony notices, calling the bartender over again for their second round. “I wouldn’t have let you do that anyway. Oh hey, look.” She’s scrolled to find her middle seat nestled near the midback of the plane. “The aisle seat next to me is open. You could always bum it with me again. I promise that I always bring tissues for my sniffles.”
Anthony laughs at that, accepting their drinks from the bartender and sliding Kate’s over to her. “No you don’t. I saw your luggage.”
“You went through my bag?”
Anthony rolls his eyes. “It’s not like I was searching through it. But obviously I opened it, Kate. C’mon.”
It’s not until he finishes speaking that Kate remembers the cheeky lingerie set that Sophie had goaded her into packing, snickering with her over the phone about how she never knew what the weekend would bring and wouldn’t she want to be prepared? Her cheeks burn because Kate knows the was the last thing that she packed. She knows that it was folded right on top and if Anthony even unzipped her bag at all, which he just said that he had, then he definitely saw it.
As if he knows what her awkward silence and lack of response is about, Anthony clears his throat, sips from his glass – it is whiskey, Kate found out – and says, lowly, “I don’t care what you packed. I’m not judging.”
Kate latches onto that. “Well I’m judging the fact that you didn’t have the decency to fold any of your clothes. Who does that?”
“I told you I was rushing!”
They fall back into easy conversation after that, and Kate lets out a breath that she didn’t even know that she’d been holding. She can’t quite tell if Anthony is flirting with her is the thing. Every so often he’ll say something, or he’ll look at her in this certain way, but she just doesn’t know. He’s an attractive guy and obviously used to schmoozing, so Kate honestly can’t tell if he just talks like this to everyone or it he’s trying to see if she’ll play into it too.
She does, a bit. The comments turn a bit flirtier as the liquor in her glass gets lower. The smiles get a bit looser. At one point she tosses her ponytail over her shoulder with a laugh and watches as Anthony’s eyes follow the movement.
But when she’s finally finished her second drink, it ends there. They talk a little more but the conversation eventually lulls, and Kate curses herself for ever giving herself the impression that he’d ever wanted more than a little flirty banter over a drink or two. He probably does this at every hotel bar he comes across.
She’s determined not to let him feel her embarrassment, so she stands up, offering him a smile. “I should probably phone Sophie to let her know I’m ready.”
“Right.” Anthony stands up too. He looks like he has something else to say, but he doesn’t offer it, instead clearing his throat and putting a hand in his pocket.
“Thanks for the drinks.” Kate’s sincere when she says it. If you had asked her a few hours ago, there’s no way that she would have thought that this would have been as enjoyable as it was. “I actually had fun.”
He nods. “So did I. Thanks for retuning my luggage.” Again, he looks like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t. It’s not until Kate turns her attention her phone, clicking for Sophie’s contact does he speak again. “Oh! I have your phone charger in my room, sorry, I needed it. Don’t leave yet. I should go get that.”
“Oh.” Kate glances awkwardly around the bar. She doesn’t really want to sit around in this hotel that she’s not staying in while Anthony’s gone because she’s already starting to feel the keen sense that she doesn’t belong again. She’s again acutely aware of the faded Columbia sweatshirt that she’s wearing (bought by Sophie and shipped over nearly three years ago, now). “I’ll stay… here, then.”
“You could come with me.”
When Kate looks up, Anthony’s brows are furrowed like his mouth said the words without his permission. But she nods gratefully, because obviously he saw how uncomfortable she would be, left in the lounge without him, and obviously he’s being a gentleman in offering to not leave her alone. She’ll take the lifeline before he decides to reel it back. “That would be nice!”
He almost looks like he didn’t expect her to say that, but Kate decides not to read much into it, following behind Anthony as he leads her towards the elevators. When they enter his room, she can’t help the sound she makes. “You could probably fit my entire flat in here.” She’s exaggerating, a bit, but not by much.
Sophie was right. He was too good for Economy. And also, Kate thinks a little bitterly, too good for her.
Anthony mutters out some response that Kate doesn’t catch, meandering through the living room of his suite and disappearing around a corner. Kate doesn’t dare to move, staying planted where she is by the door, waiting for him to return. She takes in the large, vast windows. The tiny kitchen off to the side. It only takes a few moments for Anthony to materialize again, and when he does he waves her charger in the air like he’s caught a prize.
“Thanks again for the company,” he tells her when he hands it off. Their fingers brush. Kate feels electric. “These trips can be so lonely. Especially when they’re last minute and I can’t plan for much.”
Kate nods. “Glad to be of service. Thanks for the drinks.”
He waves her off. “I owed you.”
Kate nods again. She wishes she could think of anything else to do. Anything else that’s even slightly less awkward. But she can’t, so she clears her throat, rocking on her heels. “I should phone Sophie.”
“You should.”
Her hands don’t move towards her phone that’s nestled safely in the pocket of her leggings. Anthony’s eyes flicker down to her phone, then up to her face, and he seems like he makes a choice. With a shaky breath (thank God it’s not just me affected like this, Kate thinks), Anthony takes a step towards her. And then another. And then, he tilts his head to the side like it’s a question.
Kate hopes he can see the answer in her eyes.
“You can tell me if I’m reading this wrong,” He says, face just inches from hers. He brings a hand up to cup her cheek, thumb stroking the skin there. He smells like the faintest hint of whiskey when he’s this close. “I normally can tell when a woman is interested. But I’m still not sure if you’re interested in that way, or just interested in killing me, still.”
“Both?” But Kate knows she’s lying. She completely stopped finding his personality to be grating and irritating a drink and a half ago. “Solidly more the first one though. You’re not reading this wrong. I thought that I was reading this wrong.” When he looks at her like she’s a bit thick, she says, “I remember someone going out of their way to tell me that they weren’t hitting on me, early this morning.”
“Kate,” he starts, exasperated, and then he finally closes the distance between them. The kiss is soft, safe, and Kate can feel his grin against her mouth. He presses his lips to hers again, other hand falling to bracket her hips before he pulls back just enough to speak again. “That was me trying not to be seen as even more of a prick than I already had been. Not because I didn’t want to hit on you. I wanted to hit on you the moment I saw you, I’d just already messed it up.” When she looks at him a little disbelievingly, he adds, “A gorgeous woman putting me in my place, what’s not hot about that?”
Kate surges forward to kiss him then, this time. He walks her back until she’s pressed firmly against the hotel door, then wedges one of his legs in between her thighs, slotting himself against her. One of her hands goes to fist in the back of his t-shirt, the other cupping the back of his neck, fingernails scratching at the nape. He groans at that, pressing into her more, both hands on her hips now. He lets his hands slide lower and around her body until he's cupping the soft curve of her ass, and then –
And then Kate’s phone buzzes in her pocket. She’s going to kill Sophie, she thinks, as she sighs, pushing Anthony’s chest gently so that he backs off a bit. He does, just enough for her to fish out her phone, mouth slick and eyes dark.
She doesn’t even bother reading what Sophie’s sent her, instead shooting off a text. Busy.
The response is immediate.
Sophie: YES SHARMA!
Sophie: Can’t wait to witness your walk of shame later. Make him pay for your Uber!
Tucking her phone back into her pocket, Kate turns to Anthony again. “Hi. Sophie, sorry.”
He nods, having dutifully waited. “D’you have to go?”
“Oh, no. I was telling her I was…” Kate blushes. “I told her I was busy. We’re fine.”
Anthony lets out a sigh of relief at that. He’d prepared himself to walk Kate out, and he would’ve done so no questions asked. He would’ve made himself content with a few stolen kisses and gotten himself off after making sure that Kate was safely back in the hands of her best friend. It’s just not until Kate confirms that she’s staying does Anthony really realize just how badly he did not want to have to do that.
He leans in to kiss her again, and she responds eagerly, and Anthony can’t believe his luck, really. He was so certain that when he tried to make a move, Kate was going to tell him to fuck off. He can’t believe he almost let her leave without kissing her at all.
He’s not completely certain that she still doesn’t despise him, though, underneath the desire. Once they get this out of their system he figures she’ll return back to quick quips and cutting gazes, so Anthony’s determined to savor this. There’s a part of him that’s urging for more, to speed this up, to hurry this along (he’s been half-hard since Kate strode into the hotel’s bar, after all), but the better part of him wants to nurture the low heat thrumming through him. If he only gets Kate like this once, he wants to make it count.
“You’re thinking a lot,” Kate says, pulling back. Anthony rests his forehead against hers, drinking in her gaze, the small rise and fall of her chest as she catches her breath. She looks hesitant, like Anthony’s changed his mind and is going to kick her out, or something.
“Sorry.” His slots himself in for a kiss. “I do that, it’s not you.” He runs one hand along her waist, fingers skimming her waistband. He hooks a finger inside and Kate’s breath hitches where he touches her bare skin. “I just… want.” He doesn’t know how to finish the sentence, but doesn’t think he really has to. Because that’s the gist of it, isn’t it? Kate’s here, and for however long he has her he’ll take whatever she wants to give. He just wants.
She seems to accept this as an answer and they’re kissing again. It’s slow and dirty, and she doesn’t seem keen to rush this any more than he does. He takes the opportunity to touch her more. He keeps one hand on her waist, still, thumb stroking her hipbone. The other one he lets roam. Around her ass again, and then back up. He teases the bottom hem of her sweatshirt and Kate arches against him like she’s giving permission. He slips his hand under her jumper and t-shirt then, fingers spreading as his hand moves up her back, desperate to touch as much skin as he can. He fumbles to find the clasp of her bra before he realizes there isn’t one, and he groans, grinding his hips down on hers.
“You’re not wearing a bra.” His voice sounds wrecked, and he would feel embarrassed about it if Kate didn’t look so pleased with herself.
“I like to be comfortable on long flights.”
Anthony’s eyes flutter closed, and he kisses Kate’s neck in response. “You’re killing me.” The fingers that Kate has burrowed in his hair tighten their grip, and Anthony skims his teeth along her neck with a hiss before leaning in to kiss her again. Both of his hands move along her torso now, and he lets one slip behind her bare back again as the other comes up her chest. His skims a thumb across on her nipple, and Kate moans, rolling her hips up into his. He kneads her breast in his hand, softly, and her head falls back (as much as it can, being that Anthony still has her pressed against his door). She hooks one of her legs around his calf, pulling him in impossibly closer, and he steadies the underside of her thigh.
“Anthony.” She says his name like it’s a prayer. “Bed. Please.”
“Anything you want,” he murmurs, and he knows it’s true. She could rob him blind right now and he’d happily sign his life away to this little thief. He pulls away from her just long enough to lead her through his suite, and then he flips them around, tilting her back so that her back falls against the sheets. He’s back on her in a moment, supporting his weight on a forearm.
She runs her hands along his chest. “You should take this off.”
Anthony does, pulling his t-shirt over his head and tossing it a ways away on the bed. Kate takes him in. Anthony knows that he’s fit, but Kate’s opinion matters to him, so when she nods appreciatively and spreads her hands on his bare chest he feels like his entire body’s on fire.
“You,” he says, tugging on her sweatshirt, “should take this off. And these off.” He snaps the waistband of her leggings against her hips.
Kate’s breath hitches, and she nods, but she tenses, and Anthony gets it.
“It’s just me,” he says. But then, “I can stop.”
“No, don’t.” She bites it out hastily, a little frantically. “I don’t want you to stop.”
“Then you have to relax,” he says. “Trust me.” He goes to kiss her again, and he can still feel her muscles pulled tight against the skin she’s allowing him to touch. He pulls back, supporting himself on his hands instead of his forearm to put a bit more distance between them. “You know,” he says, hoping his voice sounds light and teasing, “I did see your luggage. You can’t have possibly thought that something like this was out of the realm of possibilities for your weekend.”
Kate lets out a rush of air at that, looking little bashful, but she relaxes underneath him and Anthony’s glad it worked. “Sophie made me pack that,” she starts, tilting her head at the admission. Anthony sees an opening for himself, dropping back down to plant kisses along the smooth expanse of her neck as she continues. “She was so—oh,” she cuts off for a moment, moaning, sentence forgotten. Her nails scratch against his shoulders as Anthony leaves wet, open-mouthed kisses against the part of her collarbone that he can reach. “I like that.”
He hums a sound of acknowledgement, before pulling back just enough to confess into the crook of her neck, “I haven’t stopped thinking about that set from the moment I saw it and found out that it was yours, by the way.”
Kate breathes, low, steady, and lets out a breathless, “Really?”
When Anthony nods, she offers, “I can wear it.”
“Would you?”
Kate nods, raking her fingers through his hair. “I’d prefer it, even, I think. Instead of wearing this while you look,” she gestures to him generally, “like that.”
“You already look good,” he promises her, and he isn’t lying. He rolls off of her anyway. “And I just look like me.”
Kate throws a look over her shoulder so that he can see her roll her eyes. “Oh please. You’re annoying, but you know you’re hot.”
“And so are you.”
Kate doesn’t respond to him, and Anthony props himself up on his elbows to watch her mile-long legs go to grab her carry-on (still by the door). When she returns, he waves her towards the bathroom. “I’ll be here.”
She gives him a small smile before disappearing into the bathroom, and Anthony takes the time to rid himself of the rest of his clothes sans his boxer briefs. He’s straining against them and has been for a while, and he lets out a low, quiet groan as he squeezes himself through the fabric to relieve some of the pressure. Pleasure blooms deep in his belly, and he strokes himself through the cotton idly, waiting for Kate to return. He lets his eyes close, takes in the moment, and doesn’t even realize that Kate’s exited the bathroom until he hears –
“Oh.”
When his eyes open, she’s there, and Anthony has to drop his hand from himself to keep from coming at just the sight of her. She’s wearing the lingerie—a lilac lace corset clings to her upper half, matching panties covering the spots Anthony wants to see the most. She’s let her hair down from her ponytail, thick waves cascading over her shoulders. Standing in the frame of his hotel’s bathroom door, Kate looks like every wet dream that Anthony’s ever had come to life. If he were more of writer, Anthony reckons he’d be penning sonnets and soliloquies right now. Shakespeare himself wouldn’t be able to find the words to describe just how good Kate looks.
Anthony knows he’s staring, knows he should say something, but he can’t help himself. His eyes scan up her legs, mouth watering at the way the lace brushes the tips of her thighs, and again, Anthony just wants.
“You’re thinking again,” Kate says, heading towards the bed. She’s unabashedly staring too. “About?”
Anthony aims for honesty. “Those legs, and how I want them around my head.” He sounds desperate (he is), and he reaches out for Kate, pulls her the rest of the way towards him. “Come here.”
Kate tumbles into him, and he situates them so that she’s beneath him again. He likes her like this, soft, and pliant, and laid out before him. He wants to study every inch of her; he’s always been the most diligent student. “Just gorgeous.”
He’s licking into her mouth again, and his hand travels from the smooth curve of her belly to her thighs. He fiddles with the lace, traces the pattern with his fingertips until he’s between her legs completely. He takes two fingers and touches her, experimentally, and her breath hitches. He can feel her wetness through the lace, and he quickly pushes it aside to stroke at her seam.
“So wet for me already,” he murmurs, and he swallows her moans when he puts one finger in, then two, thrusting them shallowly at first and then crooking them, finding the right angle that makes Kate let out a broken cry beneath him. “I want to taste you. Can I do that?”
“Please.”
Anthony kisses down her body, along her stomach, on her hipbones, the soft insides of her thighs. She sighs, hips rolling up.
“Are you going to make me beg?”
“I wasn’t planning on it, but I won’t stop you.” He gives her a boyish grin, pulling the lace down. He kisses up one of her legs, hauling it over his shoulder, and then he spreads her with his fingers and finally, finally dives in.
The noises that Kate makes as he eats her out, Anthony decides, are the only sounds that he wants to hear for the rest of his existence. Her head is tossed to the side, mouth agape, eyes screwed shut. Her fingers are in his hair, and he’s using one arm to pin her hips down, and using the fingers of his other hand to thrust inside her again as his tongue circles her clit. At some point he stops pinning her down, letting his hand roam up her body until he finds her chest, caressing her nipples through the lace.
Kate chokes out a sob, and when Anthony chances a glance at her, she meets his eyes.
“I’m close,” she says, “Can I—” She rolls her hips against his tongue, grip tightening in his hair and holding his head in place. “Please.”
The request isn’t fully coherent, but Anthony knows what she’s asking for and he wordlessly answers. He takes his fingers out of her, positioning himself better so that she can take control. She slides her leg off of his shoulder so that both of her feet are firmly on the bed, and grinds her clit against his tongue. Her thighs squeeze tighter the closer she gets, and it’s probably the most erotic thing that Anthony’s ever witnessed. His eyes close as he groans at the thought, reaching down to rub himself through his boxers. It’s not enough.
He pulls his boxers down, reaches up to coat in his fingers in her slick and then strokes his length as he lets Kate use him. He could come like this, he thinks, and then moments later, no, he will come like this.
But then Kate is moaning above him, back arching off the bed, body trembling as her orgasm ripples through her. Anthony licks her through it until she’s twisting away from his touch, overstimulated.
They’re both panting, and Anthony reaches for his earlier abandoned t-shirt, wiping his face and kicking off his boxers where they’ve pooled at his knees before leaning down to kiss Kate. “That was okay?”
She looks at him through hooded, satiated eyes. “Oh please. More than okay, you know that.” He lays down beside her and she turns to face him fully, eyes lowering with interest. “Give me a chance to recover and I’ll return the favor in a minute.”
His dick jumps at that (visibly, and embarrassingly so) but he says, “Oh, no, you don’t have to do that.” Kate looks offended, so he hurriedly amends with, “Not because I don’t think it would be good. Opposite problem actually.” He skims his thumb across her bottom lip, and she sucks it into her mouth. Anthony’s eyes fall closed. “I think it would be too good, and I wouldn’t last, and I think I’d rather have you a different way, if you’d want that.”
“I do want that.”
They kiss a bit more for a little while, Kate taking him into her hand with light, lazy strokes. Anthony rolls his hips along her gentle rhythm, and after a while, Kate lets go, saying, “I’m ready.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. How do you want me?”
Anthony wants to say I want you in every single way, can you make that happen? but instead settles for, “On your back again. I want to see you.” He runs one hand over the lace corset that she’s still wearing. “And this is beautiful, and you look beautiful in it, but I’d love if you could take it off.”
He goes to fetch a condom out of his suitcase, and when he returns, Kate is naked and bare and beautiful before him. She’s more than beautiful, really, but Anthony can’t think of any other word that’s even close to worthy of describing her, well, beauty.
Like with everything else so far, they go slow. Kate lets out a shuddering breath when Anthony first pushes inside her, letting her adjust to the feel of him before he starts to move. He rolls his hips and she matches him, and they just fit. And that’s it, really, isn’t it? They fit.
Anthony’s trying not to think about the fact that Kate Sharma has officially ruined sex for him forevermore, because he knows it’ll never feel as good as this again. He instead focuses on her body beneath him, the way her hair’s splayed out against his sheets, how he knows his bed’s going to smell of lilies and sex until he checks out on Monday. He learns how to make Kate’s face contort, how to make her eyes screw shut, how to make her claw her fingers down his arms, and his chest, and his back. He fucks her through another orgasm and then he’s following quickly after, coming with Kate’s name on his lips, in his thoughts, throughout his senses.
When they’re finally settled again, Kate nestled against Anthony’s side, she runs her hand through the hair plastered to his sweaty forehead. “I’m so glad you accidentally grabbed my bag.”
“Me too.”
She tells him as much, again, later, when Anthony’s the one with his back against the sheets. She says so as she’s straddling his hips, and then she sinks down and Anthony thinks he may actually see stars. He tries to match her pace but can’t get the timing right, and Kate goes from supporting herself against the headboard to laying her weight on his chest.
“Stop,” she coaxes, and Anthony will do whatever she says when she’s looking down at him like that, thick curls framing her shoulders, “relax. Let me take care of you this time.”
So Anthony does.
Later on, they order room service, and Kate tries her hardest not to show that she’s impressed by the caliber of the food delivered to their door.
They again fall into easy conversation after that –
(“You were clean shaven in your Wikipedia picture, but I quite like the stubble, I think.”
“You looked me up on Wikipedia?”
“Oh please. You looked at my LinkedIn. I saw the notification.”)
– until Kate’s eyes begin to close, and Anthony’s feel just as heavy.
He falls asleep with Kate’s head on his chest, smelling fresh from her shower, arm slung across his waist, and he thinks, heartachingly so, that he could get used to this.
Kate wakes up to Anthony adjusting the fit of his tie. It’s ungodly early in the morning, and it takes a second before Kate remembers that Anthony has an ungodly early meeting to attend.
“Oh, good morning.” He’s just realized that she’s awake, and he flashes her a smile. He looks relieved that he didn’t have to debate between waking her up to kick her out or leaving her to her own devices alone in the room. “Slept okay?”
“Good morning,” she returns, yawning. “Slept great but definitely could have slept more.” She rolls out of bed, meandering to her luggage to grab her toothbrush. “Hope your meeting goes well.”
“Thanks.”
Anthony watches her as she brushes her teeth, and Kate feels like she’s underdressed next to him, in her oversized t-shirt and sleep shorts. It’s silly to feel that way, but she does anyhow.
Anthony’s still watching her, leaning against the doorframe, fiddling with the cuff of the sleeve that he just finished rolling past his elbows. He clears his throat and then says abruptly, “Hey.”
Kate looks up, meeting his eyes in the mirror and raising her brows, since she can’t exactly speak.
“I was wondering if I could have your number?” He sounds hopeful (as if Kate would ever say no after a night like that). “I know that the rest of your weekend is full, but I was thinking maybe when we’re both back in London I could take you out. Properly. I know I did this all backwards.”
She grins around her toothbrush, reaching out her hand so that she could take his phone. She enters in her contact as she finishes brushing her teeth, and when she’s done she gives him a little smile. “I’d like that.”
The rest of Kate’s weekend passes in a blur. She doesn’t even have time to think of Anthony again (except for when Sophie is making her repeat the encounter to the other bridesmaids, slapping Kate’s arm with a, “And then he called one of his drivers to take her back to the hotel. Not an Uber. His driver.”)
It’s not until she’s kissing Sophie on the cheek, promising to come visit again soon, and striding into JFK airport at five on Monday morning does Kate remember that Anthony’s on her flight too. She hasn’t seen him since she left his hotel on Friday, and neither of them had sent a text outside of the one that Anthony had sent so that she’d have his number as well.
She tries not to think about it, tries to ignore the butterflies sprouting in her stomach. He’s just a man. A handsome, charming, entirely too-good-at-sex man, but just a man nonetheless. She reminds herself of such, repeating it like a mantra and hoping that maybe she’ll believe it by the time that she sees him again.
By the time that Kate fetches herself some tea and a bagel, Anthony’s already at their boarding area. He looks just as nervous as Kate feels when he meets her eyes, offering her a small smile and gesturing to the seat beside himself. He’s saved it for her, his luggage in her place. “Kate, hey.”
Instead of responding to him, she nudges his suitcase with her knee. “This is in my way.”
Anthony’s smile drops, and his brows stitch together, but then he’s putting it together and he’s laughing. “You’re not going to let me live that down, will you?” He yanks his bag off of the seat, and Kate flops into it ungracefully.
“I will not. But look what I brought you.”
When Anthony looks at her, head cocked, she shakes a luggage tag in his face. “Here. Because I know you still didn’t grab one yourself.”
They chat a bit more until right before it’s time to board, and then Anthony gets up and she loses him in the crowd. She’s a bit disappointed, because she was going to make a joke about him and first class again, but she hopes she can just catch him when they land at Heathrow and tease him a bit then. It kind of disgusts her that she’s so giddy to have a chance to speak to him again, but she figures that this must be the new normal and she better get used to it.
And she doesn’t, it turns out, have to wait that long before she speaks to Anthony again. Because when Kate arrives to her middle seat in the midback of the plane, Anthony is already there sitting in the aisle seat.
“What are you doing here?” She blurts it out because she’s incredibly surprised.
He hops up, taking Kate’s bag from her to haul it into the overhead bin. Kate takes the opportunity to ogle the bulge of his biceps before slipping into their row. “Seriously.”
“I’m taking a flight, same as you.”
“In economy.”
“Well,” Anthony says, sitting back down, “I was told that my Economy experience was uniquely bad last time. So I thought I ought to give it one more shot.”
She can’t help the smile the spreads across her face. He’s too good at this, really. The man downgraded from first class for her. How could she possibly resist? “When did you change your ticket?”
Anthony looks very sheepish when he responds. “In the lift when we headed up to grab your phone charger.”
Kate shakes her head at him in disbelief. “You hadn’t even kissed me yet.”
“And I wasn’t sure if I was going to get the chance to.” He ducks his head. “But I knew I wanted to see you again.”
(When the flight takes off, they end up bickering over which movie to watch, putting up the armrest separating them, and cuddling and talking for most of the flight. Kate ends up falling asleep against Anthony at one point. He doesn’t seem to mind.
But when they land, as they exit the terminal Kate asks him, “So how would you say your second economy flight went?”
And Anthony responds, “Awful. My seatmate this time didn’t know what personal space was either.”)
Edwina won’t stop asking Kate questions. Anthony had insisted on walking Kate out to where her sister was waiting to pick her up, leaving her with a hug and a chaste kiss on the cheek. Kate knows her entire face is aflame when she pulls the passenger side door open, and she barely has time to sit down before Edwina says, “And who was that?”
Edwina is still asking Kate about her weekend when Kate is finally unpacking her luggage. At this point, she’s already told her sister every detail about her weekend (with an M-level rating of course) at least twice over. But she indulges, because she always indulges Edwina, and is in the midst of telling her again about the first club that she visited on Saturday evening when she gets to the bottom of her luggage and she frowns. Nestled like she wasn’t meant to find it is a trouser sock, and Kate is only momentarily confused before she takes a picture of it and opens her texts.
Kate: I think I nicked one of your socks? Sorry
“Whose is that?” Edwina asks, and Kate gets a response.
Anthony: Oh no! I guess we’ll have to meet up so that I can get that back. That sock is incredibly important to me, you know. My singular favorite sock. I need it back immediately.
Kate tries to hid her grin and fails. To her sister, she says, “It belongs to the guy who stole my luggage.” And to Anthony:
Kate: Did you plant that in my luggage just so you’d have an excuse to see me?
Kate watches the three dots appear, disappear, appear again, and go away completely. After a minute, Anthony responds.
Anthony: Of course not.
Then quickly followed by:
Anthony: Unless you found it charming, then yes I did
Kate: Was it clean?
Anthony: Of course it was a clean sock.
Kate shakes her head, smile on her face. She has a feeling that it’s going to stay for a while. When she responds to Anthony again, before clicking off her phone and turning her attention back to her sister, Kate knows that she finds her words to be true.
Kate: Then consider me charmed.