Playing the Game Read Online Free Page A

around?”
    Miles laughed. “You can’t hear the moaning? They must be taking a break. No, you fuckwit, I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to the chick in my living room. Yes there is. Yes , there is. Fuck you, too. Shoot the damn enemy.”
    “I’m leaving my apartment keys on the kitchen table, Miles. Don’t forget, okay?”
    “Sure, Al. Keys on the table.”
    He’d forget. Karen would see them, at least. But she needed to put the van keys in Duffy’s hand, or he’d be fucking pissed and calling her cell at one in the morning when he was half-drunk and couldn’t find them.
    She looked down the hallway to the bedrooms. The door to the last room, hers and Karen’s, was closed. Her new neighbor was doing her a huge favor to be here at all.
    He stood unmoving by the door, either disgusted by the apartment or mindful of her warning not to touch anything.
    “Sorry. Two minutes, I swear.”
    She scurried down the hall and banged on the door.
    “Duffy! You in there?”
    Silence. She leaned closer. No, not silence. The screech of bedsprings. Great. Well, she wasn’t waiting all fucking day.
    Alice shoved the door half-open.
    Duffy knelt behind Karen on the bed, fucking her doggy-style.
    Karen dragged her head up from her arms. “What the–”
    Alice jangled the keys, attracting their attention like she might wave a chew toy for a dog.
    “Yo, Duffy. Keys.” She tossed them, underhand, and he swiped them out of the air without missing a beat. Good sense of rhythm. Benefits of fucking a musician? Alice shook her head and smirked. “Van’s out front. Meter’s good for thirty minutes.”
    Karen laughed. “More than long enough for studly here.”
    Duffy leaned down, his chest covering Karen’s back. “Just for that, I’ll make it three .”
    “Thanks for the loan.” Alice stepped back, pulling the door with her. “See ya.”
    Shit. Henry had stepped farther into the living room, with a perfect view down the hall. A view that thirty seconds ago had included Karen and Duffy fucking. Way to make a terrible impression on her neighbor.
    Fuck if she’d apologize. Sex wasn’t anything shameful. She crossed the space between, about to apologize anyway, because her relaxed boundaries didn’t mean Henry needed the image of strangers fucking shoved in his head, but he spoke first.
    “Ready to make your last exit?”
    She scrutinized his face. If her behavior or her ex-roommate’s had bothered him, it didn’t show. Courteous neutrality. I’ll see your courtesy and raise you a smile, Henry.
    “You bet. Thanks for coming along. Saves me a long subway ride.”
    Henry snapped his arm out, elbow crooked, and bent toward her. “Shall we, then?”
    She stared at him, a single chuckle escaping, and called a goodbye to Miles before wrapping her hand around Henry’s arm. “Lead the way, my good man.”
    Duffy’s excited shout followed them out the door. Three minutes. Poor Karen.
     

     

 
    Chapter 2
     
    Alice blamed Henry for her uncharacteristic distraction at work all day. If his dinner plans hadn’t reminded her of the anniversary, she wouldn’t be devoting so much mental space to walking through the last year on memory lane.
    She’d been distracted, in those first few weeks, by trying to puzzle out the status of her neighbors’ relationship. When she teased Jay about what a cute couple he and Henry made, he hammed it up with boyish charm.
    “It’s not Henry, Alice, it’s me. I make every couple cute.” Jay slung his arm around her. “Adorable, right? Wait, where’s a mirror?”
    When she asked Henry how long he and Jay had been together , he was matter of fact.
    “Jay moved in nearly three years ago, Alice. He’s quite tolerable as a roommate, despite his unseemly boisterousness.”
    Jay’s crab-walking across the roof deck at the time made discerning whether Henry was being dryly sarcastic and twitting him or making a definitive statement about his roommate difficult, if not impossible. A