Playing the Game Read Online Free Page B

roommate proving something about balancing beer bottles on his abdominal muscles. The precise reason why escaped her, but she wasn’t about to ask since the show was free.
    She scored a closer look at their apartment when they invited her over for dinner and a movie a few weeks later. Beautiful paintings lined the left side of the hall, including one of a sculpted back she was almost certain was Jay’s. The sort to make a girl want to reach out and touch.
    Three doors came before the bathroom, the first closed and the second open on a chaotic mess. Jay’s bedroom, definitely.
    The third matched her impression of Henry’s taste. Classy. Den-like. Dark, heavy furniture dominated by an enormous bed. Hello, brandy and cigars. Hello, Henry’s deep voice and heavy stare. Hello, fantastic orgasms on high-quality sheets.
    Whoa. She stifled a laugh at her outlandish thoughts and hurried into the bathroom before Henry caught her staring into his bedroom.
    But after she crawled under the covers on her futon that night, vibrator in hand, it was Henry’s bed behind her eyelids when she came.
    Fuck. I need to get laid.
    * * * *
    The months passed. She finally got laid in December thanks to a bar trivia night out with a couple of coworkers. Not either of the coworkers, God no, but the smart guy at the next table who joined their team. Brandon. Mediocre sex, but human contact won priority over her vibrator, at least for two months. After that, he was more trouble than he was worth. Keeping a lackluster boyfriend through Valentine’s Day was begging for problems. She gave him a nice it’s-not-you-it’s-me blowjob as a going away present. Blowjobs made breakups easier for guys to swallow than speeches did, in her experience.
    Seven months of fantasizing hadn’t yet answered the question dogging her. Single again, and she didn’t know if Henry or Jay would be open to some fun. If they were committed to each other the way they seemed to be, dropping a hint might lose her their friendship, and she didn’t make lasting friends easily.
    “I want to fuck them.” She shoved her covers down with her toes. Post-masturbation sweat, a radiator running hot and a heavy comforter were a little much, even in February. “Either of them. Both of them. Because they are sexy and sweet and not knowing is killing me, and I’m too polite to ask. Because if they haven’t flat-out said they’re a couple by now, either they aren’t or they’re in the closet and it’s none of my business. Except in my fantasies.”
    She let loose a frustrated growl. My maybe-gayboys don’t like to make things easy for a girl.
    * * * *
    When March rolled around, Jay clued her in about Henry’s upcoming birthday and invited her over for the occasion.
    “You know, wine. Birthday singing. Cake. Store-bought, I’m not making it, so don’t worry.”
    Texts flurried between them as she tried to decide on a gift when gift-buying wasn’t in her budget. She settled on a birthday card and a promise in the form of a floor plan sketched on heavy cardstock inside.
    Henry looked perplexed but pleased upon opening it. His fingers ran along the edges of the inner card repeatedly as he turned it this way and that.
    “This is the layout of the MFA building. You drew it?”
    She tried not to let nerves get the better of her. Her offer wasn’t a present, exactly, but she didn’t know what kind of art supplies he used, he owned everything he needed in the kitchen, and God forbid she try to dress him. He dressed better than she did anyway. And she couldn’t afford those things. But her time, well, that she could give him.
    “From a reference.” She’d studied the Museum of Fine Arts floor plan online. “Jay says you go there a lot.”
    “I do.”
    “By yourself.”
    He’d also said Henry had a membership to get other people in free, too. She’d lived in Boston since starting college, more than eight years now, and hadn’t set foot inside.
    “Yes.”
    “But you like to