Game On Read Online Free Page B

you do that, Pato?” Clara asked, peering into the bottom of her glass. “Is there a sensor at the bottom of this thing?”
    Pato winked and poured.
    “Still not feeling this, Lyds. You know my policy on chastity in the workplace.”
    “Scott completely ruined you,” Lydia said, referring to the disastrous office romance that left Clara skittish about mixing business with pleasure. “Bloody wanker,” she mumbled.
    “He was that.” Clara had been ready to declare her undying love to the political analyst when she arrived at the office late one night to find him inflagranti dilicto with the paper’s fact checker. Lesson learned.
    “But as you’ll be unemployed by elevenses tomorrow, it really doesn’t qualify, does it?”
    Clara sighed, thinking she could indeed have her mid-morning cup of tea over the employment ads. “Can you at least describe the potential candidates?”
    “Both tall, one’s roguish looking, dressed entirely in black with a surly look about him, the other’s a blond god.”
    “You’d better have your eye on the surly funeral director,” Clara warned. She had no tolerance for men who sheathed themselves from head to toe in black. It showed a distinct lack of imagination, so unless there was a specific dress-code in effect, she generally avoided them.
    “That would have been my natural choice, but he seems to only have eyes for you.”
    “How can you tell? You’re not even looking.”
    “I’ve superior peripheral vision.”
    “Your talents are endless, Miss Truelove.”
    “You haven’t seen half of them, Miss Bean.”
    “No doubt.”
    “Laugh and give your head a toss.”
    “Are you joking?” Clara asked at the odd request.
    “Just do it.”
    Clara pretended her friend said something amusing and feigned a giggle. She didn’t know how to toss her head without looking ridiculous so she tucked her hair behind her ear instead.
    “I think you just gave the poor man a hard-on.”
    “Oh Lydia, stop being dramatic,” Clara laughed for real. “Aside from being angry, does my funeral director at least have a nice face?”
    “Nice everything, actually. He’s sporty by the breadth of his shoulders, and I didn’t say angry, I said surly. There’s a difference.”
    “Not much,” Clara argued. “What about the other?”
    “Oh la! He’s mine. That’s all you need to know.”
    “Lyds, please. I cannot do this tonight, especially with a churlish Man In Black. I’m positively knackered and all I want to do is go back to the hotel and curl up in bed for the next ten hours. My current emotional state is so tender, Bartel will have a bawling baby on his hands when he fires me tomorrow, and I truly want to stomp out of his office with some decorum.”
    It only took one look, one glance into the eyes of her friend, to see that she was barely hanging on. The world witnessed the loss of Lydia’s dignity a decade ago, and she’d spent the interim years building her self-esteem and credibility back up, just to have it poked at again by Bartel and the pageant winner who most likely earned her position via the bedroom. Clara couldn’t abandon her now.
    “All right, then,” Clara conceded. She would, at the very least, ensure that Lydia was in good company before making her own excuses to flee to her hotel room. “What’s the plan?”
    “Foursome?” Lydia smirked.
    “I should think not. Our last go at group sex didn’t really work out, did it?”
    “That’s because you’re a prude, Miss Bean.”
    “Well we all can’t be tramps, Miss Truelove.”
    “All’s the pity. But you could have at least tried—”
    “Never mind,” Clara said, putting her hand up. She certainly didn’t want to rehash that awkward night. “What else can we do? They would already know we’re British journalists, so we can’t play Swedish-air-hostesses-on-layover or German rocket scientists. Guess we shall just be ourselves.”
    Lydia shrugged. “No bloody fun in that.”
    “Too