Thomas

 

I was fresh from a shower with a towel low around my hips when my mobile vibrated on the bedside table.

I couldn’t hold back the smirk. I knew it was her before I clocked the area code. Two days later than my estimate, so kudos to her self-restraint, but still well within my weekly prediction window.

“Grace,” I said as I clicked to accept, my voice so sure of itself that I was certain I’d have her knickers wet before she was done with the niceties.

The response stopped me dead in my tracks.

“Wrong guess, asshole,” Brett Foster told me, and his tone made my gut tighten. It wasn’t the bitter growl of someone on the edge of a divorce, calling up to give me a mindless threat of violence from the other side of the country. There wasn’t the slightest hint of insecurity, nor of a man struggling to stay on the rails of his own sorry life.

“Brett,” I said. “This is a surprise. Not entirely pleasant.”

It wasn’t pleasant. My pulse was drumming, my composure straining as I fought the urge to hang up and bail on him and his shitty late-night call. I hated it, despised even the hint of my self-control reeling under pressure.

“Thanks for the business card,” he continued. “So nice to know we could call on you.”

“Purely good manners on my part,” I lied, and I heard his arrogant smirk right across the miles.

“You don’t know the meaning of good manners, Heath, but nice try.”

I forced a sigh. “If you called me in the middle of the night purely to bid me thanks for leaving my contact details, I’ll be saying goodnight.”

But I didn’t hang up, and the bastard knew I wouldn’t. He hung on in silence just to prove the point, and it was all wrong. This whole ridiculous interaction was all wrong.

“What the fuck do you want?” I said, finally, and he laughed out loud before his voice calmed to a low rumble.

“You, me, and my beautiful wife,” he told me. “No fucking sensors, no chairs set out at a safe distance, no pile of dirty cash to unbalance the equation.”

It was my turn to laugh. “And why would I do that?”

“Because your ego won’t let you turn down a rematch. You know it, and I know it, so cut the fucking crap.”

My jaw tightened at his brashness. “You don’t know anything about me. And you sure as fuck don’t know anything about my ego.”

“Oh, but I do,” he said. “I watch, I learn. Watching from the substitute bench, you see fucking everything.”

“This isn’t one of your shitty high school sports games now. It’s me taking what I want, when I want it.” I let my strength gather itself in the pit of me, fighting every whisper of revolting nerves.

“Come back down here,” he said. “Call it a challenge. Your game against mine. Grace’s sweet pussy can be the referee.”

“I’ve already claimed that prize,” I goaded. “Many times over.”

“You bought it, now it’s time to earn it. Anyone can be a winner if they play dirty.”

“Playing dirty is my favourite way to play,” I hissed, expecting a rise from him that never came.

“Rematch next Tuesday,” he said, with his voice too fucking even for belief. “The top suite is available, I’ll make you a reservation right now, that’s if you’re up to the challenge.”

“Look,” I said, and my voice wasn’t even at all. It was a hiss. A spit. Fuming with bile as the teenage memories came spewing back up. “I’ve no time for your sad fucking challenges. My time is in demand, and so is my dick. I’ve dipped it in your coastal honeypot to my satisfaction already, thank you.”

I waited for the goading. The schoolyard taunts of how he’d kick my ass on the playing field. His primitive grunts about how I needed to get myself down there and show him what I’m made of.

But they didn’t come.

“Fine,” he said. “Have it your way. You know how to book online if you change your mind.”

And then he was gone.

The line went dead. The dull bleep of the call-dead tone was enough to bring sweat to my forehead, my back blistering with the chill of hardball negotiations turned sour.

I tossed the phone on the bed, cursing Brett Foster for everything his life was worth. Cursing their sad determination to ignore the fact that they were ruined. That I’d fucking ruined them.

I poured myself a scotch and drank it down in one, savouring the vintage burn like it stood a chance of soothing the rancid pit in me.

And then I called up his fucking website, before my senses could catch up with the rest of me.