Page 77 of Playing for Keeps

Theo and I said our usual goodnights and then him and Char were gone, my screen left blank.

Luke flicked his eyebrows up as I came out into the open plan kitchen/lounge. The takeout had just arrived and the smell of Thai made my mouth water.

Unfortunately it wasn’t the only thing in the room that made my mouth water. Just seeing Luke’s lips wrapped around a beer bottle caused a flare of lust in me.

“Theo okay?” he asked after he’d swallowed his mouthful.

“Yeah, he just gave me a very detailed description of feeding the ducks.”

“That kid loves his animals,” Anthony chuckled, handing me a beer.

“Thanks. And yes, he does.”

I glanced over at Alison as I took a sip of my beer, because this was the one bit of common ground we had. She loved her grandson fiercely.

But she was in the kitchen opening the containers of takeout, her lips pinched tightly together. She looked as if she hadn’t just sucked a lemon, she’d consumed the whole tree.

“Do you want some help, Alison?” I asked. This is what I always found myself doing around her, over-compensating, as if my politeness would eventually outweigh her disapproval.

“It’s fine,” she said.

I noticed the receipt pinned to the takeout bag and reached for my wallet in my back pocket.

“Here.” I offered some cash to Anthony.

He waved it away. “Don’t worry about it, Ethan, it’s our shout.”

I kept my hand extended. Because I’d grown up poor and part of me had withered every time Luke’s parents had paid for drinks and food and ice creams when I was with them. Anthony had even paid my rugby subs one year after my mother’s latest loser of a boyfriend ran off with the contents of her bank account, and I otherwise wasn’t going to be able to play.

And I knew they’d helped Char out financially in the first year after Theo was born when I wasn’t making much from my first contract with the Marauders.

“You don’t need to pay for me anymore, Anthony,” I said.

Luke studied my face, then shot a glance at his father. “Take the money, Dad,” he said quietly.

Anthony blinked. Then he took the notes from me, carefully folding them into his wallet.

“Thank you, Ethan,” he said.

Alison put the plates on the counter with a thud. “Dinner’s ready,” she said.

* * *

After dinner, we ended up playing Five Hundred against Luke’s parents.

Playing cards was better than making awkward conversation. Every time I caught Alison looking at me with those icy blue eyes that were so different to Luke’s warm brown ones, I had to look away. For some reason, I’d never been able to hold her gaze for very long. As a kid I’d suspected she had the superpower to see inside my soul and catalog all the ways I was lacking.

Luke and I, with a fair dose of cheating, walloped his parents three games to nothing. By then it was a respectable time to retreat to bed without looking as if I was fleeing from Alison.

Although that was out of the frying pan and into a raging inferno.

Thanks to the arrival of his parents, Luke and I were now sharing the spare room, which had two single beds and the bonus of his parents being right next door through the thin wall.

And we still hadn’t had the conversation about what had happened at the top of Mt. Iron.

Luke stripped down to his boxers and my mouth went dry.

I climbed into bed before he could clock my cock’s reaction to him. Luke switched off the main light, leaving just a small lamp on.