Page 60 of Play Dirty

~ 22 ~

ARES

The bar wasn’t busy. That was the point. Low lights. A few regulars. A game on TV no one really cared about. It was the kind of place where no one asked questions, and nobody cared what you were talking about.

Grayson picked it, of course.

He sat across from me now, one arm draped over the back of the booth. The beer in front of him was virtually untouched.

I took a long, slow pull from mine. The beer was cold. Bitter. Exactly the way I wanted it.

“You’ve been off,” he said.

Straight to it. I didn’t even look at him.

“I’ve been playing fine.”

“Didn’t say you weren’t.”

I took another drink. This time I set the bottle down harder than I needed to.

He let the silence stretch out for a while. That was his thing, really. Grayson was one of the few people I knew who realized the importance of saying nothing. People generally talked, if you only let them.

“You still think she’s involved?” he finally asked.

I leaned back slightly, dragging a hand over the back of my neck. Did I? A few days ago, that answer would’ve been easy. But now—

“I don’t know,” I exhaled slowly.

Grayson’s right eyebrow arched upward, independent of the left. That alone told me he hadn’t expected my answer.

“She shows up,” I went on, “right after Sutherland gets cut. After Trees gets canned. Starts telling us how to play, like she’s been here the whole time.”

“All true,” he said.

“Yeah.”

I stared down at the table for a second. It was all water stains and scratches.

“But…”

The word sat there, like it didn’t belong. I didn’t like it.

“But?”

I shook my head, once. “She doesn’t act like someone with an angle,” I said. “Not a good one, anyway.”

Grayson finally picked up his beer. A faint smirk tugged at one corner of his mouth.

“That’s your read?”

“That’s what I see.”

“That’s new.”

Yeah.

It was.