Page 32 of Play Dirty

I have to admit—the whole Make My Husband Jealous game isn’t one I’ve done before. Never played one myself. Never facilitated one for someone else. Never even thought about it, actually.

I’m calling this game… the Divorce.

Which makes me laugh.

I know, I’m a heartless asshole, but I’m not the one who started this. I was perfectly willing to walk away from them. I was more than happy to let them live their lives without me.

They started this.

My phone rings so I reach over and pluck it off the bedside table. It can only be one person.

“Yes,” I say.

“Is this how you’re going to play?” Alexander growls at me. “Dirty?”

I laugh again. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“She told you then?”

“Didn’t you talk to her?”

“She’s with you.”

“No,” I say. “I sent her away about an hour ago.”

“She… she never came home,” he says.

I sit up in bed. “Well, where the fuck would she go?”

“I dunno.” And when he says that I can picture him. Like perfectly in my mind’s eye. The way he was back in LA. Younger, but really no different. He was always one of those broody assholes. Always aloof, and distant, and dark. “We’re… we’re not really close these days, in case you haven’t noticed.”

I swing my legs out of bed and put him on speaker as I find a pair of jeans and pull them on. “Well, there has to be some fucking place she’d go. A friend’s house? A hotel? Does she disappear often when you two play this fucked-up game?”

“It’s not like this is typical, Jordan. I don’t know. She’s never not come back before.”

“What do you mean? What’s that mean? Come back? Why does she leave?” For a second I picture him hitting her. Being violent and scaring her.

“We argue,” he says. “A lot. You know we were separated.”

“What kind of arguments?” I ask. “Violent ones?”

“No,” he says. And I believe him. Because there’s no defensiveness in that denial. No incredulous how-dare-you-accuse-me going on here. It’s just kinda sad. “I called her,” he says. “Before I called you. Just to see if she was coming home tonight. I think she’s got her phone turned off because it went straight to voicemail.”

“Hold on,” I say, pressing the screen of my phone so I can put him on hold and make another call. I find her contact, press it, and yup. Sure enough, it goes straight to voicemail.

I end the call and get Alexander back. “Alexander,” I say. “Where the fuck would she go?”

“I dunno… maybe a hotel?”

“What kind of hotel? Four Seasons kind of hotel? Or Motel 6 kind of hotel?”

There’s a difference and it’s got nothing to do with the cost of the rooms or service at the front desk. Four Seasons is an I’m-staying-put hotel. Motel 6 is an I’m-getting-the-fuck-out-of-here hotel.

“Something luxury. I guess.”

I look at the clock and pinch the bridge of my nose. It’s two-fifteen AM. “I have to be in court tomorrow at eight-thirty. I don’t have time to go looking for your wife. Now fucking think harder. Where the hell is she? Because I won’t be able to sleep if I don’t know where she is.”

“I’m surprised you even care.”