Page 65 of Play Dirty

I was.

I gulp down my drink, then get up and pour myself another. I gulp that down too, standing at the front window, looking out onto the elaborately landscaped front garden bathed in the soft glow of expensive landscape lighting.

He was never the same after that.

None of us were. Not even Alexander was the same and it had nothing to do with him at all. He married August, they moved on as a couple, and… whatever. They split up, and got back together, and a part of me knows all of that was my fault.

They know it too. That’s why they’re here. They need to fit all those fucked-up pieces into the fucked-up puzzle we created back in LA so they can move on.

You’d think I’d have learned my lesson.

You’d think I’d change my ways.

You’d think running these games would be the last thing I’d get involved in.

Of course, you’d be wrong.

Because deep down inside I am one sick motherfucker.

At seven-fifty-two I’m standing before the revolving doors at the front of the old Turning Point Club, unable to reconcile what I’m seeing.

The building is an old historical brownstone with an elaborate facade. Six stories in all, and all the windows are tall.

They remind me of the windows on the front of my empty mansion and I let my mind wander for a moment, wondering if they were built at the same time, or maybe they are even…

My phone dings a text.

I take it out of my pocket and read the screen. It’s from Alexander and it says, Come inside.

I look back at the revolving doors. At the soft glow of light that filters through the frosted glass. The windows are shuttered, like this is another night, in that other life when the weekends here were filled with people dressed in black and white and the shuttered windows were a sign that there was fun to be had inside.

Private fun. Hot, sweaty, sexy fun.

I take a deep breath, straighten the lapel of my black tuxedo—because the Club always did have a dress code—and then step into the cramped compartment of the revolving door and push.

I could hear the music outside. It was part of the reason I hesitated. Got lost in the memories of how it used to be. Felt that little pang of ache that started two winters ago when I was last here and never seemed to fade away.

It’s just… music, ya know. Background noise. And if this was real, and not an illusion, it would be accompanied by the clink and clatter of silverware on china, and platters of food being served in the White Room restaurant off to my left. And the tink of cut-crystal glasses filled with Macallan, or Hine Triomphe, or Hennessy Paradis Impérial in the Black Room bar off to my right.

All the wives would be dressed in white or silver, and all the men in black tie.

And Bric would be there. I glance over at the bar. Picture him talking to people. Picture people hanging on his every word. The gregarious laughter that would always come after. The side looks he would throw at me, or Quin, or Smith, maybe. Which makes me look up to the second-floor balcony overlooking the Black Room and the grand lobby, where you’d always find Smith. Watching. Waiting. This was before Chella. Back when he was still weird. Back when things were fun for me.

I was new at the Club. Just became a member a few weeks before. It was Lucinda’s birthday and there was a party for her. She chose me to take her downstairs and share her with her husband.

It was a fun night.

But it was more than fun. It felt like… like after all the bullshit in LA I’d finally found my place in the world. A place where what we wanted out of marriage and sexual partnerships wasn’t discouraged.

Where we could all just be ourselves.

“I’m so glad you came,” Augustine says.

And it’s like she knows. Because she’s wearing a long silver gown. I have to take a deep breath. Have to stop the memory of those long-gone nights from becoming too real.

“It looks the same,” I say, noticing Alexander now. He’s sitting at a booth near the window. The same booth Nadia and I sat in when I first mentioned her to Bric. First gave her to Bric, is probably more accurate.

They’re not married yet, but they will be soon.