Page 36 of The Game

When I’m out on the sidewalk, I squint down at my phone. Anna’s apartment is about twenty blocks from here. Would it be a huge intrusion to go to her place? I want to check she’s all right. I could walk? Not fast enough. I pull up the Uber app and order a cab.

As I’m waiting, my phone vibrates in my hand:

I left! Arggh, Adam. I’m so sorry! I came out to find you, but my security said I couldn’t stay outside the venue, so they got me a car. I’m at home.

The tightness in my chest eases. She sounds okay. The thought of someone getting to her … That jerk almost did.

No worries. I’m on my way.

In no time, I’m sliding into the back of my Uber. It takes me forty minutes in solid traffic to reach Anna’s building, and I have no idea how to get in. But the doorman nods at me and calls up to the penthouse before sending me up.

When I arrive at the apartment, there’s a scampering of feet and Pepper appears, pink rabbit dangling from her mouth. I crouch down, and she jumps up at me, losing her rabbit in the process. Anna is right behind her, looking much like she did the first time I met her: wet hair and a makeup-less face.

“Adam.” Her face melts with relief. “God, I’m so sorry! I can’t thank you enough for what you did. They hustled me inside and wouldn’t let me out. When I got your message about not being able to get in, they got all weird with me and said I couldn’t leave. I threatened to sue them, and at that point I think they were happy to see the back of me!”

“Are you all right?” she adds, eyes flicking down and landing on my hands. When I look down, my breath catches at the scrapes and red marks all across my knuckles, the skin broken and bleeding.

“Oh, God, your hands! We need to get them cleaned up.”

I grunt.I’m fine.She’s the one who has to put up with Arty. My grazes are a minor inconvenience compared to that. “Don’t worry about it. I just wanted to check and make sure you were okay.”

But she’s already turning and beckoning me down a corridor, and she pushes through a door into a marble bathroom, opening and closing cupboards. She pulls out hydrogen peroxide, cotton balls, and antibiotic ointment, and so I sink down on the toilet seat.

“I’ve had so many injuries diving for tennis balls, I’m an expert on scrapes and bruises at this point.” She gives me a half smile. “Let’s have a look.” She takes my hand and examines my knuckles, and her fingers are warm and comforting. Where her dark head is bent toward me, her hair is falling forward, so I reach up and push it over her shoulder without thinking. But she raises her head and her wide eyes meet mine, warm pink lips only inches away.

She licks them, and I can’t help but follow the path of her tongue.

“God, I’m so sorry you got hurt like this,” she says, voice hoarse in sympathy or something else … I’m not sure.

I look down, cheeks heating, and shake my head. “Anyone who fights as a hobby is always messing up their hands.”

Fortunately, she laughs. “I’m sorry I missed your messages. My phone started blowing up.” She bites her lip. “I wasn’t sure what to do. I thought Arty might persuade them to let him in. It seemed sensible to leave.”

I reach out and touch her elbow. “It’s no problem. Not my usual Friday night out, but at least the jujitsu came in useful.” I grin at her. “It’s a long timesince I used it foractualfighting.”

But she doesn’t smile back. “It will be all over the news sites tomorrow, Adam. Ugh. I’m so sorry to drag you into this nonsense.”

“I’m fine. I talked to a journalist outside.” I fill her in on the guy with the microphone. “He said he’d videoed it all.”

She nods, chewing her lip as she turns back to the sink and turns on the tap. “We might need that footage. I should talk to my lawyer, and I’ll let the PR team know. We could get ahead of this whole thing if we feed them the true story. Find out how much they videoed.”

She adds some soap to the water and dips cotton wool into it. The pants of her tracksuit are molded to her ass, and God, I shouldnotbe checking her out but … I don’t think I can ever tell her how much I like her tracksuits. She turns around and dabs at the wounds on my hands as I try not to stare at her lips again. It takes a second before the sting kicks in. I wince.

“One of the guys I was in college with, Fabian, got himself into trouble all the time. I quickly realized that, if I was going to hang around with him, I needed better defense skills. I’ve done jujitsu for years, but I also fought with Fabian, and he lived on the street at one time, so he taught me some mean tricks.” I laugh. “I competed while I was at college until other things got in the way.”

She grins at me. “You’re a man of many talents.”

I smile, shaking my head. “Concentrating on one thing is a more fruitful idea, I think, and I’m better at defense than attack. I feel like that’s the story of my life.”

She tips her head. “Defense is an underrated skill. Have you ever heard of the loser’s game?”

“No.”

She squeezes out the cotton wool in the sink and turns back to dab at some more cuts on my hands.

“It’s a concept from a research paper on strategies for winning games. In some games you can increase your chances if you simply try not tolose. You don’t have to go on the offensive; you basically wait for the other side to makea mistake. Unless they’re very good, people always make mistakes.”

God, this woman. “Wow. Is tennis like that?”

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