Page 1 of Playing for Keeps

CHAPTER 1

The message Hugh had sent to his two best friends in their group chat had gone unanswered for almost a quarter of an hour. It didn’t require an urgent response, but he’d expected a flurry of questions and opinions. Usually he was a fan of quiet, but as he sat at the kitchen table, staring at his phone, this particular silence made him nervous.

The way he jumped at the sound of the doorbell was fairly dramatic, and he was thankful there was no one to witness his overreaction.

“I’ll get it,” he called up the stairs as he moved along the hallway.

The door opened before he reached it, and Damian sauntered in with Leo behind him.

“I just messaged you two,” Hugh said.

“We know.” Damian patted him on the shoulder and made a beeline for the kitchen. “It’s not really the kind of thing we can discuss properly in messages.”

Leo gave Hugh an enthusiastic slap on the back. “The big moments in life deserve in-person conversations.”

“Where’s Alice?” he asked, following them to the kitchen. Leo’s daughter was approaching her first birthday and was absolutely adorable.

“With Caitlin,” Leo replied over his shoulder.

“You really thought my message warranted you ditching your girlfriend and child?”

“I’m intending to go back to them at some point.” Leo opened the fridge and took out three bottles of beer. “This is big news. It definitely warrants ditching them for a while. Caitlin agreed I needed to get over here.”

“It’s not big news,” Hugh protested.

Damian took the bottle opener from the drawer and popped the tops off the beers. “It’s huge,” he said, moving to sit at the table with Leo when they all had a drink. “Tell us everything.”

Hugh leaned against the counter. “There’s not much to say. You really didn’t need to come over here.”

Damian rolled his eyes. “You have to make everything difficult, don’t you? I’ll point out that you’ve brought this on yourself …”

Before Hugh could question what Damian was talking about, his friend tipped his head back and shouted for Emmy.

“What?” Em called back from upstairs.

“Come down and talk to us,” Damian bellowed, then offered Hugh a smug look.

“Why are you involving Emmy in this?” Hugh asked huffily. He’d really rather keep his twelve-year-old daughter out of it.

“We’ll get better information from her,” Damian said as the sound of footsteps thudded down the stairs.

Emmy entered the kitchen in a rush, sliding on her fluffy socks over to the table. “Dad’s got a date on Saturday!” she declared gleefully. “Did he already tell you? Her name’s Rebecca and she sounds really cool in her messages.” Without looking at him, she extended her arm in Hugh’s direction and made a grabbing action. “Give me your phone.”

“Why?”

She whipped around to him. “Because I want to show them her picture. Give it to me.”

Since he was certain resistance would be futile, he handed it over. Emmy typed in his passcode, then tapped into the dating app she’d downloaded for him a few weeks previously.

“She looks really nice,” she said as she tapped away.

“They always do in their profile pictures,” Leo muttered.

“Look!” Emmy plonked herself in a chair as she turned the phone to Leo and Damian. “She looks good, doesn’t she?”

Damian leaned closer to the screen and gave an approving nod. “How old is she?”

“Thirty-six,” Em answered.

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