Page 142 of Double or Nothing

Another win. Got lucky with a full house on the flop. The balance on my screen jumps up yet again. What a shocker.

Here we are. Normal service resumed. Me alone in my apartment with a beer in my hand at midday, making money from people who know sweet fuck all about the power of restraint when it’s needed.

I’m a master at that.

Except my powers of restraint have taken a serious nose dive this past week.

Alice’s laugh is still bouncing around the walls in here, despite the fact she’s in the zone, splashing paint around over at her studio. Bryce’s latest shirt is lying on the breakfast bar, fresh from the washing machine and ready for ironing. Like fuck will I ever resort to helping him out with that, no matter how boring the poker game gets. He can get the ironing board out himself later and regale us with tales of PowerPoint templates.

I scout around the place while another game starts up onscreen. There is no disguising it. It looks different in here. Occupied. There are at least fifteen different hair accessories on the coffee table next to my foot. Most of them, I couldn’t even tell you what the fuck they’re for.

Nothing has changed physically, besides the visitor debris. Same expensive sofa. Same city view. Same marble island that cost an outrageous sum to sit unused, until recently.

That’s not it, though. The apartment feels different because the cooing lovebirds have been in it too much. Way too much. Their presence is infiltrating the very fabric of the place, literally.

Alice, curled barefoot on my sofa, sketching while she’s wearing one of my t-shirts. That in itself should have set off the emergency siren. Bryce, standing in my kitchen, trying to look dignified while arguing about coffee temperatures. Alice laughing at him. Bryce trying not to smile. Me watching both of them with that stupid pang in my ribs.

It keeps springing up on me.

We’ve had nights of it.

Nights of laughter. Champagne. Filthy sex on the way to training Alice’s pussy enough to take two in one. And as for Bryce’s gorgeous asshole. Don’t even get me started.

That’s what all this is about when it comes down to it, of course. Ass and pussy. Filthy games. Truth or dare nights with pathetic rounds of strip poker, which always leaves them stark naked and me fully clothed and basking in ego.

I’m lying to myself, even though I despise it.

This thing with BT and Alice is about a hell of a lot more than that. It now has a very worrying sense of familiarity.

Stupid half-arsed arguments over TV shows. Bryce being absolutely mortified by the lack of decency in my fridge contents. Alice diagnosing my entire apartment as ‘emotionally avoidant with delusions of grandeur’. Cheeky bitch. But I laughed. I actually laughed along with the pair of them.

I win another hand at the virtual table. Just five hundred’s worth, but it’s all adding up.

My cash rich pot on the right of the screen should be enough to keep my interest, but my mind is still chasing after those two lovebirds, going about their regular lives today.

Bryce’s dry comments to himself, with a huff and a puff when he thinks no one is listening. Alice’s ability to turn any silence into something floaty and alive. The way the two of them look at each other as if history is granting them another shot from the ashes. It’s just more colourful with me stirring the pot every evening.

Lucky them.

I click through another hand and win that, too. Obviously. Another grand in the pot.

I’m all set for a bigger round when the intercom buzzes by the front door.

It’s not Alice, and not Bryce. They’ve already earned the entry code by now. And, embarrassingly, they’ve earned front door keys, even though it’s only for convenience.

The buzzer goes again. Fucks sake. I fold my mediocre cards and click on ‘sit out’.

I’m not expecting any visitors. In fact, there’s only one person who’d ever turn up unannounced at my place, and that’s Eli, who’s currently avoiding me like the plague. If he’s here, it’s because the casino just burnt down and his phone has gone up in the blaze.

I hit the intercom. “Yes?”

A crackle. “Is that Mr Reid?”

“Depends who’s asking.”

“I have a delivery.”

Delivery?