Page 12 of Endgame

“No comment, asshole,” King responded. He could feel the tension in his face from subconsciously clenching his jaw and immediately tried to relax.

“I mean, I work with the woman in question, and I hear things.” Jason shrugged. “If you were going to pull your whole commitment-phobe thing again, why couldn’t you have picked somebody who knows the score? There are plenty of options in that category.”

“Agreed,” Knight chimed in.

King grunted sullenly. “Maybe I just got busy for a minute and have every intention of seeing her again.”

Now he was just arguing to argue because Jason was getting on his last damn nerve. It had nothing to do with the fact that he’d been thinking about Lila’s plush lips and how good they’d look wrapped around his cock since the minute he’d dropped her off.

“And if by a minute you mean three weeks…” Jason trailed off when he caught King’s glare. “Look, text her, don’t text her, what the hell ever man, just figure your shit out, okay? I’m going to find Will. He’s way more fun than either of you guys right now.”

As soon as Jason left the room, Knight let out a big sigh and stood up. “Look, King, we all have our stuff that we have to deal with. You have your reasons for doing the things you do, and I’m here to support you, unless you’re fucking someone over on purpose. Because that shit isn’t cool no matter what.” Knight paused, debating something. “You two just seemed to have something together. Like magnets or something. Hell, you seemed different. Lighter. So I guess I’m wondering why you’d run away from someone who makes you feel that way.”

King shrugged, unsure of how to respond. Because the answer to that question was highly complicated and not something he wanted to think about, ever. Even as he fought it, King was starting to feel the pull to her again. Maybe enough time had passed that they could have fun again, and it wouldn’t get too heavy or serious.

He couldn’t picture a time when hooking up with Lila would get old, though. That might be a problem.

“All I can say is, if you’re going to fall into your typical noncommittal pattern of running, just keep going. Leave Lila out of it. Because she deserves better than that.”

“She does,” King agreed, and whatever control he’d had over the situation finally snapped. Without giving it more thought, he grabbed his phone and pulled up Lila’s number, his finger hovering over the green button on his screen.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling her.”

“Like, you’re actually calling, not texting?”

“Yup.”

“Well. Maybe you do actually like this girl. Who talks on the phone anymore?”

“I like her voice,” King slipped, and Knight’s smile grew smug.

“Mmhmm. I’ll leave you to it, then.” Knight gave him a light punch to the shoulder. “Go get ’em, tiger. I’m pretty sure you have some groveling to do.”

King took a breath and hit the screen. It rang once…twice… five times. He wasn’t about to leave a message, so he was ready to hang up when the phone picked up.

“You better be calling to apologize to Lila. Otherwise I’m hanging up right now,” a voice that was decidedly not Lila’s whisper-barked at him. He assumed it was her best friend, Wren, but he wasn’t positive.

“I’m guessing this is Wren?”

“You presume correctly. Lila’s currently grabbing us drinks in the kitchen, so you have like five seconds to convince me to pass along the phone. Because, trust me, she wouldn’t have answered.”

“So why did you?”

“Great question, one I refuse to answer. You now have approximately two seconds.”

“I just want to talk to her, Wren. It’s up to her whether or not she wants to talk to me.”

“If she doesn’t?”

“Then she doesn’t.” King didn’t like that idea, though. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted to hear her voice.

“Hold on.” He could hear the phone shuffling and low voices, and then…

“Hey, King.”

“Hey, La. How’ve you been?”

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