Page 1 of Endgame

Prologue

King Spencer wasn’t the most patient person in the world. Perhaps it was because, even as a junior, he was one of Bradley University’s star soccer players and was thus used to there being an entire group of hangers-on anxious to ensure that his needs were being met. Or perhaps it was a by-product of his overly privileged upbringing, where there’d been a revolving door of nannies and the occasional housekeeper who all had a vested interest in keeping King’s father happy by keeping his only child entertained and thereby out of his hair.

Or maybe it was because he was a grumpy motherfucker whose affect was as fuzzy as a desert full of cacti.

At any rate, it was probably a good thing that dear old dad had cut him off today. King hated the smarmy bastard anyway, and he had the benefit of a full-ride athletic scholarship as well as the money he’d saved while working when he was in middle and high school. Turned out his modest investments had brought about slightly un-modest returns, so King had enough to support himself, at least for the next couple of years. Plus, anything that came from Solomon Spencer always had strings attached.

Just ask King’s mother.

King was currently not so patiently waiting for his friend/roommate/teammate, Jason, to wrap up his shift at one of the local restaurants that were all within close proximity to Bradley U. He was sitting at one of the booths in Jason’s section, sipping a comped raspberry lemonade (because he didn’t drink any soda or alcohol during the season) as his friend cleaned up his now closed-down section of the restaurant.

He could hear Jason’s spirited voice teasing and flirting from the wait station. People typically didn’t know what to make of the two when they hung out together. Jason, with the mischievous glint in his blue eyes, gregarious and loud, and King, dark-eyed, quiet unless he demanded to be heard, inscrutable, and impassive unless he was on the soccer field. It was a wonder they hit it off at all. But King was also fiercely loyal, and he guessed his friends put up with all of his other bullshit because they knew he’d always have their backs.

King stretched his long legs so that they were perched on the bench across from him and took another sip of his drink.

That’s when he saw her.

She was young, maybe a freshman, possibly a sophomore. Her shiny dark hair was expertly woven into a long braid that fell past the middle of her back. Clad in a black T-shirt with the silver restaurant logo printed on it tucked into a pair of high-waisted jeans, she made her way over to refill the salad bar. The shy smile that she flashed at a customer as she waited for them to finish up struck some sort of a nerve deep within King’s chest.

He liked it and he hated it all at the same time.

When she was finished, she disappeared behind an “Employees Only” swinging door, and King breathed out a sigh that lived somewhere in the gray area between relief and disappointment. As he continued to wait, he was definitely not watching for the girl to reappear, nor was he thinking about brushing or braiding her lustrous hair, because that would be weird as fuck. King was more of a hair puller than a hair braider, anyway.

Jason finished up soon after, and as they made their way to King’s car, King briefly thought about asking about the girl he’d seen. He assumed that Jason knew who she was; the restaurant wasn’t that big. But something stopped him from speaking. Self-preservation, maybe? Or perhaps it was his overarching assholery? He was inclined to believe the latter but had the sinking suspicion it might be the former.

Before he could dwell on it any further, King shut it all down in his mind. He’d come to pick up his friend, and that was the end of it. The girl, her smile, her damn hair, weren’t anything to be preoccupied with. It was just a strange moment at the end of a strange day.

So, in spite (or because?) of the weird pull he’d felt and the disconcerting appearance of something that bordered on an emotional response that had occurred that day, he didn’t step foot in that restaurant again for another year.

When he did? The innocent-looking girl with the shiny braid and the shy smile would become a part of him in ways he couldn’t even fathom.

Chapter 1

“Lila, I just sat 15!” The hostess’s voice rang through the server station where Lila Alexander was filling up a couple of Diet Cokes and putting one lime wedge along the rim of each glass. “And may I just say, they’re probably the hottest group of guys I’ve helped all night.” The hostess fanned herself exaggeratedly and sent an envious look in Lila’s direction.

“Sounds riveting, thanks,” Lila replied wryly before motioning to the drinks she was holding. “Do me a favor and stick some straws in these and run them to table 11, please?” Lila smiled as she passed the drinks to the eager new hostess, whose name she was pretty sure was Kristi, and then sighed in frustration as soon as said hostess was out of sight.

Friday nights were the busiest nights at The Pub, and she had only been a server a short time. Serving was far more complicated than being a hostess or managing the salad bar, but the bump in pay was worth it. Even when the well-meaning but inexperienced hostess triple-sat Lila’s section. Lila pushed a few errant strands of dark-brown hair back into her ponytail then sanitized her hands.

The interior space of the restaurant was arranged in sort of a backward lowercase “r” shape on the east side and a “c” shape on the west in a series of booths that wrapped around a salad bar (because apparently they were still a thing) with a spacious back room of tables that could be rented out for private events, or, in her boss’s case, to kiss up to whatever local college sports team wanted to use it.

On a weekend, the front was divided into five sections of five booths each, and the back was divided into four sections. She was working a section in the front and was hyper-aware of her general manager/top boss, who roamed around the restaurant like an overfed cat waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting canary.

She’d worked at the restaurant for about a year, since the beginning of her freshman year of college, to help pay for what her scholarship didn’t cover. But the 30-40 hour work-weeks had begun to massively conflict with her 15-hour class load at the illustrious Bradley University. To keep its students competitive, Bradley started its fall semester at the end of August so they could fit in four semesters a year. So instead of enjoying the last couple of weeks of summer like some of her friends from back home, Lila was already back at school and working her breakneck schedule.

This particular night had been especially exhausting, and she was in no mood to deal with another table of cheap college students. But she squared her shoulders and put on her server smile. She tucked away her shyness, hiding it behind a confidence she figured if she faked enough she’d actually feel. Plus, if they were indeed a table of guys, she might be able to flirt her way to a decent tip. Maybe.

“Yo, Alexander, I’ll get that table if you want,” Jason Carter called before she could approach. “They’re all my friends, so if it’s no big deal…”

Lila threw a relieved grin his way. “Go ahead and take ’em. It’ll give me a 30-second break that I desperately need.”

“Hey, thanks.” Jason gave his signature wink before veering off to take his friends’ orders.

“No prob,” Lila called after him, taking the extra moment to breathe.

That crisis averted, Lila went back to grab another table’s order, dropped it off, and glanced at table 15 as she walked by. It was a larger, circular booth, designed to fit at least eight people, though there were only five guys at the table. They were all large—athletes most likely—so they filled up the space. They were all handsome in their own way, she supposed, but only one of them drew her attention. His blue baseball cap was pulled low, a muscled leg slightly extended outside of the edge of the booth, but she was focused on her other tables and thus let the information wash over her without really processing it.

Later, when she went to pick up the check at a nearby table, she glanced at him again, her eyes subconsciously finding him and refusing to drift anywhere else. His met hers in the briefest of moments before she quickly averted her gaze, embarrassed to be caught looking. As she turned away, she could almost feel those deep, dark orbs flitting over the length of her body. Dismissively shaking her head and tamping down the color that had risen to her cheeks, she tucked the receipt into her server book as she headed back to the wait station.

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