2. Killian
KILLIAN
“ I ’m out.” My cards hit the table as I throw back a shot of Don Julio and groan. “I fucking hate tequila...”
Lilah giggles as I push away from the table in search of water. She shakes the half-empty bottle in front of me. “Scared of a little tequila, champ?”
Her pale cheeks pink as she rolls her lips together, and yeah ... my annoyance dies a little. Fuck, she’s pretty. Pretty and perfect like one of those porcelain dolls my mother used to buy for my sisters. She always has been.
I guess some things never change, even if the bigger things have to.
“Listen, Tink. Some of us have to stay in shape for our jobs,” Jamie teases, and Lilah’s entire face blooms bright red, letting me know what’s coming seconds before she smacks the back of his big head.
“Take it back,” she demands and yanks his hair, forcing him to arch his head back.
“Ow. Shit.” He swats her away like a fly. “Stop fucking pinching me.”
Maverick pushes back from the table, getting out of the line of fire, and Lilah laughs with her beautiful smile and tugs again. “I’m not pinching you, dipshit. I’m pulling your hair.” She wraps Jamie’s hair around her fingers and yanks. “Now take it back.”
“Dude...” Jamie looks at Noah, who shakes his head, then looks at me and Maddox. “Help...”
Maddox lifts his hands while I laugh. “Sorry, man. She’s pissed at you, not me.”
Lilah tugs harder. “Take it back, Jameson Murphy, or I’ll tell your mother who really broke her crystal vase from the Queen of England.”
“What the fuck, Tink? I was just teasing,” he sputters, and I shit you not, it’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in so damn long. Lilah Ryan is five foot nothing, and maybe all of a hundred-and-ten pounds soaking fucking wet, and in spite of her pristine image, she’s vicious and curses more than most fighters I know.
Why is that hot?
She pulls again, this time forcing him to look at her. “I’ll have you know I run for two hours and twenty-two minutes every single day. Every. Day. Jamie. And I sing my entire set while I’m doing it. Two hours. Do you think I could possibly pull that off if I wasn’t in shape?” When he doesn’t answer fast enough, she yanks again. “Don’t be an asshole, Jamie.”
“Sorry. Shit . Stop. I said sorry,” he whines, and I may or may not pull my phone out to get a picture of this shit. What can I say ? It’s funny as hell, and I can think of a few people who are gonna love it.
She lets go and smacks the back of his head— again . “I’d like to see you sing for two hours while you’re running and never lose your breath.”
“Jamie doesn’t run,” Noah laughs.
“Or tackle,” Maverick laughs, then ducks out of the way.
“Or sing,” Maddox adds.
Lilah’s eyes bounce between them, then look at me for what feels like the first time all night, waiting to see what I’m going to add, but it’s my turn to hold my hands up in surrender. “I didn’t say a word.”
Her pretty blue eyes narrow.
There was a time when I knew exactly what this girl was thinking just from a single look.
But not anymore.
“Well, I may not be a professional fighter or play football like you two assholes, but I have to stay in shape for my job too, and not just because every inch of fat on my body gets scrutinized. So you can all suck it,” she growls and storms into the other room, leaving the five of us in her wake.
“That was hot,” I murmur, and Maddox elbows me.
Noah shakes his head and throws a bottle cap at Jamie. “Fucking moron.”
“How was I supposed to know I’d hit a nerve?” Jamie asks and finishes his beer like he just saw his life pass before his eyes. “I was just kidding.”
“Some asshole wrote an article about Lilah gaining weight last month, and she’s been a little sensitive ever since.” Noah drags his hands down his face. “We needed this break. We’re fucking tired.”
I’d like to get a hold of whatever dick wrote that article and use him for a practice dummy. Show him what happens when you pick on someone your own size for a change. Lilah might be tiny, but she’s got curves for days. Perfect curves a man can grip.
Fuck.
“How long are you home?” Maddox asks as he tosses a few more bills to the center of the table.
Asshole always wins at poker.
“A few months, maybe. Not sure yet. We’ll hammer it all out when we meet with management next week.”
Jamie says something, but I tune him out and, as if tethered to her the way we were a decade ago, decide to take my life in my own hands and follow the feisty woman.
She’s tucked into the corner of an L-shaped sofa with a gas fireplace crackling in front of her, the cobalt blue flames nearly the same color as her closed eyes. Huge windows dominate every wall, and her face is lifted toward the stars shining through the glass.
She’s fucking stunning.
Something about her like this hits me right in the solar plexus.
We’ve managed to avoid each other for nearly ten years. We may have been at the same parties and functions occasionally but never in a small group. Especially not this group. In high school, it was always us. Noah, Jamie, Maverick, Lilah, and me.
She called us the four horsemen of the apocalypse. But the truth is the only war I would have rained down on anyone would have been for her.
Maybe I shouldn’t have broken that streak by coming tonight. It probably wasn’t my smartest move. But when Jamie called... I don’t know . I just needed to see her. To make sure she was really okay after the news broke about the bomb found at the last stop on her tour. I knew what I was told. But knowing it and seeing her alive and breathing are two very different things.
None of that seems to matter as I sit down next to her. “I don’t remember you being such a ballbuster in high school.”
She bats her long, dark lashes up at me, and that pretty blush comes back out to play. “There’re a lot of things you don’t remember.”
“Damn.” I hold my fist over my chest. “Shots fired.”
Not that she’s wrong. Not completely.
She drags her eyes from the top of my head slowly down my body before her lips tilt up into the sexy smile I’ve seen on a million different magazine covers over the years. Practiced. Fake. “No shots. Just the truth.”
“You want the truth? Truth is I remember everything, princess.” I take the bottle of tequila out of her hand, and she bristles like I knew she would.
“I hate that stupid nickname.”
Knew she’d say that too.
“No, you don’t.” The tequila warms my throat as it goes down, and I know I’m going to regret this shit when I run tomorrow morning, but I take another shot anyway before I pass it back.
Her hair feels like silk between my fingers as I tuck a golden lock behind her ear and smile as she leans into my hand. “You never did.”
For half her fucking life, I was the person she called when something went wrong or right. I was who she wanted. And fuck if I didn’t love being that guy.
“Oh yeah?” she whispers. “And what makes you think that?”
“Because ballbuster or not, you’re still a shit liar,” I challenge.
She licks her lips and leans in a breath closer. “That’s okay because it turned out you were a good enough liar for both of us.”
Shit.
Guess I deserve that.
“Why are you here, Killian?”
I run my thumb along her cheek, and for a minute, it’s gone. The anger. The hurt. The stupid teenage hormones. It’s just Lilah and me. “Guess I wanted to see for myself that you were okay.”
“I’m fine,” she murmurs as she pulls back, her mask firmly in place, and I drop my hand.
Footsteps sound in the hall as Lilah stands, refusing to look at me as Maddox walks in. “I’m heading back to the condo, man. You coming with?”
“Yeah. I’ll be right behind you.” I don’t bother taking my eyes off the woman in front of me as Maddox walks back out. “One day, you’re going to have to listen to me, princess.”
“One day, maybe you’ll say something worth listening to, champ.” She turns and, unlike me, has no problem looking away as she leaves me alone.
Not the first time she’s done that either.