Page 39 of Playing With Love

“Go to sleep, we have shit to do tomorrow.”

I disconnected the call.

After that I finished putting my groceries away.

My shit mood didn’t go away after my shower and sleep didn’t touch it.

That meant when I walked into work the next day, my mood had significantly deteriorated. Therefore I didn’t stop and talk with Lauren even though she greeted me with a smile. I didn’t find Carter to get to work on another way into Nu Dawn. I went straight to my office. Unfortunately it wasn’t empty. Jason Clark was sitting in one of the two empty chairs in front of my desk.

Jason was an old friend, a throwback from my days with the DEA. We’d met during clandestine laboratory training and had remained friends. That friendship grew when I worked a case in Georgia. I’d met him before his first wife passed away. I’d also met his current wife, Mercy, who was also DEA before she was his wife, from my time spent in Virginia. I liked them both. More, I liked that they’d found each other and with Mercy’s help Jason pulled himself out of the darkness he’d been hellbent on living in. It was a coincidence I’d been undercover in a case that involved a member of TC, Matt Kessler and then-girlfriend, now wife, Chelsea. Since then, Jason had been actively persuading me to quit the DEA and come to work for him and his family. I hadn’t been ready and when I started considering his offer, wondering if it was time to get out of the game and get serious about exploring things with Liza she’d dropped the bomb she was married. With nothing stopping me I stayed with DEA until I could no longer stomach it, until the time came when no matter what I did I could wash off the filth, I couldn’t breathe without smelling the stench of the dregs of society. The foulness of it so extreme I’d found myself mired in it.

Even with our history, Jason taking me on at TC, giving me something good and clean to focus on, didn’t mean I was happy he was in my office.

“No offense, Jason, but unless you’re here with a solution for the Nu Dawn issue I got shit I need to take care of.”

“Does that shit include Liza?”

There it was.

The reason he was sitting in wait.

“Nope.”

My friend, now my boss, sat back, steepled his fingers, and tapped them against his chin.

Fucking hell.

I knew what that meant.

“We’re not having this conversation,” I told him as I made my way around my desk.

“Did you know she had dinner last night with Lenox?”

Jesus fuck me.

“We’re not discussing this.” I repeated my declaration, trying different words in hopes he’d clue in.

He didn’t.

“Had words with him when he dropped off Mercy last night.”

Right, girls’ night out.

“Jason—”

“I didn’t understand what your issue was with her,” he cut me off. “But I wasn’t in a place to offer advice, not with Kayla being sick. But that doesn’t mean I don’t remember what you told me. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have an opinion, I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind back then to tell you to pull your thumb out before you regretted not going after what you wanted.”

I blew out a breath knowing how much it cost my friend to bring up Kayla and what he was going through during that time. I also knew he’d put two and two together. Way back when, I’d called her Lizzy to Jason when I told him about her. I’d also called her Lizzy in front of him and the others a week ago. I was surprised he hadn’t called me on it earlier. Though, Jason was the kind of man to mind his own business so maybe I wasn’t.

“I know what I told you and I know you remember. That still doesn’t mean it’s up for discussion.”

“The woman of your dreams,” he muttered. “I didn’t get that then. I was married to a woman who was my best friend, but not the one who I knew was meant to be mine. I had no idea what a ‘woman of your dreams’ looked like until I met Mercy. And by the time I had my shit together you were off on a new assignment. Then so much time had passed I’d let it go but I never forgot what you said. More than that, I never forgot the way you looked when you told me about her. Which now begs the question, what the fuck are you doing, brother? She’s here. You got your shot.”

That set my teeth on edge.

Not him reminding me that once upon a time I’d told him Liza was my endgame. At the time, I hadn’t been ready, I had shit I wanted to do before I committed to a woman knowing when the time came, and I made that commitment, I intended for it to be for a lifetime. I knew it would also mean I couldn’t continue taking assignments that would take me away for months at a time. But that didn’t mean I didn’t know down to my soul the woman I wanted to be tied to was Liza.

It was him telling me I had my shot at her when he didn’t have the first clue I’d taken that shot only to be slapped back.