Page 27 of Forever: The Companion

“Where would I go, Ren?”

“Never know with you, baby.”

Her guffaw followed him out of his chair, and he gave her a kiss on the top of her head as he passed her by to leave the hut. Renzo didn’t bother looking for a server when they really didn’t need one whole person just to bring them out two glasses of something to drink. Instead, he headed for the bar and ordered from the woman there. She didn’t seem to mind.

The bartender had just put the glasses to the counter when a phone in Renzo’s cargo shorts started to buzz. Again. It’d been doing that all day—so far—and the only reason why Lucia had yet to notice was pure luck, and perhaps a bit of the fact that she was really enjoying herself.

He felt like a shit.

His regular cell phone and hers were both put away—shut down and done for as long as they were still on this vacation and no emergency came up. That was their deal. Thing was, Renzo couldn’t shut off one of his phones, and as Lucia hadn’t asked about this phone, which had been provided by his bosses at The League, well … he didn’t offer the information.

And today, that phone rang.

And rang.

Not once had he’d bothered to pick up the calls but only because he wasn’t required to. Besides, Dare and Cree both knew he was away on vacation, so why someone from The League decided to call his phone was beyond him.

However, just to make sure they didn’t keep calling, Renzo pulled the phone out of his pocket while he was in the safety of the restaurant and Lucia wouldn’t know. “Yeah, Ren here.”

He hadn’t even bothered to check the caller ID. Not that it mattered. It would only be a handful of people calling that goddamn number.

“You don’t pick up the phone or what?”

Ah.

Cree.

“You know,” Renzo said, “it’s been a few days since I heard your voice, Cree, and it wouldn’t have been a bad thing had I gone a few days more.”

“That’s not how you greet someone.”

“And what about your attitude, huh?”

“My attitude is just part of my winning personality. Like it or don’t, that’s not my problem.”

And that was Cree in a nutshell.

As fun as this was—and it wasn’t fun at all—Renzo was ready to get back to his wife and their vacation. He still had plans for the rest of their day, and he intended to make sure she enjoyed every single bit of it. She wouldn’t do that, however, if he was on the phone with people who needed to learn to respect his time.

“Listen,” he started to say, “I am on vacation, and everybody knows it. So, I’m not sure why you are calling this number—”

“Dare needs a favor.”

Renzo stilled. “I beg your pardon?”

Cree cleared his throat. “You heard me.”

“No, I’m sure I didn’t. At least, not correctly.”

A sigh echoed through the speakers.

Renzo waited the man out because shit … maybe he had heard him exactly right. It wasn’t like Cree or Dare to ask for anything like a favor, but especially not from one of their members. They weren’t the people who owed debts, they collected them and made others pay up for them. They trained assassins, and then lorded it over them for the rest of their lives.

“Shit luck, I guess.”

“What?”

Because Renzo hadn’t been paying attention.