Page 2 of End Game

I toss a sympathetic look Tori’s way and then let my gaze glide over Margot, my mom, and my dad before finally landing on Ben.

“Do you want to tell them all or should I?”

He scoffs. “There’s nothing to tell. Whatever your girl told you must be exaggerated.”

“I saw you.”

“You don’t know what you saw,” he snaps, his mouth twisting, like I’m the one being unreasonable.

“Fine, if you want to play it that way,” I say to him and then look at my mom. “When I walked into the garage, Ben had Cami backed against the refrigerator with one hand gripping her arm. I don’t know what he said before I got there. What I heard was him telling her that if she’s willing to be with more than one man, she should be willing to be with him.”

“I was just teasing her. Don’t any of you know how to take a joke?” Ben counters.

But the room doesn’t laugh.

“She definitely was not acting like it was a joke,” Micah adds.

“Just because she doesn’t know how to take a joke doesn’t mean it wasn’t one,” Ben replies, incredulously.

“Ben.”

That’s all I say.

But it’s Tori who speaks next. “Ben, what did you do?” The look she gives him tells me that she isn’t buying his joke excuse for a second.

“Not you, too,” he scolds, throwing his hands up in the air.

A blanket of quiet and judgment covers the room as we all just look at him.

“We have talked about this,” Tori says quietly. Her eyes stay on the floor. “Why is it you think every woman on the planet owes you something?”

Ben rolls his eyes and scoffs, but then he looks at my mom, then my dad, both giving him looks of disappointment—like they just lost a lottery they thought they won.

He swallows hard.

“I won’t come to family events Ben is at anymore. And I will not bring Cami—or anyone else in our family—around him.” I don’t raise my voice. I don’t need to. “For the foreseeable future, that is not negotiable.”

“I think that’s understandable, son,” my mother says. “Please tell Cami we’re sorry. Please go take care of her—and tell her we’re sorry.”

I swallow through the thickness in my throat.

It doesn’t feel finished.

There are already sentences lining up behind my teeth. Things I should have said. Questions I should have asked. I should have gone looking for her sooner. I should have noticed Ben watching her. I should have…

Stop.

I know this pattern.

If I let it start now, I’ll replay it all for days. Maybe weeks.

Every word. Every choice. Every possible version where I noticed sooner and she never ended up in that situation in the first place.

My brain reaches for another version. Another variable. Another thing I could have controlled.

Then Micah shifts beside me, and I recognize that with Cami is where we need to be.

I look at him, and we head outside. It’s cold, but we don’t mind waiting outside for a rideshare.