Lost King Piper Lennox (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📖

down to the bay this time of year. When I noted that one had a haircut, Callum shook his head.

“What?”

“You. Learning their names, actually caring if they got a haircut—”

“It’s, like...eighteen inches, gone! That’s not caring. It’s just noticing.”

“You do this every year. The summer people come back, and you get all caught up in them like a soap opera.”

“Do not.” I balled up my pant cuffs and wrung out more filth. “I’m around them a lot more than you are, that’s all. You work outside. I’m in their houses.”

“As the help.”

“Sometimes I...hang out with them,” I stammered, and my hands even did some weird motion that looked like I was reaching, because I totally was. Even the summer kids who were nice to me weren’t being friendly, per se. Just making conversation with the maid and her kid.

And those were rare. Most of them simply ignored me. True, it was better to be ignored than targeted, but both were getting old.

If they could just get to know me....

“Don’t.” Callum stared at me. “I know that look. Please tell me you’re not going down there.”

“It’s a bonfire, not some posh pool party. Open to the public.” Looking down at my clothes—which, other than the mop water stain, were still in good shape—I added, “What if I’m just walking along the shore and happen to make conversation? You know? Like, who can stop me?”

He shook his head again, giving a long sigh that smelled like Cherry Coke. “You’ll never be happy until you’re one of them.”

“Shut up.” I shoved him. He laughed and let me.

“Hey, hey,” Ronan called, “no flirting on the clock.”

My eye roll should have been met by one of Callum’s. Every summer since we were tall enough to hold hedge clippers or feather dusters, our parents joked we’d end up together. A workplace romance. We often gagged in response.

But now he blushed again, no eye roll in sight, and I felt bad for brushing it off so quickly.

I also felt bad that, if he did like me, only a small piece of me liked him back. The rest was hopelessly reserved for someone else.

And there he was, appearing on the shore below right at that moment.

“That’s it, I’m going.” I clapped my hands and shook them out, like I was preparing to dive off the overlook into the water. My primping in the reflection of the poolhouse door didn’t go unnoticed by Ronan, who cocked his head with a confused smile.

“How do I look?” I called to him, striking a wobbly pose that probably looked as awkward as it felt. Only I could roll my ankle in flats.

“Like you don’t belong,” Callum muttered.

“Stunning,” Ronan said.

Both were wrong. I was far from stunning.

But I could still belong down there. It was the solstice: the first real day of the summer. A new chance to make this one completely, wonderfully different.

“What do I tell your mom?” Ronan leaned on his shovel at the top of the stairs, watching me navigate my shaky limbs down to the rocks.

“Nothing. I won’t be long.”

His laugh reached me all the way at the water. “Good luck, kiddo.”

Paige was the first to see me. With my hands in my pockets, eyes half-shut against the blinding sun, I tried my best to look like I was just sauntering by. No big deal. No expectations.

“Hey.” She skipped out of the water to hop in front of me. “You’re Serena’s daughter, right? Serena…oh, gosh, uh”—she snapped her fingers—“Jackson? She works for my neighbors.”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s Jacobs, but…yeah. She works there.” I swallowed and risked a glance at the group. No one here knew my name, even the ones whose parents had employed my mother for over a decade. Introductions weren’t really a thing in my world. You were rarely seen, and almost never heard.

“My name’s Aria,” I told her, shrugging instead of offering my hand. These kids didn’t shake. Not with each other, at least. I’d watched them long enough to know every move by heart.

Giving her my middle name wasn’t part of the plan, but it suddenly felt way too right. Of course that had been my problem, up until now: nobody envied a Ruby. Nobody wanted little Ruby to join their pool parties and late-night diner trips. Ruby didn’t shop at the Harbor.

But Aria…she could be anyone.

Paige smiled, then called to the group to get me a drink.

My heart thundered, but I took the cup a boy offered and sipped without hesitation. Sure, Ruby was terrified her mother would see. Ruby didn’t drink, aside from a few warm beers here and there with theater kids back home after the winter musical.

Aria could do anything, though.

Besides, I reasoned, the Greaves’ house was angled so that you had to stand on the overlook to see this part of the shore. There was no vantage point for Mom to see, and I knew Ro and his boys wouldn’t rat me out.

“Thanks,” I told Paige, and took a long, burning sip before following her to the fire drum.

“Hey, look,” Vivi stage-whispered to her sister from their seat on a broad, flat rock. “Cross-Eyes decided to crash the party.”

My face filled with heat, equal parts fury and shame. Yeah, I had a wandering eye that no amount of patches had totally fixed yet. But so what? It was only really noticeable when you got close to me. And none of them ever had.

“Snaggle-Tooth,” her sister chuckled to herself. “And God, those jeans.”

“Right? Someone should tell her not everybody can pull off low-riders.”

“I get the feeling no one’s ever pulled shit off her.”

I took another sip