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

his face gets to me. I decide to blame the fact the fingers of his other hand are still inside me.

It just about kills me to remove them, but I manage.

“I’m worried you’ll get the wrong idea about me.” Yes, this is perfect—time for Character Ruby, the innocent and sweet girl I’ve daydreamed, to make a comeback.

That was my problem. I’ve been too “me” today, I guess because I told myself I was technically at work, not on a date. Of course I couldn’t resist him.

But the Ruby I’ve concocted in my plans? She’d have no problems saying no. Maybe the more I use her, the stronger she’ll get, like a muscle group.

Theo backstrokes across the pool, where my bra is floating near a filter. Next, he swims over to the stairs, where my underwear drifted. I watch him climb out and stroll the perimeter, assuming he’ll pass me my clothes.

Instead, he sets them on the railing and retrieves something from the poolhouse. It’s the largest, fluffiest towel I’ve ever seen.

I stare up at him while I climb the ladder, folding myself into his outstretched arms as he bundles me up.

“Thank you.” I shiver. The heat of the pool makes steam rise off us. Chill bumps speckle our skin.

“‘Wrong idea.’” With a smile, he pushes my wet hair off my forehead. “What would that be?”

“That I’m...easy.”

Theo rolls his eyes and uses the corner of my towel to mop his face, scrubbing hard behind his ears. “I’ve never thought that about anyone.”

“Then what would you call it?”

“I don’t call it anything. It’s just preference. Some people like to wait to have sex or fool around, and some don’t.” As he lowers the towel, I see his eyes shift between mine in the emerging moonlight. “And some do...but they’ll make an exception, when the connection’s right.”

“And which one are you?”

“Been a little of each, through the years.” He takes my hand through the towel, pulling me into the house.

I think about grabbing my jumpsuit along the way, but decide it would be a crime to exchange this absurdly luxurious towel for scratchy polyester.

Of course, it’s also all too easy to agree to that encore he mentioned, if I stay naked.

Your own stupid fault, I scold myself, for diving into that pool in your bra and panties. Talk about a backfire. I did it to give him blue balls, not score myself some aquatic head.

“I’ll put your stuff in the dryer, if you want,” he offers, seeming to read my mind. Thank God he can’t. “And if you want things to stop for tonight...I can do that, too.”

Since when are you a gentleman? I think, fighting a scowl.

The dryer will probably ruin my delicates, but I tell him sure. While he runs back outside to get them, he tells me to go upstairs to his room and pick out some clothes for the meantime. “It’s the door at the far end. Turn left at the top of the stairs.”

Confused, I tell him thanks and follow his instructions. Wasn’t his room at the opposite end of the hallway?

Maybe he moved. There’s certainly enough fucking space here to do that—relocate on a whim, just because you get bored. And I know this guy gets bored a lot.

I open the door, surprised by what I find.

My memory was correct, because not only is this not the room I remembered from the party, but it’s not even similarly decorated. Whereas the room in my memory is all lush textiles and crisp white linens, this one is gray and black, with little more than an unmade bed and dresser. There’s not even a lamp, and the overhead light is out.

I find a light switch in the hall and flip it on, then use the spillover to choose some basketball shorts and a tee.

When I get to the landing, I look down at myself. Christ. It’s a Juilliard shirt.

Theo is in the foyer, now in dry clothes himself from who knows where, when I come down. He nods at my shirt. “Looks way better on you than it ever did on me.”

I push down my bitterness. Back to sweet-as-pie Ruby. “You never did tell me what you studied.”

“I will, if you stay a while.” He checks his watch, as though he has anywhere to be. A few surprises have come to light about Theo Durham in the last few days, but not that: the fact he’s got no real responsibilities or obligations, free to live a life of leisure on his daddy’s dime.

On the other hand, I did think he’d have some kind of job. Not anything real—something high power, but ultra-easy, the kind of gig where you pull six figures by shitting on all the workers underneath you. Something scored with his daddy’s connections to fill his days and make people think he earned what he’s got.

I actually meant what I said outside. Something’s out of whack in his head. He lacks purpose.

That’s why he’s looking for some in me.

Well, keep hunting, dude. I’m not here to fix your life. Far from it.

I will say that a tiny part of me feels sorry for him, because I know how it feels to have zero direction. After the party, I gave up striving for popularity, and it wasn’t at all the relief Callum said it would be. I’d felt hopelessly lost—like if I wasn’t consuming magazines and analyzing cool kids on the beach or back at school, I wasn’t me. It was all I wanted, all I did, for so long...I forgot what else I could be.

Then again, I wouldn’t have lost that direction, or anything else in my life, if it hadn’t been for Theo. So my pity