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

friends and coworkers I can spend the day with. But I guess I didn’t realize how sad I’d actually be, not seeing my family for the holiday.” Her head tips back on the seat, eyes closing. “I’m being stupid, I know. I wasn’t even going to be there in the first place, so I don’t understand why it’s just now getting to me.”

“You’re not being stupid. It just turned out to be a bigger deal to you than you thought it would.” Taking her hand, I bring it to my lips and kiss it until she smiles. “I’ve got a silver lining, though.”

“Yeah?” She cracks one eye at me. “What’s that?”

“Now you can come to the cabin with me.”

Ruby sits forward, seeming to consider it, before shaking her head. “I’m still not done here, and you’re all ready to go.”

“I’ll wait.”

“I have work on Saturday.”

“We’ll leave on Friday.”

With a laugh like I’m crazy, she picks at her nail polish and mutters, “A trip together, on a holiday…isn’t it a little too soon?”

“I’m sure it violates some unspoken law in dating that I never got around to learning, seeing as I’ve never really dated anyone, but I don’t care.” I squeeze her hand. “If it bothers you, that’s okay. I’ll understand. Just don’t say no only because you think you’re ‘supposed’ to.”

Her tongue traces the corners of her mouth while she thinks. “It would be better than anything I could do around here. And I would miss you, while you’re gone.”

She looks embarrassed to admit that, but I couldn’t be happier. “I’d miss you too. So come with me.” Nodding at the house, I tell her again that I can wait until her shift ends. “Then we’ll swing by your place, you can pack a bag, and we’ll go. It’s only a few hours’ drive.”

Laughing again, like now she’s the one going crazy, Ruby tightens her ponytail and sweeps her eyes over the property. I see the idea take shape in her head.

“Okay,” she says, then bursts out laughing when I dive across the console to kiss her.

“We’ve circled the complex twice already. You forget your address?” I chuckle as we go over the speed bump in front of the leasing office for the third time. Jokes aside, I’m getting weirded out.

“No, just...wanted a spot to open up close to the building, that’s all.”

“I’ll just put on the hazards while you run in. Tell me which unit’s yours.”

“They don’t want you doing that. It’s a fire lane thing.” She shrugs and winces, a universal gesture of “it sucks, but what can you do,” before nodding at an empty space. “Just park here and I’ll walk to my place. It isn’t far.”

I do. When I unbuckle, she insists I wait here.

“Not very gentlemanly to let you heft a suitcase by yourself.”

“Two days’ worth of stuff?” she smirks, leaning back through the open door to kiss my cheek. “I’m just getting a little weekend bag, it won’t be heavy. Five minutes. Time me.”

I re-buckle with a dramatic sigh. “I don’t care if your place is messy, Ruby. Do you not remember what my house looked like, before you took pity on me?”

“Did it for the money,” she winks, then shuts her door with her hip. I watch her go in the rearview.

While I wait, I text Wes my change in plans. He tells me Clara is losing her mind with excitement at the thought of meeting my girlfriend, so I open up a thread with her and tell her she’s got to cut that shit out. “We’re exclusive,” I type. “Not official.”

“Technicality,” she texts back.

When I get to my building, I side-eye the vehicle parked right out front.

Then I relax, all the way down to my toes. It’s a black Camry, but it isn’t Callum’s.

Inside, I fill a backpack with the bare bones of everything I’ll need. I skip hair products—Theo said there’ll be other girls at the cabin—but do add the box of condoms I just bought. Bumming those is an embarrassment I could do without.

Before I leave, my phone chimes.

Hale: Yeah, we got you. I’ll put the key in that shitty charcoal grill of yours.

I smile. Hale and his wife are bringing my car back Friday morning from his brother’s auto shop, a huge and annoying favor I’m so relieved he agreed to.

Neither of us mentioned the reason, but we both know why. I don’t want my parking spot staying empty any longer than necessary.

With a dry erase marker, I write him a backwards thank you note on the inside of my patio door. The finishing touch is a big, loopy heart.

Right in its center, I see my reflection. She can’t stop smiling.

Yes, all of this feels incredibly soon, but it also feels incredibly right.

Something shifted, the other night at his house. Maybe it was a build-up from all our time together, or talking about our moms. Part of me wonders if the only thing that really changed was me.

All I know is, for the first time in weeks…I like the person staring back at me in this mirror.

Our trip takes three hours. We spend most of it singing along to showtunes, once he discovers I was a theater kid growing up, and I learn he played accompaniment for almost every musical his private school put on.

About twenty minutes from the cabin, he turns down the music and says, “I think that’s what I want to do.”

We’re riding behind a Little Debbie truck, so I’m instantly confused. “Bake snack cakes?”

“Piano accompaniment,” he laughs. “I forgot how much I loved doing that. But talking about our theater days, it reminded me that it was,