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

He did, however, make me cry. I couldn’t believe my own stupidity, getting into bed with him again.

“Callum…please.” Gently, I shrug him off. “I meant what I said. We’re over.”

For a moment, his amber eyes burn into mine. His nostrils flare. Even though he’s a foot away from the mirror, I swear I almost see the glass streak.

“Fine,” he says at last, rolling his fiery gaze to the ceiling. His body follows. He straightens, lifts his arms overhead, then falls back on my bed with a groan.

“You said yourself,” I remind him, as I grab my faux pearl necklace from the box, “we’re better as friends.”

“No, I said friends with benefits.”

“Benefits can’t last forever.”

“Then stop inviting me over.”

My comeback rests against my teeth, then evaporates. That’s more than fair. Daytime, sober Ruby has no problem putting up boundaries.

It’s nighttime Ruby—especially the Drunk and Lonely Edition—that sends him texts I know I shouldn’t.

Truthfully, we aren’t even good friends. Just old ones. Callum was there for me when no one else was. There to pick me up when I fell. And damn, did I fall hard.

He wanted me when I was still Cross-Eyes. Snaggle-Tooth. Hopeless, pathetic little Ruby, with too much weight on my frame and not enough sense in my skull.

He wanted me when no one else did.

It was no wonder teenage me couldn’t resist him, the night he found me outside the Durham house. I felt his calloused thumbs wiping every tear off my face. His strong, fevered heartbeat bleeding through his wife beater as he pulled me into him.

His deep, angry voice whispering, “Why do you do this to yourself, Ruby?” as he stroked my hair.

I didn’t have an answer for him. I never did.

But I decided, right then and there, that I was done doing it.

The next few years transformed me. I saved up every paycheck from every job I had until I could afford Invisalign. I practically stalked the surgeon I found online until he agreed to fix my eye, once and for all, the way his website claimed he could do for anyone.

I experimented with a hundred diets until I lost weight, and a hundred cleansers until my skin cleared up. I learned how to do my hair and makeup, how to dress, how to talk...how to be exactly who I’d wanted to be, all along.

The difference was, I did all this for myself. Not so some rich assholes on a rocky shoreline would give me the time of day.

And I sure as hell didn’t do it for a man, much less one like Theo Durham.

Through it all, Callum’s feelings for me remained unchanged. He found me just as attractive and worthy as he did before. Every time I pressed him, insisting he must find the new me prettier—because, seriously: how could he not?—he said if anything, it was my happiness he found more attractive. “If this is what you had to do to like yourself, then...sure. I guess I do prefer it. But only because you do.”

Lest I paint him as some saintly sweetheart (and myself as some stuck-up “I’m hot now, so screw you” bitch), I should highlight the fact Callum is as possessive as they come, with a silent grudge counter built into the back of his head. Every breakup makes him hold onto me a little bit tighter the next time around.

Which is why it’s so important for this time to stick.

“Get off my bed,” I tell him, as I push out from the vanity and vanish into my closet. “No exes allowed.”

“Ruby. Babe. Don’t do this.”

In the darkness of the closet, surrounded by swishing fabric and mementos, I shut my eyes. I can’t cry in front of him. He’ll take it to mean I regret this breakup, when really it’s something much sadder: I hate treating a friend like this.

I hate knowing that, one of these days, I’ll probably have to lose Friend Callum if I want to lose Boyfriend Callum for good.

We fell into this weird pattern of ours fast, always one petty fight from Off...and one vulnerable phone call away from On Again.

We bicker nonstop, as friends and as a couple. Our sex for the last two years has been nothing but the make-up variety, capping some truly awful fights that have gotten more than a few cops on my welcome mat.

The only exception would be the times like last week: when I’m wasted, horny, and just want someone else in my bed. And nine times out of ten, I want him out as soon as we’re finished.

Well. As soon as he’s finished. I can’t remember the last time I checked that box.

Still—I can’t just cut contact. Callum was there when I needed him. If this revolving door system of ours is what it takes to ease the pain for him, I’ll grit my teeth and do it. Like peeling off a Band-Aid, instead of ripping.

“You said you had a date with that girl from the candle shop.” I dig through my dresses, even though I already know what I’m wearing tonight. “How’s that going?”

“Fucked her.” He swings his legs over the foot of the bed and stares at the closet door. I watch him through the slats. “Both holes. No condom. Came in her ass.”

“Huh. I bet that was fun for you.”

His boots slam to the floor. Every knickknack on my shelves rattles.

“Goddamn it, Ruby! Cut this shit out. It’s not funny.”

Slowly, I open the door and peer at him. “I’m not trying to be funny. I’m trying to be a supportive friend. You know, help you move on?”

He digs his ever-present tin of Skoal from his pocket and tucks a pouch against