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

for coming with. It’s a lot better with someone I know.” I nod at the swarm of bodies playing Flip Cup on a huge barnwood dining table. “Other than Wes and the twins, I only know Max, that guy in the yellow sweater.”

I pause. “He and I used to be friends. He lived next door to us in Jersey—his dad actually got mine into the real estate game. Max followed in his footsteps at first, but now he’s an influencer for some big watch brand.” I nod at the girl whose ass he’s groping, when he thinks no one can see. “His girlfriend is a beauty blogger. That’s how Clara knows him.”

“This is...very different from the groups I usually hang around,” she exhales. “Everyone I know waits tables, cleans houses, fixes cars, landscapes—and when we’re not working, it’s the last thing we want to talk about.” She points to three recording phones, set up around the table. One even has a ring light and tripod. “I feel like these guys are never not thinking about work.”

“Some of them,” I agree, then twist and point to Clara, who’s feeding Wes some pasta for his feedback across the kitchen island. They smile and kiss, not a camera in sight. Georgia, meanwhile, takes a selfie with her boyfriend, but pockets the phone right away instead of posting, then goes back to cooking. “But some aren’t like that. They know where to find the balance.”

I can’t help but think of my mom. If she were thirty years younger, she’d fit right into that first group: cameras always ready and rolling, everything angled and styled just so.

Actually, she’d be even worse than these guys, because at least they’re here to have fun. To them, good content is a byproduct. To her, it’d be the only purpose of the entire trip.

I feel my mood nosediving, and the buzz from the alcohol waning fast. Ruby gets up and, seeming to read my mind, pours me a refill.

“Soup’s on,” Wes shouts, shooing the Solo cups and phones away from the table so he can lay out place settings. I help Clara and Isabella carry the food and serving spoons.

Everyone else clatters around in search of their drinks, snapping a few pictures of the food, before Georgia announces all attempts to use one’s phone during dinner will result in its relocation to the rain gutter.

The group laughs, but obeys. Georgia’s expression says she’ll toss those phones herself, barefoot in the snow, if she has to.

Clara is sitting next to Ruby, asking questions about how we met. I pray to God she won’t start in on that “boyfriend-girlfriend” stuff. Thankfully, she doesn’t.

It feels dumb to worry—Clara has more self-awareness and respect than that—but I don’t want anything ruining this weekend.

Of course, with Max right on the other side of me, maybe I bet on the wrong fucking horse.

“What do you mean you’re not an influencer, Theo?” he laughs, when he overhears me tell another blogger, yet again, that I’m not in the industry. “Everyday Durham was, like, the mommy blog, back in the day.”

I glare at him, which he completely misses, since he’s scrolling his phone under the table.

Too late. The damage has been done.

“Wait, wait, wait,” a girl says, slapping the table with her open palms. “Your mom is Liz Durham? That whole lawsuit thing, that was you?”

“Lawsuit?” Ruby asks softly.

I shake my head at her. “It wasn’t a lawsuit,” I tell her, then say it louder to the group, which is approaching a goddamn riot over this pathetic gossip. “Just the threat of one. And it’s long over with, so we can drop the whole thing now and eat our food.”

“Check it out.” Max slides his phone like an air hockey puck across the table. The girl scoops it up, flanked by two others, who look back and forth between the screen and me.

I get up and take it. “Where the hell did you get this?” It’s a photo of me, passed out on my potty training toilet as a toddler. Admittedly adorable, but not the kind of shit you’d share with strangers. “Every photo was taken down years ago.”

“Nothing on the internet really dies, buddy.” Max gives me a cocky smile I’m about two seconds from punching inside-out. He grabs his phone back, but it’s instantly snatched away by Georgia.

“That’s it,” she snaps. “It’s going in the fucking gutter.”

Laughter ripples across the table while Max curses and stomps after her, all the way outside.

“She’s not really gonna do it,” someone says, halfway a question. Wes, Clara, and Rylan, Georgia’s boyfriend, promise her that oh, yes: she will.

We quiet, the sounds of Max’s complaints softened through the walls.

Suddenly, we hear a soft, but distinct, thump.

“There.” Georgia dusts her hands off in the entryway, wiping her snowy bare feet on the mat. “Justice served.” As she passes me to return to her seat, she whispers, “I deleted the photo, too.”

I thank her. But sweet as the gesture is, I know the photo is still out there somewhere. Max was right. Nothing online is ever really gone.

“Shit,” someone laughs, peering out the front door, “he’s actually climbing up there.”

Wes sighs and throws his napkin onto his plate. “He’s going to break his neck, fucking idiot.” He glances at Max’s girlfriend. “No offense, Brooke.”

“Yes, offense. ” Georgia points her fork at the girl. “I told you, you can do ten thousand times better.”

I take mild consolation knowing I’m not the only person at this table who doesn’t like Max, but the tension lingers long after he returns, bitching at Georgia that she owes him a new phone. She ignores him, but shoots some pointed “told you so” looks