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

the other cab ride where you bailed right into traffic and puked down a storm grate—”

“The crying jag and endless declarations of how fucking awesome we are,” Van adds.

“And,” Wes finishes, leaning on his island and pointing some tongs my way, “a good twenty-minute stretch where you vanished entirely. We found your stupid ass back here in your Jeep, passed out in the front seat. Thank God we took your keys at the second bar. Fucking idiot.”

My nod swings a bag of nails into every lobe my brain hopefully still has. Trying to drive drunk was a definite idiotic move. I’m glad they had the foresight to take my keys.

“Thanks.” I wet my chapped lips. They taste like copper. Probably cracked from mouth-breathing after puking all night. “For going with me, keeping me safe. All that.”

They wave me off. My gratitude’s a formality, just like them having my back. I’ve done the same for them many times.

Still, I am grateful. Drinking Ruby away on my own would’ve ended very badly.

Ruby. Fuck. Every thought of her I drowned in liquor tumbles back into my head, even more jumbled than before.

Wes brings us our breakfast. Up-close, the eggs make me want to get sick right into his dead aloe plant by the balcony door. I stick to the bacon, then chug the refill of coffee he gives me.

While we eat, Van keeps playing and Wes leads Bowie through a gambit of tricks to earn a few scraps, but I’m not fooled. Something’s weird. The air’s got a charge to it.

I must have told them.

“What’d I say?”

“Not a lot,” Wes answers, tossing a strip of bacon into the air. Bowie leaps and catches it. “Enough for us to get the gist.”

“Enough,” Van adds without looking away from the television, “for us to decide, ‘Fuck keeping him sober,’ and let you drink like a damn fish.” He glances at me. It’s a split-second, but it’s got a year’s worth of pity in it. “Super fucked-up story, man. I’m sorry.”

The grease stings my lips. I wipe my mouth on my sleeve and nod, silent.

“Has she contacted you at all?”

“No idea.” I pat myself down. Wes tosses me my phone from the other end table, explaining that he took it from me as soon as I confessed my real reason for drinking.

I’m as grateful for that as I am for them taking my keys. There’s no telling what I might’ve texted her if I’d gotten the chance: nasty bullshit, incoherent ravings...or, worst of all, some long message confessing what I felt for her.

What I think I still might, even though I wish like hell I didn’t.

35

The guys tell me to stay in the city for the day. I’m hesitant. My social meter’s running on fumes.

All I want is to be alone, but when I actually start picturing what I’d do back in the Hamptons—stay up all night, catch some broken sleep during the day, and fill my time with video games until my dopamine production is good and broken—I rethink rushing home.

I stop thinking of it as home.

Then I wonder when I started to think of it as home at all. When I realize it was sometime after meeting Ruby, I get so depressed I tell Wes and Van that sure, I’ll stay. Miserable and distracted beats miserable and bored anytime.

We watch movies for the first half of the day, then meet up with the rest of the group for dinner at the restaurant where Van works. Right away, I know the guys told their girlfriends about the Ruby situation, and that Clara told Georgia, because whatever sympathy I got from Wes and Van hits me tenfold from the girls.

Clara gives me some bright-side advice about finding out the truth sooner rather than later; Georgia insists I plot some revenge of my own, because that’s sure as shit what she would do. Juniper is quiet while the rest of the booth gets divided in two: Wes and Georgia saying fuck yes, I should get even, while Clara, Van, and Rylan say it’s just not worth it, and that I should dust myself off and move on.

I take a bite of the steak Wes forced me to order, then look at Juniper through the chaos. “Tell me.”

She shifts uncomfortably while everyone quiets down to listen. “You won’t like it.”

“I know. That’s why I want to hear it.”

Blushing, Juni glances at the others before straightening up and taking a breath. “Honestly? I kind of get why she did it.”

There’s a beat of silence. Even the din of the restaurant seems muted.

Then the booth fucking erupts.

“Are you kidding me?” Georgia booms, slapping the table. Wes can’t stop laughing, while Van elbows her and gives her this look like, “Should’ve kept that to yourself.” Clara and Rylan look thoughtful, like they might agree, but even they start shaking their heads.

The only thing that settles the chaos is our waiter, returning with another pitcher of beer. Georgia refills our glasses to nearly overflowing and says, “Juni, you’ve lost your mind.”

She sighs, then looks back at me. “It was still wrong, what she did—I can’t sit here and pretend I agree with that whole ‘revenge’ angle.”

“Juni and her great karmic balance,” Van chimes in, earning an elbow to his ribs.

“But,” she goes on, “when you think it through objectively, it makes sense.” She motions to Georgia and Wes. “Here you two are saying, ‘I’d get even with anyone who did what she did.’ Wouldn’t you also get even with anyone who did what Theo did?” She glances back at me. “What she thought you did, I mean.”

They get silent again. Wes shrugs. Georgia nods, very reluctantly.

“Exactly.