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

stand, when it’s exactly what you want? It’s so damn simple.

Then again, I’ve recently learned “simple” and “easy” aren’t synonyms.

Dad: I’m landing in the city in two days. Kimberly is coming with, to see the tree at Rock.

Dad: Think you can make it out?

I stare at the messages too long, wondering why I don’t have an answer. Other than being in the city again, that desolate concrete hellhole where you start thinking ridiculous, optimistic things, I want to go. I’ve missed him.

Then I realize why I’m so hesitant. As usual, I don’t believe him.

Answering “yes” means trusting him, even though history says I shouldn’t. And answering “no,” while definitely the safer option, would be throwing away the chance to get something I actually want.

“If things were different—”

“They can be.”

Turning my life around, making it different, would’ve been simple. Get a job. Move out. Stop living on my dad’s dime because I didn’t grow up with enough of his attention. Grow up.

But doing all that isn’t easy. Meeting Ruby was the first time any of it felt not just possible, but crucial. I realized I couldn’t be happy until I did it.

She was right. Things can be different. Forgiveness is remarkably simple, just like choosing to trust someone’s verdict. Or a person themselves. It’s just not easy.

In the end, it comes down to how badly you want it.

Theo: Yeah. I’ll be there.

Let’s call this one a practice round.

“I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

I shiver again, deep down to the bone; it’s snowing today, the kind that swirls in all directions and sticks to you instantly.

For the seventh or eighth time, I consider telling Callum we should move this conversation off my patio, but I know that’d be even dumber than answering the door for him in the first place.

“I’m getting my shit together, babe.” He motions to his new clothes: slacks still stiff and creased from the department store shelf, a white button-down, and a black winter coat that, admittedly, makes him look pretty put-together. “This new job’s so much better than the landscaping. Real white-collar shit, you know? And I’m getting a place of my own next week. No more couches or crashing at Doug’s. I’m through with those dicks.”

“And the drugs? The drinking?” I shouldn’t even ask. Not only will I not believe his answer, but he’ll take follow-ups to mean his little plea is working. It isn’t.

I’m also not looking to actively piss him off, right now. Tomorrow during my lunch break, I’m filing a restraining order. I would’ve done it today, if my tires weren’t balding and the roads were salted.

“Going clean,” he says, holding his hand up like swearing on the Bible.

I snort; I can’t help it. “Going clean,” in Callum’s vocab, effectively means, “I haven’t taken anything in about two hours.”

“Ruby, come on. We’re good together.”

“No, we’re not.” I unfold the origami I put myself in, hoping to retain some body heat in my pajama pants and coat. “We’re a fucking mess, Call.”

“I told you, I’m fixing all that.”

“It’s not just you.” I knead the bridge of my nose. Telling him this might violate my decision to not piss him off, but it needs to be said. “I never had feelings for you. All these years, I stuck it out hoping friendship would turn into more, and it didn’t. Then even the friendship went away.”

I pace around my patio and draw my numb lips between my teeth. Callum, more patient than I’ve ever seen him, waits.

“Much as you don’t deserve it, I owe you an apology.”

“For what?”

“Letting you believe we had something that we just…didn’t. So, I’m sorry.”

He really doesn’t deserve it. But I’m still glad I said it, if only for my sake.

Callum stares at me. It’s a trait of his I’ve coveted since the day we met: how easy it is for him to look people in the eye. He uses his power for evil, though, purposely making others uncomfortable with it. Like me, right now.

“He doesn’t want you back, Ru.” Call’s mouth draws up at the corner, flashing his teeth. I can almost see the missing molar when he laughs. “I hope that’s not why you’re doing this—because you think you’ve still got a shot with that motherfucker.”

“I know I don’t.” My face is stone, voice so satisfyingly cavalier, but the sentence still aches its way through my body. “It’s got nothing to do with Theo. It never did. You and me...this is how it was going to happen, all along.” If anything, the only way Theo’s involved in this situation is that, while I was with him, I saw what my life could actually be. What it deserved to be.

I deserve kisses that make my knees give out. Glances that make me feel dirty and treasured at the same time.

I deserve soft lights in the distance, waterfalls underneath me, arms around me. Drives with no destination. Lovemaking that makes my head spin.

I deserve to trust someone so completely, with so much of my soul, it scares the living hell out of me.

I’ll never get those things from Theo again. I’ve accepted that. But I’ve also accepted that they’ll never come from Callum. And I’d rather be alone than settle for anything less than what I deserve.

“Then do me a favor,” he says, after a long silence with nothing but wind howling between the townhouses.

I look from the snowflakes in front of my face, to him. “What?”

“Give me one last night.” He steps close, his new shoes leaving deep prints in the snow on the concrete between us. I tense when he touches