Lost King by Piper Lennox (moboreader txt) 📗

He ruined a life already so close to rock bottom, I could count the pebbles in between the boulders. He broke my heart.

And not just the part that held some silly summer crush for him. He destroyed the part that dared to hope for acceptance, and friends, and a life better than what I was born into.

The longer I was in the Hamptons, the more my anger woke from its slumber...and the more frequent those daydreams became.

Heartbreak: that was my new favorite theme.

I didn’t want to take Theo’s money, or his health, or his good name.

I wanted to leave a scar on his very soul: a wound he’d carry forever, like the wound I carried on mine.

8

Present Day

The embossed black ink on the business card looks wet as I flip it between my fingers at the kitchen island.

No. Absolutely not.

I set down my cell.

Then I look around at the massive garbage pile my house has become, and I pick it up again.

“Bayside Home and Commercial Cleaning, how may I help you?”

It’s a male voice, the same kid who picked up two days ago when I called to leave my message for Ruby about our date. “Hi, uh…Shawn, is it?”

“Shane,” he corrects. “This that dude who likes Ruby?”

“Guilty. She around?”

“Not yet, but she should be here soon. Her biggest job just ended, and...” I hear a keyboard clacking. “...her schedule’s open the rest of today. November gets kind of slow.”

“Good, because I’ve got a job for her.”

“Rated R, or PG? This place keeps copies of every message I write out to the workers, you know.”

“A cleaning job,” I clarify. Not that my head hasn’t been filled with a few R-rated scenes since our brief hookup in my Jeep, and even more X-rated ones. I think I understand now why my summer guests insist on fucking everywhere in and around my property that isn’t a bed. Just imagining it is pretty damn exciting.

Shane gets the details of the job, typing a mile a minute. “Wow, sounds like a really big clean-up. If you want it done in one day, I can send some other team members out with her?”

“No,” I say, too quickly. I hear him laugh. “I mean, I don’t care if it takes a few days. And I don’t want it done for me. I need someone to help me get started, that’s all.”

“And that ‘someone’ just happens to be Ruby, and only Ruby?”

I hesitate. “You’re not very professional, you know that?”

Shane laughs again. “Let’s not get into who’s keeping things professional and who’s not.”

My comeback dies on its feet. This is a real job, and I do need help…but I can’t deny it’s also a ploy to see her again.

And I definitely can’t promise I’ll be a normal, well-behaved client.

“Your appointment is confirmed, sir,” Shane adds, wrapping up his amusement inside some stuffy customer-service voice. “Your Bayside associate will arrive shortly.”

An hour later, when I’m elbow-deep in some Solo cups scattered on the island, the doorbell rings.

I look at the television on the far wall. Ruby’s standing on my front porch in gloves, coveralls, and a backwards baseball cap, looking impatient.

“Doorbell mic on,” I call, then listen for the beep before announcing, “It’s unlocked, Ruby. Come on in. I’m at the back of the house, in the kitchen.”

She starts, looking around like God Himself just invited her inside. “Uh...okay.”

The doorbell cam shuts off; the television goes blank. I hear her footsteps in the foyer.

“Back here.”

She turns the corner slowly, taking everything in with a strange look on her face. It’s less exploring, more...taking stock. Maybe the place looks worse than I think.

“Hi.” I smile and sweep some cups into the garbage bag I taped at the end of the island. “Welcome to my squalor.”

After a beat, she smiles back. “I’ve seen worse.” Setting down her supplies, she asks, “Where do you want me?”

On every last horizontal surface of this house.

“Living room.” I adjust myself while she’s sorting cleaning solutions into various buckets. Yeah, I want to sleep with her (I’d settle for some over-the-clothes middle-school shit, honestly), but I don’t want her thinking that’s all I’m after. “I hope it’s okay I called you.”

“It’s my job, remember? And I did give you my card, so.” She looks up at me with another smile.

How the actual hell she can look just as good in a jumpsuit and Bayside cap as she did dressed to the nines has got to be some kind of witchcraft. My pulse goes stupid.

We move to the living room with some trash bags and gloves, collecting garbage from every crevice. When I reach under the sofa and find some discarded pizza crusts, we both gag. I toss them into the bag like live grenades.

“Must have been one wild summer.” She leans hard into the sofa, moving it with her shoulder until I help. The ground underneath is littered with napkins, more food, and endless bottle caps.

“Same old, same old.” I grab a handful and rattle them in my palm, trying to remember even one moment of this summer that stood out from the others. All I can think of is that my cousins brought girls for the first time in history, which made me painfully aware of my own singleness.

“You don’t have to help me, you know.” Ruby flips a Budweiser cap into the air, laughing when I let go of all mine to catch it. “Unless you’re doing it to save money. But I highly doubt that.”

I don’t want to get on this topic again. Money’s obviously a touchy subject for her. But, since she brought it up, redirecting feels rude.

“You’d be right