Lost King by Piper Lennox (moboreader txt) 📗

again. “So when you said you know the owner, you meant you really know him.”

“He and my family go way back,” I explain. “His sister used to work with my mom.”

“And he’s got a crush on your aunt,” Theo clarifies.

“Yes, a completely hopeless and relentless one. We all just humor him, by this point.”

“Why?”

“I mean, he’s a nice guy. No need to break his spirit.”

“But why let him keep his hopes up like that?” Theo stomps his foot down into his skate, then shoves his pant leg inside. “Especially if he’s nice and you all really like him. Your aunt should tell him point-blank she doesn’t like him and never will.”

“You don’t think she’s tried?” I laugh, but it comes out twisted and strange as I realize something: my aunt never has told Marcus those things outright. Even the rest of us, always telling him to give up and move on, say it like we’re kidding. Maybe it’s the same as lying.

Maybe, in its own way, it’s worse.

“Sorry,” Theo adds, when he notices how silent I’ve gotten. “Just saying, from the outside, it looks like everyone’s letting him hope for someone he’s never going to have. But you know the situation better than I do.”

“Yeah,” I say quietly. I sure do.

We fumble to the rink’s edge and step up. Theo offers me his arm, but it quickly becomes obvious he’s the one in need of help.

“Leave me alone,” he blushes, when I can’t stop laughing because he’s clinging to the wall like an oxygen tank. “I’ve never done this.”

He gets himself standing upright, looking proud...until I veer off and perform a spin. A spray of ice arcs from my skates and covers him.

“Show-off.”

“If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”

“Oh, is that the rule? Because fair warning, I’m really good at shoving. Offensive tackle in high school. Fanciest footwork on the team, too.”

“That’s a lot of shit-talking from someone who’s shaking like Bambi, right now.”

Theo bites his grin and gives me this look like, The second we’re off the ice, you’re in for it.

Twenty minutes pass before I offer him an ice walker, which he refuses despite desperately needing one. His distances are short, and his falls are frequent.

“That one,” he groans, after a particularly heavy wipeout, “might have actually fractured my ass bone.”

I laugh and help him stand. “You’re fine, you big baby. I’d think a former football player would be used to this kind of impact.”

“Thick skull,” he says, rapping his knuckles on his head, “but a very delicate backside.”

“Ah.”

“No, seriously: I bruised my tailbone once. A hammock I was in tore and dumped me out onto concrete. I had to sit on this weird donut thing for weeks.”

“Must have made you irresistible to the ladies.”

“I was four, smartass.” Theo grabs my waist before I can skate away, pulling me against him like he really will tackle me.

His breath melts down my neck, feeling sinfully hot around all this ice.

Suddenly, the lights dim. When John Legend starts playing through the buzzing speakers around the rink, I can’t decide if I want to murder Marcus or thank him.

Theo’s hands travel down my hips until he has my fingers wrapped in his. He skates behind me, slow and drifting, while I help him balance.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said, with the whole ‘finding purpose’ thing.” He hooks his chin onto my shoulder as we glide along. “What’s yours?”

“I don’t know.” Part of it’s because having him pressed so close, with dim lights and lilting music, has crushed every thought in my head to dust. The rest is because I really don’t have an answer.

“My job gives me a sense of purpose, I guess, but it’s not like that’s my dream job.”

“What is your dream job?”

“Still figuring that one out.” I glance at him, only able to see his mouth. “What’s yours?”

“If I knew, I’d just go out and do it.”

I almost roll my eyes at myself. “Oh. Right.” When supporting yourself or others isn’t an issue, you can go out and do whatever you want. It’d be easy to discover your dream job, in a situation like that.

Then again, look at Theo. He’s not the first person I’ve met who was like this. Lost in options, drowning in good luck...but without anything, or anyone, to really fight for.

“Professional organizer,” I say, after we glide a few more yards and stop.

My response feels less like something I just blurted out, and more like an answer I’ve known for years. I just didn’t know what question it belonged to.

I turn in his arms. He keeps his fingers locked at the small of my back, staring down at me.

“I could see you doing that. It’d definitely suit you.”

I blush. Frequently during our clean-ups of his house, I’d get distracted picking through junk drawers, rearranging shelves, and reordering books, until Theo would prompt me back to the larger task. It’s a bad habit of mine at work, too. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Theo rests his chin on the top of my head, pulling me into his chest. I shut my eyes. I like this, and I wish I didn’t.

“But what I meant was,” he goes on, “is I could see you doing that because it takes what you enjoy—cleaning—and makes it even more meaningful. Maybe that’s your purpose: making life easier for people. Making sense of the chaos.”

In the tiny, muffled cave of his biceps and chest, I open my eyes and stare at his buttons until they blur.

He’s right. I do like unraveling chaotic things, putting them into an order that makes sense.

But here I am, wrapped up in the arms of a boy whose neat-as-a-pin life is, thread by thread, getting tangled and