Lost King by Piper Lennox (best self help books to read .TXT) 📕

them. “So, what…they grabbed you? Like, stumbled and did it without thinking, or—”

“Yeah, just, you know. Stupid drunk stuff.” She tries to look at them again. “Are they really that bad?”

Now she looks self-conscious, which makes me feel like shit.

Am I actually worried for a good reason, or is this Durham jealousy flaring in my DNA?

“I’ve seen worse,” I tell her, because I don’t want to lie and tell her no.

“Good. Now start moving those hips again.” She works her muscles around me while her mouth reconnects with mine.

I’d planned on something slow and romantic. Now I rock into her like I can fuck the bruises out of her skin. Its the only way to make myself shut up about them.

“Theo,” she cries, one hand clawing at my back, the other grabbing my hair. “Theo, oh, God, I’m gonna come....”

Her warning undoes me. My orgasm knocks the wind out of me like a sledgehammer, the second hers starts.

We kiss, our moans tangling together under the drone of the kitchen timer. I like it. It adds a sense of urgency, like a smoke alarm we’re happily ignoring.

In the aftershocks, she presses her fingertips hard against the back of my neck, some erotic acupressure that would turn every limb to jelly if I wasn’t already deadweight on top of her.

“I’m glad you go by Theo,” she says.

I laugh as soon as I have enough oxygen to do so. “As opposed to...?”

“I just mean, I like saying it when I finish.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s sexy.” She pushes my hair back with her hand, smiling again at the sigh I give in response. “No offense, but if you went by ‘Theodore,’ I wouldn’t be able to moan that shit with a straight face.”

“What’s wrong with Theodore?”

“Alvin?” She blinks. “Simon?”

I roll my eyes and withdraw, both of us wincing at the pain of pulling apart. “Well,” I call, as I stroll to the kitchen to dispose of the condom, “you wouldn’t shout ‘Theodore’ when you came, regardless. That’s not my name.”

She sits up, peeking at me over the back of the couch while I check the soup. “It’s just ‘Theo?’”

I smile, tonguing my cheek and keeping my mouth shut.

Ruby gets to her knees, dangling her arms over the back. “Come on, I won’t tell anyone! Matthew? Matteo?” She pauses. “Thelonius?”

“Wow. Imagine shouting that during sex.” I turn the burner off and stir the soup until it stops bubbling, making sure to keep my naked body as far from it as possible. When I tap the spoon on the edge and look up, she’s staring expectantly.

“You have to promise not to make fun of me for it.”

Grinning, she draws an X across her heart.

I take a breath and grab the French bread, a cutting board, and a knife, so I can do something besides watch her choke back laughter once I tell her. After a few practice slices, I call without looking up, “Theoboldt.”

In the silence, I hear nothing but the crackle of the bread crust, and a rattling wind against the house. Every few seconds, a deck chair scrapes across the wood outside the glass wall.

“Oh,” Ruby says, in this way like she can’t quite breathe.

As soon as I glance at her, she draws both lips inward.

“Don’t.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“You’re losing your absolute shit on the inside, I can tell.”

At last, her laugh breaks free. “I’m sorry,” she calls, when I pretend to get all heartbroken over it. She gets up and runs to the kitchen, pressing herself against my back in an apology hug. If I were actually offended, the feeling of her tits on my bare skin, and the sight of her running bare-assed through my house, would take care of that real quick. “I just...really wasn’t expecting that.”

“You’re still laughing,” I chide, finally joining her. I feed her some bread over my shoulder. “It’s fine, though. I know it’s weird. All the men in our family have kind of strange names.”

“Tell me.”

I list as many as I can think of. “It’s tradition. They’re all discarded maiden names from the Durham family tree.”

Ruby steps around to the corner of the island to watch me, folding her arms on the countertop. It covers her nipples—I don’t like that—but pushes her breasts up like the top of a perfect heart, which I like very much. “I think it’s awesome, actually.”

“Sure.”

“No, really. I mean...my name isn’t super common, but I’ve still met, like, five other Rubys at some point.” She says my full name again, like she’s tasting it. “Yours...well. There’s nothing else like it.”

“Yeah,” I breathe, halfway between a sigh and laugh, “I’ll give you that. Never met another ‘Theoboldt’ in my life.”

“And it shortens to something normal, at least.”

“True. Very important criteria, by the way. If I continue the tradition when I have a son, a normal-sounding nickname is a must.”

Ruby says something in response. I don’t get a chance to process it.

Because, in that same second, I miscalculate where my hand is on the bread, and where the knife will be after I saw it through.

“Fuck,” I hiss, when I feel the blade saw into my skin.

Then I make my second mistake.

Instead of rinsing the wound right away, maybe asking Ruby to get me a BandAid and put it on before I even have to look at the damn thing, I inspect it myself.

It’s a small cut, but deep enough to draw blood.

And as soon as I see some rise to the surface, I drop the knife, step back, and watch everything fade.

21

Theo almost topples.

Thank God, he doesn’t actually fall or faint, but I can tell it’s dangerously close. The color in his face almost washes away altogether, the second