Lost King

by Piper Lennox

  “With who?”

  “Herself. She kept trying to hook back up, and I kept turning her down. Found out later she planned on filming us, posting it, and claiming I did it.”

  “Who the hell would put a sex tape of themselves out there just to take down someone else?” I ask, which is beyond stupid. Revenge, as I’ve learned firsthand, has a way of blocking out all logic. You’ll cross a lot of lines, just to get even.

  “Paige, that’s who. She loved playing the victim. Plus, like I said, she was pissed I dumped her.” Theo coughs into his elbow, cringing so hard I almost call a nurse. He puts his hand on my arm and shakes his head, anchoring me in the chair until the coughing fit passes.

  “I’d started changing,” he continues roughly, clearing his throat, “being nicer to the people who actually deserved it…and one day I realized that Paige was the worst bully I knew. She did it all with a smile.”

  My eyebrows raise with bitter agreement. Girls like Vivi and Cate were awful, but at least I always saw the punches coming.

  “The last time I turned her down, I found a camera. Same spot on my dad’s shelf, at a party just a few days before you and I met. When I confronted her, she played dumb. Said one of our friends must’ve put it there for their own hookup or something. And…I believed her.”

  Gently, he reaches out and lifts my chin, so that my falling gaze will meet his eyes. I don’t let it.

  “Point is, you’re not the only one who underestimates shitty exes.”

  I try to find consolation in this, but can’t. His underestimation of Paige ruined my life, yeah—but my underestimation of Callum almost cost us both our lives entirely.

  “Anyway,” he sighs, freeing my chin far too gently, “I guess that’s when she decided, if she couldn’t sue me and play victim, she could at least ruin my reputation. All she had to do was find another girl.” He pauses. “So she found you. And I’m so, so sorry for that, Ruby.”

  Here it is, the apology I waited years for. The words I told myself I didn’t even want, when I needed them more than anything.

  And I’m rejecting them.

  “Don’t apologize.” I turn my muttering towards the tile. “It’s not your fault. There’s no way you could’ve known she’d do that.”

  “Just like there’s no way you could have known I didn’t do it.”

  I look up. He’s grown serious, turning his hospital bracelet in the low light.

  DURHAM, THEOBOLDT. I watch his name spin past, again and again, and think of the day he told it to me. It was one of a hundred chances I had to come clean.

  I think of how much I miss saying his name—crying it when he brought me to heights I’d only fantasized about, and whispering it afterwards when he’d kiss me and put me back together.

  Thinking it to myself endlessly on the drive home, marveling at how much sweeter it tasted on my tongue now than in all those years I imagined my revenge.

  “You learned to trust me,” he says, “and you had no reason to. You still thought I filmed us; you clearly thought I was this rich, arrogant asshole—”

  “Theo,” I start. He holds up his hand. I stop talking, but not because of that: I’ve finally looked him in the eyes.

  They’re nothing but that cool, beautiful emerald green.

  “Remember when you asked if that counted for anything? That all you knew me as was the guy who destroyed your life, but you fell for me anyway?”

  He touches my face again.

  “It does, Ruby.”

  My crying has slowed to a gentle roll of tears down my cheeks, no sobs. I actually hate this more. At least sobs can only go on so long. Crying like this, it lingers like a slow leak. A crack at the bottom of a tank.

  I close my hand over his. “You said you can’t trust me.”

  “I can’t. But I want to learn.”

  A jolt of hope shoots through me, but I rein it in. Fast. “And tomorrow? When all the panic of tonight wears off, and we’re back to how things were—”

  “I’ll still mean every last word.”

  “You can’t say that, Theo. You don’t know how you’ll feel in a few hours.”

  “Maybe not. But I know how I felt a few hours ago.”

  Sniffling, I roll my eyes. “Right, when you thought I was dead beside your pool? No offense, but you’re kind of proving my point. Tonight was a—an anomaly. It’s not real.”

  “No. Before that. I sent a text asking you to come over so we could talk, literally a second before Callum showed up. Everything I’m telling you right now? I was going to say pretty much exactly the same thing when you came over.”

  I draw away on instinct. My battered, sleep-deprived head barely makes sense of his words. “What text? I never....”

  The blur of events plays out as I shut my eyes to think. I realize the last time I checked my phone was in Frankie’s kitchen.

  “Too bad I can’t prove it. Our phones are either still at the bottom of my pool, or sitting in some rice in an evidence locker.”

  I laugh. It hurts. Maybe I’ve got a bruised rib or two the doctor missed, or the bittersweetness of it all is just too much: as happy as I am to learn Theo sent that message, I’m unbelievably sad he didn’t send it sooner.

  It might just be my heart, springing back to life inside my chest as he leans close.

  “You don’t have to prove it,” I breathe, when our mouths almost brush. “I believe you.”

  At first, all I can smell is sweat, chlorine, and dried blood, wiped away with antiseptic. Every ugly scent of this night I want to forget.

  Then he kisses me. I close my eyes as the scents transform, and all I smell is him. Cologne. Soap. Lavender and leather and espresso, and the muted salt air of the bay in winter.

  No...I don’t want to forget this night.

  As his fingers wind into my hair and I melt against him, I don’t even wish it had happened some other way.

  Maybe those little twists of fate, those seemingly random coin tosses that turn us without warning, are the only things that get us where we need to be.

  Epilogue

  Seven Years Later

  “Okay. Start the timer.”

  I hit the button on my phone and set it aside, pulling Ruby down with me onto the bed. “I’ve got a good feeling about this one.”

  “You said that last time.”

  “Last time you weren’t throwing up every day at work, sleeping fourteen hours straight—”

  “It’s just a flu.” She crosses her arms across her face as she lies back against my chest. “Seriously, don’t get your hopes up.”

  For her sake, I consider telling her I haven’t. But I don’t want to lie.

  Our house is way too quiet. Usually, she’s got music playing from the kitchen, I’m practicing, or there’s a small crowd of our family or friends out on the patio, laughter rolling through this place like fog.

  Test days are a different story, though.

  “My aunt keeps saying if we stop trying, it’ll happen.” Ruby throws her hands up towards the ceiling in exasperation, then lets them fall, almost clocking me. I deflect gently, capturing her hand in mine. “How do you just stop trying, though, when it’s all you can think about?”

  “I don’t know.” I turn her engagement ring until it aligns with the wedding band, fitting them back together the way they belong. “Then again, I’m still not sure how we started trying in the first place.”

  “That broken condom,” she reminds me, laughing softly as she frees her hand, turns in my arms, and pushes her face into my neck. “Remember? You were like, ‘Well. Guess we’ll see what happens.’”

  “Right, but that was more like, ‘Hey, if it happens, we’re good.’ I meant the rest of it: charting temperatures, ovulations tests....”

  Ruby props her chin on my sternum and brushes her knuckles against my jaw. She likes my beard. Says it’s fitting for a pianist. Something about how distinguished I look.

  I rarely listen to it all. Having her touch me like that
puts too many dirty thoughts in my head to hear anything else.

  “That,” she says, “was from Van and Juni having the twins. You were holding Luna, and I had Forrest, and you said, ‘That’s it. We need one of these.’”

  “Did I?” I know damn good and well I did, and that that’s exactly when “let it happen” turned into “make it happen.” We weren’t engaged when Wes and Clara had Hal, so babies weren’t yet on the radar; when they had Journey, Ruby and I were in the throes of wedding planning, only to ditch the whole idea and do a courthouse one anyway.

  Even Van and Juni’s pregnancy announcement didn’t put the idea in our heads, because we were focused on house-hunting. Our choice of a small two-bed, one-bath rancher in Sparta, NJ, didn’t fit with Gilmour Durham’s current portfolio, but Kimberly—now his partner in both senses of the word—reminded him that Durham Real Estate was looking to move away from sprawling mega-mansions and slow down.

  But truthfully, it wasn’t even holding Van’s kids that tipped the scales for me. It was seeing Ruby hold a baby, any baby, and suddenly loving that sight more than I ever thought I could.

  She pushes off from my chest and eyes the phone. “Forty-two seconds left. Which one of us is checking, this time?”

  My back pops in the charged silence when I get up. “It’s my turn.”

  “Do me a favor,” she whispers, when I lean down to kiss her forehead—my silent reminder that, no matter what it says, we’ll be okay.

  “Anything.”

  “Don’t say ‘positive’ or ‘negative.’ Just...just look at me. I’ll know.”

  I watch as she fidgets with her necklace, running the pearls back and forth across her bottom lip.

  The timer sounds. I should have picked a better ringtone. This one bleats up and down my spine, so I can only imagine what it’s doing to her nerves.

  I go into the bathroom. The test sits on the edge of the sink, in its unofficial waiting spot by her curling iron. She tore off the most absurdly perfect squares of toilet paper to rest it on, and that kind of breaks my heart. It’s a testament to how precisely we’ve planned for something that, at the end of the day, is entirely up to fate.

  I look at the test window.

  “Well?” she asks. I can hear her clacking the necklace against her teeth, now.

  “Do me a favor,” I call, picking up the test and starting back to the bedroom. I lean against the doorframe and point it at her. “If I faint in the delivery room from all the blood, keep that between us.”

  The funny thing is, it’s not my joke that clues her in. It’s not even the fact I’m now waving the obviously positive test right in front of her.

  I see the light click, an awed smile taking over her face, only after she searches my eyes. That’s the answer she trusts most.

  Almost two years ago, the day after our wedding, I changed my name.

  “‘Ruby Paulsen Durham,’” Theo read, when I skipped my way back to the Jeep and all but threw the paperwork into his lap. “I still don’t see why you didn’t just hyphenate, but if you’re happy, I’m happy.”

  “I am so happy. And relieved.” It was more than just casting off “Aria,” the ever-present reminder of our complicated beginning. It felt amazing to have Mom’s maiden name there. Almost as good as shedding my father’s last name, and fitting “Durham” in its place.

  For the first time ever, my name matched exactly who I was.

  “Well, Mrs. Durham,” Theo winked, straightening the papers against the dash, “should we get our honeymoon started?”

  I don’t know what melted me more: the sound of my new title in that deep, charming voice…or the look he flashed me as he started the car and pulled away, silently promising an incredible night.

  Not that the one before hadn’t already fulfilled that promise and then some. Right after the ceremony in Manhattan, we adjourned to a hotel room, hung out the Do Not Disturb sign, and spent the rest of the day clothes-free, only taking our hands off each other to pop champagne. And I think there was a meal in there, somewhere.

  Our small courthouse wedding—consisting of just his father and Kimberly, my mom, and Aunt Thalia—disappointed the rest of the group, who’d banked on us having a giant party like Van and Juni, or at least a small destination elopement like Wes and Clara. But it was perfect for us. Theo didn’t want to mingle with a packed reception; I didn’t want to spend the money we’d been saving for a house.

  Now, as the airport came into view, he eyed the papers in my hands and asked, “You’re sure you don’t mind doing it this way?”

  “Watching Georgia and Rylan plan their wedding is stressful enough,” I told him, partially joking, mostly dead-serious. I’d gone with the girls to a bridal fitting last weekend. Twenty-something gowns later, Georgia looked ready to pass out from frustration.

  “Besides,” I added, when he still didn’t look convinced, “we tried the ‘big wedding’ thing, remember? We were both miserable after, like, three venue tours.”

  “True.” He drummed on the wheel a moment. “And it was nice, getting it done that quickly. For your mom’s sake.”

  My mood dove a little as I nodded. That was another factor in our decision, even though we pretended otherwise. Planning a wedding would’ve taken us well over a year between my new job with a small LLC, helping stage homes before they went on the market, and Theo’s new gig playing piano with a local jazz band. He spent his weekends playing for schools—helping out with choir concerts and school plays—so it might’ve taken us even longer. By then, who knew what kind of condition my mom would be in.

  “She has been doing better, though,” Theo offered. “Thalia said the wheelchair days are fewer than the walker days, now.”

  I gave a halfhearted smile and agreed with him. “Better” was such a relative term. Yes, she was better than this time last year, but worse than the year before, when she barely needed a wheelchair at all. For all the surprise peaks, her downward trend always held steady.

  “She’s been looking at nursing homes.” I didn’t mean to start crying, but it was the one dark spot on my memories of yesterday. When I cornered my aunt about some pamphlets I’d found during my last two visits, she confessed Mom’s plan to move into a home now that she required assistance, or at least supervision, 24/7.

  She balked at the thought of everyone chipping in for nearly full-time home care. And she wouldn’t entertain the thought of living with us, no matter how much Theo and I insisted.

  It wasn’t a new plan, exactly. Seven years ago, right after news reached her of what happened with Callum, she tried convincing me to move back into Thalia’s condo.

  “We don’t need you working out there, putting yourself in danger,” she cried over the phone. “I don’t even want in-home care, so stop sending Thalia that money. I’m going to a facility. Someplace my disability checks can pay for on their own.”

  I’d talked her down, eventually, and reassured her the Hamptons were perfectly safe. What happened with Callum was a fluke—and it definitely wouldn’t happen again. I was, at that moment, erasing all traces of him from my life: rifling through my bedroom for every chew-filled soda bottle, every photo, and every “sorry I blew up” gift he’d ever gotten me.

  Frankie helped, gleefully pitching items into trash bags and donation bins, while Theo hobbled back and forth in his medical boot, looking unsure of how to help. I was just glad to have him there. It was the perfect reminder of why these things weren’t worth holding onto. He was.

  Mom’s concerns didn’t stop until after Callum’s trial. He was found guilty on assault, drug possession, and criminal possession of a firearm, and sentenced to eight years.

  His only hope of early release was his lawyer playing the injury card. Allegedly, he had memory loss from his head hitting the edge of Theo’s pool. I’d almost felt sorry for him, until the entire trial passed without so much as an apology.

  Rumor had it that he was now a changed man. Clean and sober, God-fearing, and even ear
ning a degree while he served his sentence.

  I chose not to trust the rumors. In my mind, a truly changed man would apologize. Not just to me, but to Theo.

  It used to infuriate me, until I realized something critical: I didn’t want his apology. I’d received far too many over the years for it to mean anything.

  But I didn’t want revenge, either. All I wanted was to leave that part of my past behind, and focus on my future. The one I deserved.

  As my sobs strengthened at the thought of my mom going into a home—knowing all she could afford would be one of those cut-rate facilities where death starts looking preferable—Theo pulled into the Park ’N Go of the airport, cut the engine, and drew me into him.

  “Hey, shh, it’s okay. Just because she’s looking doesn’t mean she’s going. I won’t let that happen.”

  Through my blubbering, I scoffed. My mother’s stubbornness could rival a Durham’s, any day of the week.

  Theo paused a moment, then reached into the backseat. “I was going to give you this later,” he said, digging through his luggage, “but I guess now is as good a time as any.”

  I sniffed and wiped my eyes with the inside of my shirt collar, dumbfounded by the beautifully wrapped package he placed in my lap. “We agreed on no wedding presents.”

  “Then don’t think of it as a wedding present.” He flicked the bow, urging me to hurry up and open it. “Just an ‘I love you’ gift.”

  It was a shirt box. Under all the gold-threaded tissue paper, I found only an envelope, too thin to be a card.

  Inside was a check, made out to me from him.

  “That,” Theo said, “is all the money left in my account that Dad set aside for me, from the day I was born. College, grad school, a house...everything. And it’s the very last money I’m ever accepting from him.”

  Speechless, I turned the check over, like memorizing it from enough angles would make me understand its purpose. “So...so why did you withdraw it? For our house?”

  With a soft smile, he shook his head, reached out, and pointed to the Memo line.