Page 42 of Cruel King

Or at least I thought she was.

I can’t get my mind off her. For the first time in my life, it wasn’t just about sex with a girl. I thought we had a good time together. Yeah, things started off a little rocky because I felt like I had to keep up the lie that I hated her, but we got past that.

Didn’t we?

For two weeks, I’ve waited for some word from her. I’ve checked all her social media, and it’s clear she does have some way of getting online at least every so often. She’s posted a few times about having to be at her aunt’s house in the middle of the woods or something. She can do that, but she can’t call the house here to talk to me?

I open my sketchbook for what feels like the hundredth time and look at her picture. She seemed like she was having a good time. We talked about losing our mothers and how much we miss them. I never talk about that with anyone.

Not until her.

With every passing day, I feel more like shit. Forgotten shit. Easily dismissed shit. I keep waiting for Eleanor to say the phone’s for me or get some message online from Ava, but nothing ever happens.

A knock on my bedroom door tears me out of my misery, and I yell for whoever the hell it is to come in as I stuff my sketchbook under the covers. Theo strolls through the doorway like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Typical Theo. He always looks like he’s got the world by the tail and he’s enjoying every minute of it.

“Hey, big brother. What’s up? You’ve been holed up in this room for weeks since the blizzard. You sick or something?” he asks as he sits down in the chair near the window.

“No. Just avoiding Dad,” I say, only half lying about that.

The last thing I want to do is have to face the fact that my freedom is about to come to an end. My father has let me slide for months since I graduated from college last May, but that day of the blizzard when he mentioned learning about the business was the signal that he’s not going to let me just hang out around this house for much longer. He’s going to expect me to take what he calls my rightful place at King Industries so I can one day be the head of it when he decides it’s time to retire.

“I can understand that, I guess,” Theo says nonchalantly. “As the oldest, he’s going to want you to join the family business. I’m actually surprised he’s let you avoid that for this long.”

He’s not wrong. I thought my father would have demanded I join him at the company months ago. Whatever’s keeping him preoccupied is bound to end sooner than later, though, and that’s the day I lose all of my freedom.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, remembering it’s almost mid-January. “Shouldn’t you be back at school already?”

Theo shakes his head and smiles. “School doesn’t start until later this month. Unlike you at your nice Ivy League school, those of us at state schools get a break. I’m not even sure I want to go back. I’m never going to use that degree. I’m getting into racing, so what the hell will a degree in business do for me with that?”

I can’t help but envy him. He’s got a world full of options he can choose from. He wants to race cars? Everyone will think it’s great. Best idea ever. He’ll be fantastic at it. Go Theo! He wants to climb Everest and write a travel book on the expedition? My father would probably buy a publishing company to ensure his work got published.

The world is Theo’s oyster. The same for Marius, Kellen, and Ronan. Whatever they want to do with their lives is fine with my father.

Me? I get no choice. I’m the firstborn son of Maximilian King. I get to take over the family business. It’s that and nothing else.

That’s why being with Ava was so wonderful. She loved the fact that I had my art. She didn’t care about me taking over King Industries. In fact, I think she would have been happy to see me spend the rest of my life drawing and doing what I love.

And then she left like none of it meant a goddamned thing.

I can’t stop myself from asking Theo about her, even though I know I shouldn’t. My father gets one whiff of the possibility that she and I were together and he’ll make sure I’m sent to some office for the company at the ends of the earth so I never see her again. Still, I have to ask if he’s heard from her at all in the past two weeks.

“Have you heard from your little friend?” I ask with a shrug, trying so hard not to look like I care.

“Who’s that?” he asks.

I point toward the window and the carriage house where she used to live. “You know. Your little friend who’s stuck out in the wilderness with no internet.”

He laughs at my description of her and nods his head. “Oh, yeah. She might not have much in the way of communications up there in New Hampshire at her aunt’s, but she can’t go a day without calling me.”

“Oh yeah?” I say, even as my heart sinks.

So she can speak to people. Just not me.

“Sure. Ava’s good like that. If she’s thinking about someone, she makes sure they know about it. That’s how you can tell if she cares. She’s all about the calling and texting. I hear from her all the time.”

That’s it then. She cares enough about Theo to call and text him, but I get nothing because she doesn’t give a damn about me.

I swing my legs off the bed and stand up to leave. My brother watches me like he doesn’t understand what’s going on.