Page 9 of Cruel King
He reminds me of a soldier. Or a tyrant, in my case. I’ve never seen him smile at me, but on occasion I’ve seen him when other people are around and he smiles at them, and it’s like he can light up a room when he does.
So it’s got to be some problem with me since whenever I’m around, he’s as cold as ice. I can’t be bothered to figure out what his issue is, though.
CHAPTERFOUR
Matthias
I listenas my friend Cam talks about some party he’s got a hard on to go to tonight as I stretch my legs down the length of my bed. “You know there’s going to be a ton of hot girls there too, so why not go?” he asks, a rhetorical question since he’s already so fucking pumped up about it.
“Sounds good, but I’m pretty beat after the last couple nights,” I say half-heartedly, not really interested in going out at all after seeing Ava down in the kitchen.
“What else do you have to do?”
“Nothing, I guess,” I say as I stare up at my bedroom ceiling. “There’s someone at my house right now. What time are you leaving later?”
The phone goes silent for a long moment before he asks, “What? Who? Your brothers? Aren’t they usually at the house?”
“No, not them. A girl. Ava. She’s the daughter of my father’s estate manager,” I say as I close my eyes and think about what she looked like sitting in front of the fireplace in just a robe. “She’s down in the kitchen where she belongs since she’s the fucking help.”
Cam’s instantly interested in my houseguest. “Oh yeah? Is she hot, at least? Or are you stuck with some ugly chick in your house?”
I sigh as I try to think of a way to describe Ava. “Yeah, I guess she’s not bad.”
“As hot as Andi?”
The memory of the last time I saw my ex-girlfriend flashes through my mind, and I can’t help but admit Ava’s hotter than Andi. I don’t want to tell Cam that, though.
“Andi’s in a league of her own. You know that, man.”
“Hell, yeah, I know it! You should have stayed with her. The guy she’s with tells anyone who’ll fucking listen how good she is.”
Laughing at the idea of being with her now, I shake my head. “That was college. I grew out of her.”
“So are you coming to the party or not, shithead?”
I shrug at the thought of going anywhere. “I don’t know. I’ll call you later if I feel like going. I might change my mind.”
“You should. It’s the holidays, the perfect time to party hard before we all have to get back to the grind next year,” Cam says, giving me his best sales pitch.
The idea of my father’s grind and how he wants me to somehow become a carbon copy of him fills me with dread. I don’t want that for my life, but it’s looking like my time avoiding the inevitable is nearly up.
“If I feel like it, I’ll call you. Talk to you later.”
He starts to say something about some girl he thinks I should meet, but a noise out in the hallway gets my attention. “Yeah, tell me later, okay?”
Tossing the phone on my bed, I walk out of my room to find out what’s going on. I see nothing, though. Curious what it could be, I head toward the kitchen.
As I pass the game room, I catch a glimpse of someone out of the corner of my eye. I thought Ronan went to see his girlfriend. My other brothers can’t be back already. They just left a little more than an hour ago. I doubt they’re even in the city yet.
I turn my head and see it’s not any of them. It’s Ava lounging around up here like she owns the place. Walking in, I stop next to the sofa where she’s sitting in that white robe from before.
“Comfy? Maybe you’d like a few pillows or a throw? How about some bonbons?”
When she turns to face me, I see the hurt in her eyes from my words, but it doesn’t take long before that morphs into anger. She looks like she’s going to cry either way.
Standing from the sofa, she puts her hands on her hips and glares up at me. In her bare feet, she’s dwarfed by me, but I get no sense she’s afraid of me, even though I’m nearly a foot taller than her and twice her size.
“Why are you like this with me?” she asks, her voice full of hurt even as her brown eyes stare up at me with nothing but hatred in them.