Page 53 of Wild King
“So riddle me this, Mr. I Talk To Women. Don’t they think it’s going somewhere other than just fucking with all that chatting them up?”
For a moment, Ronan seems to think about my question as I smugly wait for him to answer. He’s no different than I am. He just makes it seem like he is, which I personally think is worse than just being the kind of guy I am.
My brother lets out a heavy sigh. “Let me see if I can explain this to you. Yes, I want to sleep with the women I talk to. I never said I was promising anyone forever. I just think getting to know someone before you end up in bed with them is better. Maybe if you had talked to Salem before sleeping with her, you wouldn’t have had to duck out like some criminal fleeing the scene of a crime and instead you could have been honest with her.”
So much for my being smug. Now I’m being schooled on how to get women by my younger brother.
“You do know I’m right about Salem, though. Don’t you? She doesn’t have to stay here to do her job. She wanted to be around you.”
“Okay, fine. Maybe she did want to be out here with me. Doesn’t change the fact that I fucked up.”
My brother looks at me strangely for a long moment. “Is that regret I hear in your voice?”
I roll my eyes at his attempt to psychoanalyze me. “No. Yeah. Maybe. What’s it matter? Some things can’t be undone.”
“Don’t bet on it.”
As much as I wish he was right, nothing about all the time Salem and I have been living together here in this house has shown me she’s willing to give me another chance. True, I keep messing up, but why would she want to try anything with me?
I’m the guy the world hates who also happens to be the guy who ghosted her and left her standing alone in a hotel suite. Not exactly a winning hand to play there.
Needing to change the subject, I stand up and begin walking toward the door. “Join me outside for a drink? It’s my midday beer time,” I joke.
Ronan follows me, but the look he gives me says he thinks I’m turning into an alcoholic. I’d explain there’s nothing much else to do here, but I doubt he’d understand.
As we walk down the steps to the main floor, he says, “Isn’t that the room we used to sleep in when we were kids and would visit grandma and grandpa?”
I nod, smiling as I remember the two of us as little boys sleeping in that bed together. “Yup. How’s that for a trip down memory lane? The big difference is none of our big brothers are coming to sneak me out at night.”
Even as I say that, I know one of them would if he was still here.
We laugh about the time Marius fell down the ladder and nearly broke his arm when they came to get us after our grandparents fell asleep for the night one Saturday. Like me, Ronan remembers those as good times.
It was the five of us against the world. How did it all change?
After grabbing a couple beers, we head outside to the patio and sit on the two chaise lounge chairs I think might be throwbacks to when our grandparents were our age. As we talk about what he’s been up to since I last saw him that night at Matthias and Ava’s, Salem walks around the house and stops dead like she’s surprised to see the two of us.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were with someone,” she says quietly as she turns around to walk back to the front of the house.
“It’s okay. It’s just my brother. Remember him? He’s the youngest King,” I say, hoping she’ll stay and hang out.
My brother stands up and walks over to her to shake her hand. “Ronan. My brother has the manners of a tree stump. How are you enjoying your time here?”
“Hi, Ronan. It’s good to see you again. It’s been okay. I’ve been working most of the time, but we got pizza from that place your brother liked. Sam’s? Sally’s?” she says, looking over at me.
“Sal’s,” I say.
Ronan nods. “Oh, yeah. Sal’s is the best. Did Kellen tell you how I used to spit out my pizza because I always took a bite before it cooled off? I swear he’s told that story to every person he’s ever had pizza with.”
The two of them slowly make their way over to the patio, and Salem sits down in the chaise lounge Ronan had just been sitting on. “He did! I don’t think I got the joke at the time, but now seeing you, I can imagine it was quite funny when that happened.”
Shaking my head, I sigh in frustration. “I tell it, and she acts like I just announced her favorite food is poison. You barely mention it, and she’s all smiles.”
Salem looks at me and shrugs. “He just tells it better. I think it’s that I can picture him as a little boy spitting out the hot cheese.”
Great. Now my younger brother is making more headway with the woman of my dreams than I am. What’s next? Is he going to steal her away from me? He must be taking lessons from Matthias.
The two of them continue chatting while I sit quietly sulking. I hear Ronan say something about going somewhere, so I shake off my misery long enough to ask about it.