Page 75 of The Lost Kings
PRESENT
Being back in our room felt weird.
It was true that after enough time there were some spaces that you just simply outgrew, and my bedroom felt like one of those places. Especially my bed, which oddly smelled like Presley’s orange and coconut. The room had been cleaned of any dust and vacuumed, which I knew was thanks to my mother, but everything else was exactly the same, including the teal hair tie that had been left behind by Presley.
I glanced over at my brother’s side of the room and saw the same vacant look in his eyes.
The truth of what we’d done, who we’d become over the past year was something neither of us had time to confront. We were different people now, and our ties…the choices we’d made without our father’s approval would blow up in a very dramatic way if we didn’t leave again soon. We had no intention of coming home, not because we didn’t miss Elvis, but we understood better than anyone else what this family was capable of and what our hearts could endure.
“Smells like her,” my brother murmured, bringing his pillow up to his face.
I ignored him because I didn’t know what to say. And the gash in my heart still hadn’t healed.
“What’s our plan for when Adrian arrives?”
My brother sat down on his bed and let out a sigh that could topple a government.
“He has leverage on us…he could use it, especially if he thinks we’re a threat to his relationship with Presley.”
“Are we?” I asked, gripping the hair tie and squeezing it in my fist.
Kingston stared at the wall behind me, working his jaw back and forth. “I let her go.”
“Did you?” I didn’t believe him for a single second.
He tugged his shirt over his head and tossed it to the ground then ripped the pillowcase off his cushion and let it fall to the floor as well. It made me wonder if his bedding also had Presley’s scent all over it.
“I did. Let Adrian come.”
I scoffed and shook my head. “Bullshit.”
He closed his eyes before blinking up at the ceiling.
But I wasn’t done. “Everything we’ve done this past year and a half was because of her. Was for our future. You didn’t let her go; you nearly lost your shit when you saw them kiss in Italy.”
“She’s not going to give a single fuck about what we did for her future. She’s got the head of an Italian mafia family at her feet. She could be rich and have a farm in Italy. She doesn’t need the farmhouse…probably doesn’t even care about it anymore.”
“You’re being stupid.” I pulled my shirt up over my head and tossed it to the ground like he had and then walked into our bathroom. The space was white subway tile and black iron fixtures. I started the hot water and stood under the spray longer than I needed to because there was a moment that kept replaying in my head that I wasn’t sure I could continue seeing without throwing up.
The guns were aimed at Rylie, but for a single second I worried that one of them would shoot Presley…at that last second when we’d run back outside, she started running and I thought…
I thought that would be the end.
She’d never hear how I spent every night under a different sky thinking of her, or how my soul felt like it had cracked when she hadn’t replied to a single one of our texts or calls. Or how there were a few nights that I stood on the edge of a steep cliff and stared down at the bottom, wondering what it would take to get her to talk to us. For a few dark days, I wondered if at least I could get her to talk to Kingston, then maybe that would be enough. Perhaps my death would bring them together.
Blinking away the memories, I scrubbed my hair and then rinsed off before finishing up.
I needed to see her, but I had no idea what I’d say…I didn’t know where to begin.
I just knew that I needed to see her. I was this close, and yet she seemed so far away.
Fuck it.
I pulled on my sweats and skipped the shirt and shoes, then took the loft stairs two at a time, which got my brother’s attention.
“Where are you going?”
“You’re done. I’m not. I need to see her.”
