Chapter 9 Kingsley
Kingsley
“What was that all about?” Eunice asked after my unsatisfying rage-wank.
“Nothing.”
“You seemed very upset about your friend Rosalie.”
I didn’t bother to respond.
“They’ve been friends since college,” Cornelius rushed in. “He’s just very protective.”
“We’re not just friends,” I said angrily.
Where was she?
“What is she, then?” Eunice asked eagerly, but I didn’t reply.
Rosalie was my best friend, taker of no shit, a necessary and irreplaceable part of any tour, and someone who absolutely was not allowed to have sex with Matt or anyone else.
I did not care to investigate this further.
Hadn’t Rosalie been in love with me for years?
It was a constant, the delicious and titillating truth I’d known since she first turned those smoky gray eyes to me in college.
You couldn’t miss the way her chest rose and fell, the high flush in her cheeks, the way her pupils dilated when she looked at me.
She always had been in love with me, and I thought she always would be.
And now she was so angry at me that she’d had sex with someone else. Why did that make me so nauseated?
In theory she was free to date and fuck other people. But actually, no, she wasn’t. She absolutely was not allowed to do that.
But how was I supposed to keep her from doing that? I considered trackers, private security. But there was one possible solution.
It was something I had never considered before, but to get Rosalie to myself I was willing to try anything. . .
Even though I had just come out of the shower, I went to the private gym facilities to try to work out some of this twitchy energy and calm down enough to think of the best way to approach Rosalie.
When I came back out, Rosalie was sitting on the couch with a steaming hot latte and Matt and Dolly were nowhere to be seen.
I could only see Rosalie and the two hundred different apology bouquets I had ordered.
“That was embarrassing for you,” she said coolly.
She’d changed into some kind of stretchy dress with long sleeves, and it rode up her bare thighs, her long legs stretched out in front of her on the coffee table and I longed to bend her over and fuck that smug look off her face.
“You think you’re a saint pity-fucking Matt?”
If I expected that to get a rise out of her, I was mistaken.
She only raised an eyebrow.
“That wasn’t a pity fuck.”
“You can’t tell me you fucked him for any other reason.”
“I wanted to.”
“Since when do you fuck goody two-shoes nice guys?”
“Since the dirtbags don’t always bother to make me come,” she retorted.
Shit.
Shame burned in my cheeks, and I swallowed down my anger.
Time to go belly-up.
“Sorry—for the times I was lazy. I won’t do that again. My bad, that was shitty of me.”
“Don’t bother apologizing,” she retorted. “I have other options.”
But the idea of her wanting to have sex with someone else was unacceptable.
“You’re lucky there’s always so many people around.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Or what?”
Rosalie crossed her legs, her feet rubbing together briefly, and I tried not to stare with naked lust at her tiny perfect toes with the pale pink toenail polish.
No matter how alt and goth girl the rest of Rosalie looked her toes were always perfectly pink.
“Fucked all this bratty behavior out of you.”
She scoffed.
“You’ve never been able to do that. And you’re not going to be able to start now.”
“Come on, let’s make up. Don’t you see all my apology flowers? Come on back in the room with me.”
“And suck your dick? No thanks, I’ve seen it before.”
“No! I mean I’ll fuck you good and proper. I won’t even come this time. Focus just on you.”
“Nah, I’m sore.”
My skin felt like it was buzzing with an unfamiliar anxiety, something was wrong and the wrongness was crawling under my skin.
“Brat. Come on, I’ll make it worth your while.”
Make it worth your while?
What was the high-pitched cringey whine in my voice? Why had it gone up several octaves?
“Let me lick your pussy, baby. You love that.”
But Rosalie only yawned again.
“Go lick someone else.”
Irritation crawled down my spine, mixed with something else so fearful I didn’t want to acknowledge it.
“Someone else? I don’t even bother to do that for anyone else. Only you.”
“Too bad. You need the practice.”
I gritted my teeth, fighting the urge to pounce on her.
Why hadn’t I appreciated what she was usually like? Because I’d thought it would always continue. Rosalie thinking she was secretly in love with me just was. . .a truth of nature.
But suddenly it wasn’t.
To be honest, I was kind of addicted to her snark and her sass, the way she didn’t give a fuck and wasn’t afraid of anybody.
But she had always always come when I called. What had changed? The power dynamic had shifted somehow between us and I didn’t like it.
It was almost like she didn’t give a fuck what I thought.
But that couldn’t be true.
It was time to bring out the big guns. A full, groveling apology.
“Fine. Fine. I’m sorry. I’m a jackass. I know that. I shouldn’t have sprung the whole Dolly thing on you. Forgive me? Please. I promise I won’t do that again.”
“You are a jackass. You’re just a dog in the manger, Kings. You don’t really care, but you want to mark your territory so no one else can have me.”
“That’s not it!”
“Well, whatever. You’re acting like a lunatic and I don’t want to hang out with you. Matt and I are going out to lunch.”
“Fine, then I’ll come, too!”
“Give it up, Kingsley. It’s over.”
“No—Ro—you don’t understand! I don’t want to go back, I—want a different arrangement.”
Her eyes narrowed even further and she pointed a finger at me, my skin heating up at the fact that she was only inches from my body now.
“I know you aren’t proposing to make me your mistress.”
“No—of course not—”
“Then why did you send me $106,473?”
“They won’t let me take out more at once,” I said anxiously. “Baby girl, if this is about money—”
“It isn’t,” she said, in a tone so icy I felt my balls draw up in my body.
“No—just an advance on your salary,” I protested, feeling the bottom drop out of me. “Because you’ve helped me so much—”
But once again she was gone and I had failed.
Shit. Now where had she gone and where was she planning to meet Matt?
My gut heaved as I clutched at the back of the couch.
What was going to work?
It was now obvious I had supremely fucked up and I did not know how to fix it.
I wanted to fix it, but the panic made my brain sluggish, slow.
How to get Rosalie back?
The next thing I knew, I was getting a panicked call from Cornelius.
“You better get down here, Kingsley! Look what your little delinquent friend is doing for your PR chances!”