Page 33 of Broken King

With a smile, she takes my hand, and I hop off the chair, eager to go outside and play with my brothers. She’ll tell them they have to play with me, so they won’t have a choice.

I hold on to her warm hand as we walk out the kitchen door. Marius, Theo, and Kellen are playing catch, although Kellenisn’t doing much of anything but running after the ball when either of my older brothers throw it past the other one.

“Boys, come here!” she announces, and all three of them stop everything.

They run toward her, Marius slower than everyone else because he doesn’t like to be told what to do. Theo might be the one who says I can’t play, but it’s Marius who will fight against our mother’s order to include me.

When they all reach the two of us, I stand next to her and look up at her as she talks to them. “Why aren’t you letting Ronan play with you?”

Kellen doesn’t speak, but Theo gives me a dirty look and says, “Tattletale.”

“I didn’t tattle! Why won’t you let me play?”

“Because you’re too small and too slow,” Theo answers.

My mother holds her hand up like she always does when she’s done listening to us fight. “No more. Now boys, your brother can play with you. There’s no reason he should be stuck inside on a beautiful day like this.”

Mumbling, Marius lowers his head and says, “Okay. He’s too small, though.”

I open my mouth to say he just turned twelve, so he’s not much bigger than me, but my mother stops me with a stern look before turning her attention back to my older brother. “Honey, he’ll never learn if you don’t include him.”

That doesn’t make him any happier, and she turns to look down at me. “You listen to your brothers so you know the rules of the game, okay?”

“I will,” I say, thrilled to be included for once.

She bends down to kiss me on the cheek and lets go of my hand. “Now go have a good time!”

As the memory of that day fades away to the back of my mind, I sigh, wishing my mother was here right now. I don’tknow if anything would be different if she was still living, but I miss having her around to watch out for me.

One final memory comes back to me as I walk my plate and fork to the sink. I ran off to play with my brothers, who reluctantly agreed to involve me in their fun that day, and when I looked back at my mother, she was slowly walking into the house watching all of us.

She always had time for her children, and even though sometimes it meant having to do things we didn’t want to do, we never doubted she loved us. Being back here in the house where I grew up makes it easy to remember how happy we were.

I can only hope someday that will be possible for me again.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Kate

My hand’sso sweaty I can barely hold onto Ronan’s as we walk down the hallway to our hotel room. Still dressed in our clothes from the prom, I have to hold my dress up so I don’t trip over it, but he looks so handsome in his black tux.

“What room number is it?” I ask as we turn a corner and begin walking down another long hallway.

He turns his head to look at me and smiles. “Six twenty-four. Almost there, I think.”

My parents looked so proud when we stood in the living room at the house for pictures before the prom. We never told them about coming here to hang out after, but I had a feeling they suspected we would since it’s practically a tradition at the school we attend.

We finally reach the hotel room, and it’s even nicer than I imagined when Ronan suggested we get a room for tonight. I look around at the coffee maker on the counter above the mini fridge and then at the air conditioner on the far wallunder the windows. The bedspreads on each full size bed are navy blue with splashes of grey like someone took a barely wet paintbrush and randomly flicked it over the material.

“This is really nice.”

Ronan tosses his tux jacket on the bed closest to where I stand and undoes his tie so both ends hang loose around his neck. “My brother said it was a nice place when he came here after prom. That was a while back, though, so I’m glad it’s still okay.”

I can only imagine which brother of his he’s talking about. Probably Kellen. Maybe Marius. I bet he’s seen the inside of a lot of hotels.

A little nervous, I sit down on the bed and run my fingertips over his black jacket. “Did you hear if anyone else was coming here?” I ask, suddenly unsure what to say.

It’s not like I don’t know why he suggested we come here tonight after the prom ended. Ever since we started dating, we’ve had a hard time finding ways to be alone. His house is so busy with his brothers and his father always around, and while my parents are often out of our house, we never know when they’re going to return.

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