Page 69 of Kings Against the World

“It’s just the lobby. I’ll be back in a few. You dim the lights and play some music!” She plants another kiss, this one on my cheek, then rushes toward the door with her keycard in hand.

Zoe’s not the only one in high spirits.

It feels good to be the person helping her with this mission. I’m the guy by her side, putting my life on the line to avenge her sister and bring down a piece of shit like Boone, and it couldn’t make me prouder.

For the first time, it’s a sense of purpose far beyond myself. It’s not something for personal and financial gain like the work we do at the MC.

This is deeper. More meaningful.

Zoe and I are trusting each other with our lives.

I move around the hotel room, making her requests come true by dimming the lights and putting on some music. I choose R&B slow jams, knowing it’ll make her smile some more. Then I move into the bathroom to wash my hands and take my meds, a direct result of me trying my damnedest to stay on track.

I don’t want to ever go off them again.

My hand grabs the bottle of lithium sitting on the counter, assuming it’s mine ’til I’m unscrewing the cap and I notice the name printed on the label.

Zoelle Strauss

I blink to make sure it’s not my dyslexia fucking with me, scrambling letters and making it difficult to read the name.

But it’s what it says. These are Zoe’s pills.

It takes me another few seconds to process that.

“Why the hell would Zoe be taking lithium?” I ask myself aloud. Then my gaze lands on her toiletry bag resting on the bathroom counter. I’ve seen her clutching it countless times since we’ve arrived in Vegas.

Every morning and night she takes it with her into the bathroom. I’ve assumed it’s where she keeps all her girl stuff, like eyelash curlers and tampons. Maybe typical stuff like toothpaste and Q-tips. But something tells me there’s more inside the nylon bag.

I can’t resist looking for myself. I snatch the bag up into my hands and unzip the top to check inside.

The lithium was a shocker. The other bottles I find inside blow my mind.

There’s stuff in here I was expecting, things I guessed correctly on, like toothpaste, but there’s also several bottles stashed inside that I recognize all too well.

Medications I’m more than familiar with. All of them that I take myself. All of them with Zoe’s name on the label.

She’d mentioned she took light antidepressants, but she hadn’t said anything about bipolar disorder.

My thoughts travel back in time to the other day at the taqueria and the expression that had flitted across her face for the briefest second when I told her about my condition. Why wouldn’t she mention it to me? Is she embarrassed or ashamed?

I’m so invested in turning over these questions that I don’t register the snick of the hotel door or the fact that Zoe stops in the bathroom doorway.

“I hope you like sweet champagne, because I got the strawberry flavored?—”

She appears in the bathroom mirror clutching the champagne bottle. I’m clutching her medication bottles as I look up and our gazes meet via our reflections. I rush to explain.

“My bad. I didn’t mean to look in your bag,” I say. “I saw your lithium on the counter and then I realized you’re on the same meds as I am. Why didn’t you tell me?”

I’m not sure what to make of Zoe’s reaction. She stands still, her expression some kind of cross between disgust and horror.

You’d think I was holding something grotesque and hideous, not her medications.

“Zoe?” I prompt. Then I set the bottles down to go to her.

She takes a step back from me.

My insides clench at her silence. The strange vacancy to her eyes when they’d been so damn lit up before.

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