Series: Cobalt Empire Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 234
Estimated words: 226965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1135(@200wpm)___ 908(@250wpm)___ 757(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 226965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1135(@200wpm)___ 908(@250wpm)___ 757(@300wpm)
“Bronwyn?” I ask, the girl totally unfamiliar, and I’m fairly good with names.
He presses his tongue against the inside of his cheek and jerks the air. Miming a blow job.
He fucked her. Probably a casual hookup. Eliot isn’t quiet about how he sleeps around.
“You’ll change the sheets?” Beckett asks Eliot.
“I already told Ben I would.”
“It’s not about that,” I jump in. “Okay, I just think the couch is better.” I’m doing a piss-poor job at reasoning with them.
In their minds, my request is absurd.
I make no sense.
The logical thing is to sleep on a bed.
“There’s no privacy out here,” Beckett reminds me.
I shrug. “I don’t care.”
I don’t plan to be here for long.
I’ll be out of your hair soon.
Don’t worry.
“We could get a pull-out,” Tom suggests, opening and closing a Zippo lighter. The click, click fills the tense silence.
Charlie stares at me like he’s mid-excavation from five feet away. Digging through my insides.
I’m burning up.
Eliot rests his forearm on his bent knee, bowing toward me as he asks, “Is there something wrong with my room, Ben?”
I smash my ballcap in my hands. “Can we not act like we’re on the set of Clue and you’re Mr. Green?”
“We can because I’d only play Colonel Mustard.”
I open my mouth to respond, but I end up laughing. The lively sound dies too fast, and I lean farther back and try to look anywhere but at the brothers I sincerely love, which leaves me glancing at Charlie. I blink a few times, then say, “Nothing is wrong with your room, Eliot.”
He nods once. “I detect no lies.”
“When has he ever lied?” Charlie says like it’s just another shortcoming.
“Because you know me so well,” I snap at him.
“Because you’re so complicated.”
“Because you’re the only one who can be,” I retort.
Charlie laughs dryly, his annoyance contorting his face, and he shoots to his feet like he’s done with me. I don’t know why that hurts. It’s what I want, isn’t it?
For him to stop digging into me.
“Charlie,” Beckett pleads, then looks to me. “We just want you to be comfortable here, Ben.”
I watch Charlie lower back down.
Tension never leaves my body. “I could sleep on the floor and I’d be fine. I can make up the couch every night, and I’ll put the blankets up every morning. You won’t even notice I’m here.”
Beckett scrunches his face in a physical manifestation of the phrase, what the fuck. “That’s not the point of you living with us.”
I scrape a rough hand through my hair. My eyes sear as one of the worst nights of my life tries to tunnel back into me. Anger amasses in my chest that I can’t throw off.
Then fear.
Because I left Audrey.
I left Audrey.
Maybe I shouldn’t have left her this soon. I could’ve stayed in Philly until she graduated from prep school. She’s only sixteen.
“Pip,” Beckett says so softly, so gently. He’s one of the few people who call me Pip. Our older sister is the only one who calls me Pippy.
I swallow a boulder to tell him, “This isn’t permanent.”
Charlie arches his brows. “Somewhere else you have to be?”
Anywhere but here with you.
On-campus housing would’ve been my first choice. Second would be an apartment not with Charlie. Both cost money that I don’t have right now, and I’d rather cut out my tongue than advertise I’m broke to him.
“What do you care?” I sling back. “You don’t even want me here.”
Beckett slips him a look I can’t read.
Charlie sweeps the length of me. “What I want doesn’t matter. You need to be here.”
“I need to be here,” I echo and nod a few times. “Je vais bien. Vraiment.” I’m fine. Really.
“Tu ne vas pas bien,” Beckett says so smoothly. You’re not.
I love hearing him speak French the most, not just because his cadence is beautiful—but because his silky voice is practically a morphine drip. It reminds me of our dad, how he can calm me with a few words. I hang on to that and not how my muscles are on fire like I need to escape my entire body. I rub at my brow and scrub a hand down the side of my face. “Je vais bien,” I repeat. “Je vais bien.”
I hate how they’re staring at me.
Like I’m a malfunctioning nuclear reactor. And my brothers are confident enough to house one. They are prepared to be blown into smithereens because they know they can’t be injured.
Cobalts are invincible, haven’t you heard?
All but me, apparently.
Beckett comes over and sits next to me. His arm slides over my back with such familiarity. He holds my shoulders, and I breathe out deeper at his consoling touch. I’m four, five, seven—and he’s wrapping his arm around me while I’m crying over something seemingly dumb.
A bird fell out of a nest in our backyard and wheezed painfully on the grass.