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)
“I’m not pitying you,” he interrupts swiftly, leaning back now, and I see the look in his blue eyes. Oh…he is pissed.
His expression flames. “What kind of shitty third-grade teacher says that to a kid?” It’s as if he wants to storm out of the lecture hall, hunt down my elementary teacher, and have some tough words with them. I am not used to whatever this is. Protection? Defense? An armed firing squad? I don’t hate it. I’m just not sure I deserve it.
“In defense of Ms. Larsen, I had been correcting her on her geometry lessons. She wasn’t good with quadrilaterals. I was kind of a dick in grade school. I also only used the yellow crayon, which annoyed her greatly.”
Ben shakes his head. “I don’t care how much of an asshole you were at eight. You were still a kid.”
“I guess,” I say into a shrug. I unzip my backpack and take out a red pencil pouch. He casually steals one of my blue ballpoint pens as soon as it’s on my desk. Is this what friends do? Share pens?
It feels comfortable like we’ve been this way for a hundred years. Maybe that’s why I’m not shriveling in my seat with him knowing more about my childhood. Normally, I’d find ways to avoid talking about it. It’s embarrassing how much of a know-it-all I was when I was young, but I don’t feel judged by him.
Ben’s still reeling. I can see it in his eyes like a thousand wheels revolving in his head. I take it he’s not someone who can brush something aside so easily. He slips the pen behind his ear, his baseball cap on backward. He leans against my shoulder to get closer, and his voice lowers as more students file into the lecture hall. “Did you tell your parents about your teacher?”
“A little,” I say. “I told them she didn’t like me, and I mentioned the whole ‘puddle’ thing.”
His shoulders slacken in relief. “So what’d they do?”
“Do?” I slow as I flip open my college-ruled notebook.
“Yeah,” Ben nods. “My mom would have stormed the school and told your teacher that imagination comes in different shades and sizes and if it’s yellow then it’s yellow and to not knock you down…in so many words.”
“She sounds amazing,” I say, trying not to be wistful. I don’t need a mom like that. I’ve been fine without a legion to go to bat for me.
“She is,” Ben says fondly, but his concern has now tripled on me because I haven’t exactly answered his question. “They didn’t do anything?”
“They had a lot going on,” I say softly. “I was told to be nicer to Ms. Larsen.”
He shakes his head once more, his anger manifesting through the veins in his arms down to the clench of his knuckles. He blows out a frustrated breath. “You know my brother—”
“Depends which one,” I cut in.
He tilts his head to me. “The smart one.”
“Aren’t you all smart?” I banter, and we share emerging smiles. Our eyes drift up and down—from our gazes to our lips. Acknowledging that we’re causing each other to smile introduces a new heat among the feather-light sensations.
Attraction is a wild beast that wants to stampede over me. I’ve never felt it this powerfully—and definitely not in the most ordinary of moments. This isn’t a date, okay. I’m in a classroom.
About to endure the worst class on my schedule (a necessary evil).
“The smartest brother,” he clarifies in a husky voice. He clears out the noise, and I can’t even mentally categorize how hot that was because I focus on his words. “He was a lot like you. Talked back to teachers and stuff when he was little…or so I was told.”
“Or so you were told,” I repeat. “Perks of you being the youngest brother. Getting all that information second-hand. Like a little thrift shop of memories.”
“And she said you weren’t creative.” He takes his pen and bops me on the nose.
I scowl instantly. Why did I not hate that?
He smiles. “Anyway, Charlie was a dick—as you put it—to his teachers. My dad was in parent-teacher conferences all the time, and then he told Charlie something had to change. That he wasn’t being challenged, and he needed to skip some grades.”
He has an above-average father. Not that I ever questioned it.
Don’t want them. Don’t crave them. I’ve gone this long without dreaming of another set of parents replacing my own. My dad, he’s not all bad. I don’t want to shade the man in a dark light. My parents are just different than the iconic Rose Calloway and Connor Cobalt.
Mention of Charlie reminds me of last night. Ben talked to me on the phone. “Just because.” I’ve never had someone call me out of the blue to simply chat.
He asked me what I was doing. I’d been listening to Paramore while painting my toenails deep red and reading some of my O-Chem textbook. I’d just rented it from the on-campus bookstore.