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 trying to be Miss Energizer Bunny.
I tear my gaze off his. Get it together.
Some of his brothers can be described as lethally charming, and he could fall into this quadrant of the Venn diagram too.
“I never took a tour,” Ben admits as his smile softens on me. “I just met Cameron and half the row team an hour ago.”
Of course he did.
Ben isn’t a loner. He’s not a loser.
He’s a social fucking butterfly. Who could make friends with the sun, the moon, and a trashcan. Within an hour or less.
And he’s out of his mind. “You’re seriously unhinged,” I say. “You transferred to this college without ever stepping foot here when you were going to an Ivy.”
“You transferred too.”
“I bought a brochure. I took a three-hour tour. I made an Excel spreadsheet listing the financial expenses of this move—not that you’d need to do that.”
“I did Google search MVU,” he smiles, almost teasingly.
“Oh, he Google-searched.” I mime pompoms to cheer him on, my lips somewhat rising with his. “That has to at least dock you a point or two with the studious fam, Cobalt boy.”
“Probably five points. Don’t tell my mom. She’d have a heart attack knowing my research consisted of typing in Manhattan Valley in a web browser and not a one-on-one with Dean Ferreira.”
“Like I would ever come face-to-face with the Rose Calloway Cobalt,” I say without thinking. His mom is a certified bomb-ass-bitch, and I would idolize her feminine ferocity if I didn’t prefer hero-worshipping the dead. The dead can’t disappoint you as much as the living.
“You never know,” Ben says like life has taken stranger turns. It causes the air to tense and for the focus to draw to us. To how we’ve run into each other again. How we’re on a collision course. Our eyes clash in the sudden quiet, fighting to stay glued for longer than a couple seconds.
“How’d you hear about this party anyway?” I ask.
“Through a friend of a friend who knows Leif Westergaard. He’s president of the frat.”
“Already three-degrees from the Kappa prez,” I tease.
He laughs, then checks the time again. “I’ll probably head back to Philly in a couple hours.”
My stomach sinks, but then twists in more confusion. “You aren’t staying in New York?”
“Classes don’t start till next week. I’m not moving here before then.” He asks fast, “What about you? How long have you been here?”
“A few days. I have to take a week-long orientation for the Honors Program.”
“Overachiever,” he calls me out.
I make a heart with my hands and crack it apart. “You want half?”
He glances down at my hands, then up to my eyes. “You always break your heart for your friends?”
He would be my only friend.
If this were real.
“It’s imaginary, Ben,” I murmur. “Tomorrow, you’ll act like I never existed until our next strange encounter. Is that not what this is?” I motion between him and me.
“No.” He shakes his head, scans the bathroom, then rests a forearm on his bent knee. “No, it’s not, Harriet.” His voice is nearly a whisper, and he lays his gaze even gentler on me. “We don’t have to be strangers.”
I’m lost for words.
So he adds, “I want to be your friend.”
Did Cameron Dun-fuckface drop me on the pavement outside? Did I hit my head? “Okay.”
“Okay,” Ben repeats, then narrows his gaze. “I get the sense you still don’t believe me.”
“I’m trying, Friend.”
He smiles a little, which is coaxing mine out. Wow, he is really good at this…
I should probably take notes on how to make friends, but what he possesses feels like a gift. A trait inherited, not one learned.
“Thanks for the backup tonight,” I say too quietly. I’m unsure if he hears until I see the ire flashing through his eyes.
“Parties like this can be such a fucking wreck.” He gazes at the wall, his jaw muscle ticking. “I’m sorry that happened to you. Someone should’ve stopped it before me.”
“At least you did something at the cost of social suicide.”
“I’m a Cobalt. That cost is low.” He exhales a long, tired breath. “We’ve been here before.” Here as in helping me.
He already said that over text.
I hold my knees, seeing him stare unblinkingly at a stain in the ugly brown paint. “Yeah, but it’ll be me helping you out next,” I promise. “Right place, right time, I’ll be there. And when I make commitments, I don’t usually break them.”
You can count on me, I think about adding, but how much weight does this cliché phrase even hold when you barely know someone and they barely know you?
Ben cradles my gaze for a steady beat, and just as he inhales like he’s about to tell me something, a knock pounds the door.
“Ben, you in there?!”
“Man, of course he’s in there. His bodyguard is standing right out here.”
“Ben, come do a shot with us!”