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)
She chucks the pillow at me, her smile battling its way against her sorrow, and I just want it to stay. I just want her to be unscathed, unharmed…happy.
I catch the bed pillow.
Then she crosses her arms and sits up higher against her door, scowling at me.
I prop the pillow against my back. Getting comfortable. She sees and rolls her eyes into a headshake. “You’re going to want to go,” she says, her voice so unsteady. “After tonight, you’re not going to want to be friends with me. So we can say our goodbyes now.” She bows forward, just to hold out a hand for me to shake. “It was nice knowing you, Cobalt boy.”
It feels like she’s closing our last couple weeks together, packing them away, shipping them off into the past to be long forgotten memories. I’m not ready for that…I’m not willing to shut this chapter in this painful way.
I can’t accept it. Not for her. Not for me.
I don’t even look at her hand. I don’t give it my attention. My gaze remains on her eyes in an unwavering beat. “This isn’t how we end, Friend.”
“How can you be so sure?” Her eyes start to well, but her words never lose their bite. “You rubbed a crystal ball? Cobalts can see the future now too?”
“It is because I’m a Cobalt,” I tell her, “but we can’t see the future—we just know how to carve out the ones we want. And you’re in mine for longer than this, Harriet. This isn’t how we end.”
She swipes the heel of her palm beneath her eye before the tear can fall. “I don’t want it to end here.” Her chin trembles violently. “But I fucked up, Friend.” Her whole face twists in the precipice of a guttural sob, and I can’t sit still. Rocking forward, I cup her soft, warm cheeks with two strong hands, her body heaving in a good release at the touch, and she grips onto my forearms.
I can’t decipher whether she’ll shove me or bring me closer, but I whisper, “Let me hold you.”
Her breath hitches, and her reddened eyes fill again. “I tried to make a deal with your brother,” she gets out faster. “You won’t want to hold me after I almost blew him.”
“Yeah, I do,” I say, not surprised at all by her confession. Without falter, I pull Harriet on my lap, her legs splaying across the seat while I curve my arms around her back. Her hands fist my shirt, but she’s giving me her weight, wanting this closeness like I do.
The Hello Kitty blanket has slid down to her calves. She’s only wearing cotton black panties with red font spelling Monday above her pussy. It’s Friday. Her knees—they’re bandaged. It did cross my mind she might’ve knelt on glass. Thing is, I don’t understand why Charlie would’ve too.
“What was the other end of the deal?” I ask her.
Her eyes go dark. “Does it matter?” Her fists loosen, letting go of my shirt, and her palms lie flat on my chest—which I don’t like as much. Next step will be Harriet pushing herself off me. “I got on my knees for your brother. The brother you just fought with.” Her voice rises in distress. “I’m disgusting, Ben.”
“Please don’t ever say that again,” I say sternly, my hand slipping into her hair. “And yeah, it does matter. Because the girl I know gave a blow job to a ‘hammerhead shark’ to help a lab partner. So I wouldn’t put it past her to give a blow job to the fucking devil just to help a friend.”
She doesn’t pull away. “Knowing won’t change anything.”
“I still want to know.”
She takes a breath. “I told him to stop harassing you. That was the deal.”
My mind whirls for a solid second. “He didn’t take it,” I say, assuming the better of Charlie here, because I want to believe he wouldn’t do that to her. I don’t know if I could ever forgive him if he took that deal, if he took advantage of Harriet…it’d obliterate my relationship with him, one that’s already hanging on a frayed thread.
“I thought he did. I got on my knees. I almost unzipped his pants, and then he just…backed out of it.”
I glance at the window. “His knees are bleeding, I think.”
Harriet chews the corner of her lip, trying not to cry. “He dropped to his knees too…and he said that he didn’t hate you enough to do it. That he didn’t hate you at all.”
Charlie doesn’t hate me?
It’s harder to believe in this when he’s only ever disregarded my feelings. But he did protect our relationship from imploding tonight. He has to care a little bit about me, right? Or maybe he knew Beckett would be irate with him, and he’s protecting that relationship instead.