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)
No one says a fucking thing.
It is hilariously quiet.
“Any other words?” I ask them.
Mumbles of no, non, nope.
I nod repeatedly, letting this sink in. “No one’s going to mention why Eliot and Tom named him Theodore?”
A wicked grin spreads over Eliot’s face.
Mom skewers him with a glare. “Your tongue will be in a jar on our bookshelf fermenting.”
He puts a hand to his heart. “My own mother would make me mute.”
“A gift to the universe.”
“A gift to your bookshelf.”
Mom raises her hand. “We are at a funeral. This is a serious matter.”
Eliot stops grinning. It just vanishes from his face completely. He concedes way too early. I look around, expecting someone else to chime in.
“Charlie?” I ask.
He shrugs, appearing bored.
I frown at the earth, then the sky, squinting. It hits me suddenly. Maybe they feel like they’ve hurt me in the past by not being more respectful. And so they’re trying now. “I hope you all know I love you as you are,” I say so quietly, but in the harsh silence, they can all hear. “I might be nothing like any of you and you may’ve never loved my pets the way I did—but I’ve loved you for caring enough to be here. I’ve loved the chaos.”
My life would’ve been less full without it.
“Don’t change,” I whisper, even knowing in time everything changes, nothing is ever stagnant. The earth shifts beneath us even if we can’t feel it. Trees will grow. Eventually someone might cut them down for lumber, then hopefully plant a new one in its place. “Please.”
“Can we…?” Audrey glances not that furtively at our oldest siblings. “Should we…speak?”
“So there was a plan?” I ask them.
Audrey bursts out, “Mother said we should employ the kindergarten rule that none of us can seem to follow. If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all. That also, she said, includes anything remotely egregious or bitchy or vulgar.”
“Audrey Virginia, tattling on Mom,” Tom whispers.
Her cheeks roast. “I-I did not.”
“She did not,” Jane backs her up. “She was just being…thorough.” She nods confidently to Audrey, who nods just as resolutely back. Mom has a rare heartfelt smile that appears mostly for my sisters.
“Thoroughly annoying,” Charlie mutters.
Audrey gasps. I have no clue why she looks for his praise. She wants Charlie to tell her she’s the best sister, the best listener, the best secret-keeper, the best everything. When, in reality, he spends most of his time teasing the shit out of her.
Our dad has a burgeoning, powerful grin on our mom. “Were you not the first to break your own kindergarten rule?”
“Your memory is going,” she retorts. “It’s about time.”
“A time you will mourn.”
She purses her lips but doesn’t deny. His arm slides along her lower back, and before they catch me watching again, I tell everyone, “Say whatever you need to say.”
Eliot steps forward, clearing his throat as he announces, “To the greatest named bird in the history of the avian species—”
“Let’s be real here,” Mom interjects, “to get a rise out of your father you named this poor little fragile animal after a dull, uninteresting person. Specifically his boarding school fling of one month.”
“Dad’s reaction could have been better,” Tom whispers.
“There’s still ample time,” Eliot tells our father. “An eye twitch of anger? A prickle of irritation?”
Dad is grinning into a laugh. “I can’t be irritated at something that will never bother me, but you’re welcome to keep trying. As always, the effort is amusing.”
“Don’t encourage them,” Mom says. “They cursed a defenseless tiny beaked creature.”
Jane stifles a laugh.
It makes me smile.
“Curses don’t exist, darling,” Dad says.
“Oh please, you’re cursed with an ego that could choke out Godzilla.”
We all laugh.
“Gifted,” he corrects.
“Did you gift it to yourself too?”
“That is the definition of ego, Rose.”
She raises her hand at his face. “And that is enough.”
His grin never dims on her.
“Mom and Dad are going to make out,” Tom whispers into a cough.
“Tom,” we all say together. He literally can’t help himself, and I end up laughing—swiftly, their laughter follows mine. Soul-filling, vibrantly loud noise cascades through the trees around us. It feels good until it doesn’t.
I still feel like I can’t live with my brothers long-term. Tom nearly losing his voice because of me—it’s just a reminder I can’t be around them. Even if I want to be, even if I love this. My plan has to move forward.
Everyone but me and Audrey go inside for the breakfast Chef Michael whipped up. He’s been my family’s private chef for years and he’d make mouth-watering blueberry vegan pancakes every Sunday for me.
Ignoring my growling stomach, I spend extra time with my sister while I’m here.
She spreads out a quilt that Beckett sewed for her years ago. “His love language is gift giving,” Audrey says, seeing me staring at the quilt, then she smiles at the baseball cap on my head.