Page 14 of Burn Bright (Cobalt Empire #1)

“That’s an Ivy League,” she says like she’s having a light bulb moment. “It must have been so rigorous. Is that why you’re transferring?”

I don’t mention my straight As at Penn. I do tell her the truth. “They don’t have an Honors House like MVU does.”

Eden’s brows jump. “You’re applying for the Honors House?”

“Yeaaaah,” I say slowly. “Is that okay? If I get in, I might only be here for a few months.” I’ve had my sights on the Honors House from the very first moment I transferred here. It’s a prestigious academic society on campus that provides free on-campus housing to undergrads.

Basically the equivalent of a co-ed sorority/fraternity.

Only downside, it’s extremely exclusive.

It might be easier discovering a new planet in the Milky Way than be accepted, but joining the Honors House is number one on my master plan to becoming a doctor.

I need a place to live that won’t put a meteor-sized crater into my bank account, and it’ll be a highlight on my med school applications.

Eden nods. “That’s totally cool.” She looks me over. “So you’re like really smart then?”

No, I’m delusional. The sarcasm in my head doesn’t help the scowl on my face, I’m sure.

I refrain from rolling my eyes, and I’m definitely not telling her I skipped the fifth grade. “I’m all right,” I say, downplaying it unfortunately.

She motions to the living room. We can see the lumpy lime-green sofa directly from the kitchen. “How has the pull-out been? I know the mattress is kind of…springy. If you’d rather just sleep on the cushions, I won’t judge.”

“It’s been comfortable,” I say with a nod.

She snorts into a laugh. “You don’t have to lie.”

“No, seriously,” I shrug. “It’s been comfortable.”

“Okay.” Eden squints like I’m weird for thinking a pull-out is even marginally comfy.

I try not to wince at myself. I sort of wish we didn’t run into each other today. She’s been a ghost roommate this first week after a ton of missed connections. Our interactions have been very infrequent.

I sling my backpack onto the couch. Potted plants sit on the windowsill, and I have a view of the back of another brick building. The sun is beginning to set, and I smile a little, staring out at New York. Even the worst view of the city, my life feels on a better track now.

I have a job. I have a place I can call home for the time being. The lighting is warm and comforting in the apartment. All in all, it’s cozy. Quaint.

“If you need more storage space, I cleared out the coat closet this morning,” Eden says into a sip of coffee while she texts. “It’s all yours.”

“Thanks.” I try to smile a bit bigger, not that she’s looking at me.

She’s focused on her phone.

I glance over at two white doors. One leads to her bedroom, the other to a tiny bathroom that we share. It’s better than taking showers at the gym, which I’d been doing back at Penn.

Relief burrows into me. I have a bed (a couch) and a bathroom and even a closet for my clothes. I don’t have to live out of my duffel bag anymore. I don’t want to soak it in too much. Don’t want to over-celebrate in case it all vanishes in an instant.

Anyway, I can’t get complacent. This isn’t my finish line. It’s a steppingstone in the direction I want to go.

“I know it’s not much,” Eden says.

“It’s great,” I say, genuinely.

She smiles. “So where are you from originally?” she asks, then her cell rings in her hand. “Sorry, I should get this. It’s Austin.” Her boyfriend.

She splinters off to her bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

I’ve been hesitating to bring too much of my stuff into her place, but now that I have the closet, I decide to go grab more of my belongings.

Leaving the apartment, I venture into the parking garage and visit Harold—my Honda Civic that’s been my prized possession since I bought it off my old boss at Wendy’s when I was sixteen.

“Harold,” I greet and pat his silver trunk.

Pillows, blankets, and my backpack crowd the backseat.

Opening the driver’s door, I snatch my phone charger from the middle console and remove an old empty Taco Bell bag from the footwell on the passenger side.

From the trunk, I retrieve a small duffel and check the contents.

Clothes. Bra. Underwear. Three gallon-sized plastic baggies containing shampoo and conditioner, toothpaste and a toothbrush, and then my small vibrator in a third.

I sigh. Sleeping in the middle of a living room will be wreaking havoc on any self-love time. I’m not about to be kicked out of the apartment because Eden walked in on me fingering myself. No, thank you. Dry spell, here I come.

Yay.

Not that I have good material in my spank bank these days anyway.

Ben’s chiseled jawline suddenly flashes in my head. The way his fluffy brown hair blew in the wind after he gave me his hat. How his smile crawled up his face when he looked down at me.

I imagine his hands on me again, and flush bathes my cheeks.

He’s melted some stone-cold part of me, and I could definitely create some toe-curling sexual fantasies in my head.

Especially when I picture his six-foot-five stature lifting me in his arms. I wonder how big his cock would feel just rubbing against my pussy.

“Oh my God,” I groan to myself. “You’re just friends with him.” I zip up my duffel. “Just friends, Harriet.”

Last time I checked, friends don’t fuck each other. They certainly don’t masturbate to images of each other, right? That sounds really hot, though.

I slow my movements, my breathing getting shallow with arousal as I picture his sculpted body up against my smaller frame. As I picture him wrapping his arms so tight around me. I’ve never enjoyed being hugged, but why am I obsessed with the idea of him practically suffocating me?

I imagine his hand descending between my legs. My clit throbs for touch, and I try to snap out of it, slinging my duffel’s strap on my shoulder.

Friends can be attracted to each other, I think, and under certain circumstances, maybe they can entertain those attractions too. But those circumstances haven’t risen for us, and I’m not going to actively create one.

My phone buzzes on my hip clip, and I nearly jump out of my skin like God, Himself, has been eavesdropping inside my carnal mind.

Not that I’m a very religious person, but Mass was one of the few things I remember going to with my dad when I was little.

Shutting the trunk with one hand, I answer the call with my other.

“Harry, are you on the moon? Jupiter? I know you’re smart enough to get into NASA and board a rocket ship to Mars, but I still expect you to keep your location services on .

How else will I know if you’re sitting in a crater or floating through open spa— shit, Fava get out of that plant, you little toad. ”

Hearing my Aunt Helena’s voice sends a lightness through me like I’m stepping on a fluffy cloud.

She’s the only person I’ll let call me Harry.

And even though I haven’t seen her in person since I was eleven, I can picture Fava (one out of her three hairless cats) digging into a potted fern.

My aunt has the biggest green thumb. Plants crowd her small two-hundred-and-fifty-foot studio apartment in San Francisco along with Fava, Pinto, and Lima.

The Three Beans look like wrinkly little dicks, but in the cutest way.

I put the call on speaker so I can click into my cell’s settings. “Location services might have turned off on the last update.” Sure enough, it’s off. I swipe it back on. “Fixed.”

After a long moment, Aunt Helena gasps. “New York? No, that can’t be right. Angelica said you’d be in Baltimore. She’s never wrong.”

Angelica is her close friend and a psychic.

“Maybe her crystal ball is dusty.”

“Darling, she reads cards. Why are you in New York?”

“School. I transferred?—”

“Goddammit,” she curses. Not at me. Pretty sure I hear a loud groaning in the background.

“These pipes are going to bust any day now. I swear it.” She’s living in a rent-controlled apartment.

The same one she moved in to when she was eighteen.

She has said more than once that her landlord will have to kick down the door and drag her decomposing body out of it.

I just hope the Three Beans don’t eat her first—at least, I’ve heard that cats will start chowing down on their dead owners.

“Sorry,” she apologizes. “You transferred schools? That’s great. Or I assume that’s great. You don’t make those kinds of moves without thinking fifteen steps ahead.” She gasps. “Unless, is there…a… boy involved?” She asks like she’s tiptoeing around the subject.

My cheeks heat and another flash of Ben Cobalt’s panty-dropping smile graces my brain. Oh God. Sorry, God. Shit. Fuck. I pinch the bridge of my nose.

“There’s not a boy?—”

“I feel like you might be lying,” she cuts me off swiftly. “Maybe we should put Angelica on a three-way call?—”

I interrupt her before she has a chance to speed dial her psychic friend. “All right, it’s boy-adjacent.”

Aunt Helena sucks in a breath. “What in the hell does that mean? Like…is he…part amphibian?”

I almost laugh. “He’s not a merman, Aunt Helena.”

“I suppose it’d be more likely he’s part robot,” she says, all too seriously. “I heard they’re starting to put microchips in people’s brains , Harry. When you’re a fancy-pants doctor, please side with the humans and not the AI.”

“Always Team Human,” I tell her.

“So boy-adjacent. My theories have ended. What does that mean?”

“I transferred for school,” I explain, “but there’s this guy who kind of also transferred? Our worlds are…revolving, I guess.” I take a beat before I add, “We’re friends.” I say it confidently, believing it more, and I smile to myself.

There’s a long pause on the other end.

My smile falls. “Aunt Helena?”

“I’m not crying.” She’s sniffling. I roll my eyes, but I can’t help but laugh a little. “It’s just…you have a friend . You haven’t had a friend since the fourth grade.”

Thank you for that reminder.

“It probably won’t last,” I mutter. “No need to go through the waterworks.”

“Manifest, Harry. Man-i-fest . It’ll last if you want it to.”

I’m not sure that’s true. Every time I’ve tried to manifest something, the universe doesn’t grant it to me in a package and bow. I have to work. And work. And work for what I want.

Though I really, really want to be Ben’s friend. Maybe I can’t manifest it to last, but I can try my hardest not to fuck it up.

“Do you still have Hope’s number blocked?” my aunt asks, changing the subject so abruptly that I have mild whiplash.

“Yeah.” My skin goes cold hearing her name.

Hope.

My mother.

Her little sister by about fifteen years.

“Good,” Aunt Helena says. “She tried to reach out to me. I thought she might have found a way to contact you too.”

The thought of having to speak to my mom again actually gives me acid reflux. “Radio silence,” I mutter, and I could ask my aunt what the circumstances of the call were, but I don’t want to know. Ignorance is bliss when it comes to my mom.

“Dammit, not you too, Pinto!” Aunt Helena yells at one of the Beans. “I have to go before they destroy the Monstera. Love you, Harry.”

“Love you too.”

We hang up, and I stare at the phone for a solid minute, just trying to be grateful to have her in my life.

Someone who cares. Someone who calls me when they don’t know where I am.

And maybe we don’t talk enough. Maybe our once-a-month phone call isn’t a normal check-in for most, but for me—it’s everything.

It’s all I really have.