Page 15 of Burn Bright (Cobalt Empire #1)

HARRIET FISHER

“ W hy do you look like you’re going to throw up?

” Ben asks me as we settle in our seats.

I’m sitting stiffly, and I do feel like I might hurl at any second.

It’s not the chair’s fault. These things are wide, cushiony, and comfortable.

Gold birds are stitched into burgundy fabric. The mascot and colors of MVU.

The bird isn’t an eagle or hawk, but a thrasher. I try to train my eyes on the SOAR, THRASHERS, SOAR! banner above the projector screen so I don’t fixate on the podium at the ground level. No one is standing behind it at least. Class hasn’t officially started.

It’s one I picked out of necessity. There were slots available, so Ben didn’t need to butter up the dean to get us in. Probably due to the sheer size of the class.

I crane my neck left and right. Ben and I are sitting next to each other in a middle row of an enormous lecture hall. One that could easily fit two hundred students.

Why do you look like you’re going to throw up? Ben’s question rolls around in my head.

“Because we’re taking classical mythology ,” I whisper-hiss like the room has ears. But we’re practically alone. Ben’s bodyguard quietly took a seat right behind us. Only two other students are here, and they’ve chosen chairs way down in the first row, much closer to the professor’s podium.

Maybe that’s where I should be. Closest to the person who will be doling out the grades.

Or maybe not.

Last thing I need to do is projectile vomit on the professor. I’m just glad we’re here early. Twenty minutes early to be exact. But I could be here twenty-four hours early, and I’d still be nauseous.

Ben wears concern like he’s seconds away from snagging the trashcan by the door and holding it under my chin.

He leans an arm on the back of the auditorium-style chair, facing me fully, and I try not to get flustered by his all-encompassing attention on me.

I can’t remember the last time someone gave me so much of their energy, their interest.

“Why are you whispering?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, my voice rising to a normal level.

“I’m nervous, okay? I’ve avoided taking most of my humanities requirements.

Biology, I get. Chemistry, no problem. Calculus, a breeze.

But if you ask me to write an essay…I get…

I get hives.” I slump down. It’s not an exaggeration.

I broke out in hives my first semester at Penn when I had to take English 102.

I barreled through with determination, sleepless nights of rewrites, and Benadryl.

To distract myself, I try to concentrate on how Ben’s burgundy MVU sweatshirt blends into the chair and how he pushed the sleeves up to his elbows. Veins spindle down his strong arms, and those beautiful, masculine forearms should bring me out of my panicked state.

But really, it’s his baby blue eyes caressing me that help the most.

His brows are fully raised. “Hives?” He skims my body like he’s checking for a breakout.

“Yes, Benjamin. Hives .”

“It’s just Ben.”

That takes me aback a second. I sit up a little. “Wait, your parents named you Ben . Just Ben? Not Bennet? Not Benedict? Not Benvolio?”

He chokes out a bright laugh. “ Jesus . Benvolio?” He’s looking at me with far too much intrigue for someone who clearly didn’t read his Wikipedia page thoroughly enough.

“Your parents love Shakespeare,” I remind him, which I quickly realize is a silly thing to do.

Of course he knows his parents better than someone who’s picked up rudimentary facts online.

I’m hot (and not in a good way) thinking about it.

“Benvolio was a good guess,” I say fast, but I can’t help the defensive bite in my voice.

Ben doesn’t seem to care about it. His smile reaches his glittering eyes. “That’s the first time anyone has offered that guess, so you get all the creative points.”

I make a face.

He frowns. “What?”

“Creative?” I say the word like it has necrotizing fasciitis. It’s about as foreign in my life as flesh-eating bacteria. “No one’s ever called me creative. My third-grade teacher once told me my imagination was about as vast as a puddle.”

He leans forward, and I lose sight of his face but I’m making an educated guess that he’s full of pity.

Shit. Why do I even open my mouth? “I’m not saying this for you to pity me?—”

“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.

“What are you doing, Cobalt boy?” I replied after describing my uneventful night. “Bathing in the tears of your enemies?”

He laughed. Just remembering his vibrant laugh sends an electric current down my body. “I’m sure Eliot showers with the tears of his foes every night.” After a pause, he ended up saying, “I survived the move-in.”

“Were you afraid you weren’t going to?” I asked, capping the polish.

“There was a chance. I’m pretty sure Charlie has wanted to make my heart bleed since birth. I guess it’s a good thing I gave you half.” His voice was teasing, and I could feel my lips inching upward. The smile didn’t take hold though.

“So the rumors are true then?” I wondered with a frown. “You and Charlie don’t get along?”