Page 22 of Burn Bright (Cobalt Empire #1)

HARRIET FISHER

“ I can’t,” I say, my stomach dropping as soon as I reject Ben’s invite. Friday night out with Ben Cobalt sounds like an image right off most girls’ dream boards, but if I had a board, two pictures would engulf all the rest.

Get into the Honors House.

Become a doctor.

Being body-to-body in a sweaty, sticky club in Hell’s Kitchen shouldn’t even sound that appealing, but as soon as I imagine Ben and his hands on me, tucking me to his build so no one bumps into me, I crave it a billion times more than a solo night with old episodes of CSI while modeling carboxylic acids with my molecular model kit for O-Chem.

Ben leans against the windowsill of my apartment as rain beats against the pane. His buff arms are crossed with casualness. Barely any tension in his body, despite the big fat rejection I just cast upon him.

Did I mention he came to my apartment tonight to ask me in person? Luckily, I made up the couch before he arrived. The knitted blankets are folded and tucked in the closet with my pillow.

I’m sitting cross-legged on the lumpy lime-green sofa, a flimsy paper plate with my sandwich balancing on my thigh. My stomach grumbles. I had to skip lunch because of an interview at a genetics research lab on campus. A necessary sacrifice even if my stomach does not agree.

“You always eat sandwiches for dinner?” Ben wonders.

“It’s a top three supper staple.” I pick up the white bread cut in a diagonal. “I’m not exactly a Michelin-star chef.”

“Same.” His lips start to rise. “What kind of sandwich is it?”

“Tuna salad.” I’ve learned a lot more about Ben, including his refusal to consume any animal products. I take a large bite and speak as I chew. “Does this hurt your vegan soul?”

He has a slanted smile. “I’ll survive.”

“Shucks,” I deadpan.

“Trying to kill every Cobalt off one by one?” he teases.

“I gotta take my shot considering your brother aimed first.” My next bite is bigger.

I quickly realize I’m more ravenous than ladylike.

Whatever. It’s not like I’m courting Ben Cobalt or trying to woo him with feminine wiles.

We’re just friends. Licking my thumb, I continue, “And I know I sound bitter and butthurt over the auditions, but I was the best drummer there. I was watching everyone go up on stage and perform for the band, and I was the best. I know my worth, and Tom?—”

“He messed up,” Ben says in agreement. He might as well have thrown a brick at my face. The surprise is all the same.

“You’ve never seen me play.”

He raises his shoulders up and down in an easygoing shrug. “I don’t have to. Tom admitted you were the best one who tried out, but you were just too young.” He eyes the half-eaten sandwich. “Don’t kill me off yet, okay?”

“I doubt I could.” I lift my sandwich to my mouth. “Cobalts never die.”

His smile is fond for a second. “I like that one.”

“I’ll take the praise, but I’m not the originator.”

“I know,” he laughs. “I’ve heard it before. My family has many mottos.”

It reminds me. “How’d the whole pride of lions come about?” I wonder, since Cobalts are associated with the animal. The color blue is obvious. Cobalt blue, duh. But lions, less so. “Is it a king of the jungle thing?”

“Maybe partly.”

“You don’t know for sure?”

“No, most things like that about the Cobalt Empire feel like myths. Legends. Told too many times from person to person over decades, and they’ve created a life of their own.

We embrace them because why the hell not?

Some, I’m sure, my parents even started.

Some were definitely started by us. Whatever the case, it’s always just bonded us closer as a family.

” He tips his head in a thought. “Though, among my siblings, I’d say I’m more black sheep than lion. ”

“Hmm,” I chew slowly, then swallow. “Same.”

“Black sheep of your family?”

“Yep. It seems we’re the same breed, Friend.”

“Knew I sensed a connection, Fisher.” His smile edges across his mouth.

Do not blush at your tuna fish, Harriet. Too fucking late.

Ben lifts a ceramic pot off the windowsill. He inspects the sad little plant and the drooping heart-shaped leaves. “The actual drum audition isn’t why my brother has a problem with you, is it?” His eyes flit back to me.

The tuna fish sinks to the bottom of my stomach. “He told you I emailed the bassist,” I guess.

He nods like it’s nothing, which feels a lot like another brick to the face.

Another realization strikes. “You knew, and you still asked me to go to this party with you?” I question like he’s delusional. “I was a vindictive brat who tried to get Tom kicked out of his own band.”

“Vindictive brats could literally describe most people in my family, and I still love them.” Is he saying he loves me too— no.

Absolutely fucking not. Don’t be ridiculous, Harriet.

Ben isn’t even flustered like he slipped up and confessed deep feelings for me.

He just touches the heart-shaped leaf. “This hoya needs more water.”

My head is spinning. He’s a plant expert too?

“It’s not mine. But I’ll let Eden know.”

With the hoya in hand, he passes the couch, just to reach the nearby kitchen. He turns on the sink and waters the plant for Eden. His baby blue eyes drift around the apartment. “I see the sticks.” He nods toward the drumsticks on the coffee table. “But where’s your drum kit?”

Huh?

I’m still mentally attached to the fact that he knows about my bratty email. I wash down the lump in my throat with a gulp of lemonade, then say, “I don’t own one…I’ve never actually owned one.”

Ben shuts off the faucet. “Then how’d you learn to play?”

“A music store in Pittsburgh.” I watch him return the pot to the windowsill, his eyes on mine as he crosses the living room again.

“It was down the street from where I grew up. I used to go in there every day after school and just bang on the drums. The manager could’ve kicked me out—because a ten-year-old clearly isn’t going to buy shit—but she started teaching me to play instead. ”

Ben looks deeper into me with this powerful comfort that makes sharing easy. Almost too easy. It’s like he sees, understands, and will protect. I stop asking myself if he’s this way with everyone.

I just start believing it’s only for me.

“What was her name?” he asks.

I fight a tiny smile as he sinks beside me on the couch.

“Sunny…I can’t remember her last name. I don’t think she ever mentioned it.

For all I know, Sunny might’ve been a nickname too.

” I chew the inside of my cheek. “She was in her late twenties, and she played in a local band that’d do small gigs around Pittsburgh.

I begged my mom to take me to one of Sunny’s shows, but she always said no. ”

He gives me a baffled look while he picks up a drumstick. “Your mom said no to that, but she let you hang out at a music store alone?”

I laugh at my tuna sandwich. “Yeah, she had her moments of being super strict, then times where she totally forgot about me. It was like she had selective amnesia and when she suddenly remembered she was a mom, she wanted to triple-down.” After another sip of lemonade, I put the glass on the coffee table.

“It probably had to do with the divorce and wanting to prove to my dad that she was a better mom than he was a father.”

“Was your dad as strict?”

“Not really…but I only ever spent a few summers with him.”

Ben captures my gaze with a softness. “Divorced parents?”

“Yeah, I was only five when they split. He left Pittsburgh without really fighting to have more time with me. Then he remarried and had two more kids pretty quickly after that.”

A whole new family.

I only briefly mention my half-siblings Siggy and Chance.

“I have a closer relationship with the pharmacist down the street than I have with them,” I explain.

“And I’ve seen the lady at Valley Drugs a whopping single time just to pick up my birth control pills.

But we’ve said hi to each other at least.”

I just so casually dropped being on birth control, but it’s not an indication that I’m sexually active. There are a handful of other reasons to take birth control. To help with cramps or PCOS, relieve endometriosis symptoms, prevention for ovarian cysts, clearing up acne. The list is long, really.

What’s weird is that I want him to ask me about my reason. Why, Harriet? I force myself not to groan. My reason is basic.

It’s to avoid pregnancy.

Why do I want him to know this?

Maybe I just like this feeling. Of being so comfortable with someone that these intimate questions aren’t off the table, but they’re freely given and taken with no judgment and no reservation.

Ben twirls the drumstick between his fingers. I feel him studying my reaction. Ask me about it. Ask me. Ask me. Don’t stop asking me things. Please.

“Do you still talk to Sunny?” Ben wonders.

It’s not the question I wanted, but I like this one all the same.

I shake my head once. “I went to the store one day, and she wasn’t there.

I didn’t have her number, but the new manager said she moved to Sedona.

Out west.” I frown. “I was fifteen, and I didn’t think she owed me an explanation.

People move to new cities all the time. People don’t always stick around.

” I think about my dad. “But it did suck…knowing she was gone and she wasn’t coming back.

” I swallow the lump forming in my throat.

“And I realized that maybe she meant more to me than I meant to her.”

His lips downturn. “Why do you say that?”

I shrug. “Because if she thought about me, maybe she would’ve left a note. I would’ve liked a note, at least.”

He stops spinning the drumstick between his fingers. His brows crinkle as he considers something. “I’m not saying Sunny didn’t care about you, but I don’t get why she wouldn’t have called your parents. Or tried to figure out why you were always there.”

“She knew I liked playing the drums and that I didn’t have a kit at home.”