Page 51 of Burn Bright (Cobalt Empire #1)

“I’m sorry, are you Vada?” I sling back. “She can say this shit to me herself.”

“Can she? How many texts have you responded to?”

None.

I dig my back into the chair. He’s right, I want to bail on this moment. On this club. On them. The truth isn’t just hard to hear, it’s setting me on fire. I’m burning up, and I can’t find the extinguisher. Stay? I need to stay, but how can I when staying just hurts everyone around me.

Either way, I inflict some kind of pain. There is no victory inside my head.

I think I need Harriet.

Xander pieces together the weird hexagon-shaped game board. His amber eyes briefly rise to mine. The past is haunting. Because I did ditch him too. I cut him dead. At fourteen, every invite I had to a house party or a soccer game, I used to bring Xander with me.

We were friends.

He just wanted to fit in, and my “buddies” wanted to use the Xander Hale for clout. They would try to get him to take shots and film him. His dad is a recovering alcoholic, so yeah, Xander being caught with vodka underage is headline-worthy news.

Xander took the shot. His first taste of liquor, and I was there. It was my fault. I put him in that position, and I didn’t get him out fast enough.

I did make the guys delete the footage. The peer pressure kept escalating. I’ve never been afraid to say no , to be a dissenter among a crowd, but Xander just…he did not want to stand out. His whole life, that’s all he’s ever done.

And I should’ve ditched the toxic social circle and kept him.

I just stopped inviting Xander around instead. To save him from those situations.

Being friends with guys I didn’t care for—that was pretty normal. At times I tried to find reasons to like them, to make it easier, but mostly, I was just keeping an eye on people I distrusted. It was a misguided attempt to protect my family while we were all at school together.

Maintaining superficial relationships with insufferable pricks—I’d say it’s a skill, but all it did was make me feel like shit.

Charlie and our father could probably do what I couldn’t. They have the stomach for it. Or maybe they have the right kind of impenetrable heart.

Hell, in Charlie’s case, he might not even have a heart to penetrate.

I look at Xander now, and I do miss the simplicity of what we had when we were younger.

I miss sharing a bunk room at the lake house and tossing a foam ball up in the air while Xander talked about The Silmarillion from Tolkien for hours.

Even the days he’d be sad and quiet, we’d listen to the rain beat against the windowpanes together and draw on an old Etch A Sketch.

Passing it back and forth to add more gray lines to the picture.

A dick and nuts would end up somewhere. We thought it was hilarious.

Making him smile, just once, was the highlight of my whole summer. I loved him.

I’ll always love Xander.

A phone pings, and my heart jumps, thinking it’s Harriet. Only, it’s not my phone. Easton shoots up while reading the text. “Fuck, I have to go.”

“What?” Xander is about to rise out of his chair.

Easton puts a hand on his shoulder, telling him to stay. “My dad is here.”

“On campus?”

“Seems that way.” Fear—no, literal terror —has widened his eyes. He’s no longer unperturbed.

“You want us to go with you, man?” I ask him.

Xander is worried, halfway out of his seat again. “Easton?—”

“He just wants a tour of the business building. It’s better if I go alone.” He’s in a hurry, and Xander is partially standing as Easton sprints out into the hall.

“ Fuck ,” Xander curses, conflicted. He ends up lowering back down.

“His dad wants a tour at”—I check my Omega watch—“nine-thirty p.m. on a Monday?”

“I think it’s a power trip thing. His dad is so strict, he’s literally picked every single one of his classes for the semester. He’d probably have a conniption if he knew Easton was coming from a ‘useless’ board game club and not chess.”

Easton was a chess champion at Dalton. I always wondered who’d win if he ever played Charlie. Very few people can beat my brother.

Xander starts packing up the game.

“We aren’t playing?” I sound dejected because I strangely am. Minutes ago, I was ready to run. Somewhere, deep down, I want to play this game with him, and that desire surges so suddenly, so fucking powerfully, to the surface.

I want to be here.

“We can’t with only two players.”

“Counting me out already, House Stark?” Harriet appears, biting on a Jolly Rancher and taking Easton’s abandoned chair. She’s in khakis and a white button-down, her outfit for volunteering at the hospital, and my smile has fucking exploded.

Xander has a similar one. “Hey, I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Gotta pad the resume with extracurriculars.” She scrapes her chair closer to the table.

“Fashionably late, Fisher,” I tease.

She sucks on the hard candy, but her lips try to perk. “You need new eyes, Cobalt boy. This isn’t fashion.” She plucks at her button-down. “It’s necessity.”

“I’m pretty sure you could make a heavy-duty trash bag look cute.”

Xander deals out some cards, more tensed.

Harriet notices him and talks more to the cards she’s stacking in her hand. “Maybe you should keep those eyes. They’re clearly painting me in the best light.”

“You know how to play?” Xander asks her.

“Nope. You want to teach me, Paul Atreides?” The first time Xander and Harriet met, he was dressed as Paul Atreides from the Dune movies…or books. I have no idea what he was going for. I’ve neither watched nor read them.

Hurt flares in my chest seeing Harriet give him attention. It shouldn’t. Three days ago, I literally told her I’d be fine if she got with Xander—and saying those words out loud felt like shoving pushpins in my mouth. Witnessing this possibility now is like swallowing them.

“It’s not too hard.” Xander tosses her the dice.

She catches with a slight smile.

Jealousy hammers against my ribcage. They’re not even really flirting, and breathing already becomes painful. Fucking fantastic. I down a large swig of water.

“You’ll get the hang of it fast,” Xander sits back down.

“I love the vote of confidence.” She rests her elbows on the table. “Lay it on me.”

He describes the rules, then the goal of being the first to build the largest army or road, or the first to create the most settlements and cities. Soon, we’re all playing together. Rolling dice. Trading our resource cards—a critical component of the game.

“Either of you want to give me all your brick for a couple sheep?” Harriet asks us.

“All my brick?” Xander’s brows jump. “For two sheep?”

She nearly laughs. “It’s called shooting your shot.”

He laughs back. “Savage.”

My stomach knots. Cards. Focus on the cards.

Harriet pumps her bicep. Barely any muscle. I smile over at her, and I’m not sure she notices me until she says, “What about you, Friend?” Her ocean blue eyes dart to mine. I swear flush creeps up her neck. “Give me all you’ve got for a couple Bo Peeps?”

My entire hand is brick. “You run a hard bargain.” I lean toward her. “But okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ll take the deal.”

“What?” Xander scrunches his face at me, especially as I pass over all my cards.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He spreads out his hands.

“Pause the game.” He shoots a harsh look at me, reminding me of his dad, my Uncle Loren, who can kill with one glare.

Xander can be soft one second and lethal the next.

“You’re going to be left with nothing , Ben. ”

“She’s giving me two sheep.”

“To do what with? Sheep are practically worthless.”

“Hey, they’re cute,” Harriet defends with not much fight.

“Cute but worthless unless you have brick, wood, and wheat.” He turns to me. “Which is going to be hard to get when you have nothing.”

I stare at little brick pieces on the colorful board. “I don’t think I have much of a chance here, anyway.”

Xander scoots his chair closer to me. “You care if I help him?” he asks Harriet, and I’m not sure who’s more surprised—me or her.

“You are family. I would only expect as much.” She chews on a smile. “Make sure he doesn’t pawn off his T-shirt too.”

“Jesus, if Ben strips, we have worse problems.”

I laugh and nod to Harriet. “You wouldn’t want this shirt?” It’s a white ringer tee that says love the planet in blue lettering.

“If you want to include it with the brick, I won’t complain.”

Xander cuts me another look like, please don’t show your abs in here. It will draw attention to our table, and since he’s allergic to the spotlight, I’m not trying to make my cousin go into anaphylactic shock. I just show him my cards, letting him help me.

Xander inspects them. “Ben will give you one brick for two sheep.”

“Cheapo.”

“We can’t let you make the longest road and end the game in two seconds, and he needs the brick to do literally anything.”

“Fine. I won’t leave him destitute. Here you go, Cobalt boy.” She slides over two sheep. “The Hale to the rescue.”

I wonder if she knows the impact those words have on Xander. If she can see him intake a deeper breath. He tries to play it off by concentrating on my hand and his. My smile widens, and we end up joking, laughing, trading cards, trying to thwart each other from building new settlements.

Xander helps me win.

I’m used to my brothers being out for blood during Candy Land . Don’t even talk about Monopoly. Eliot will buy up every property you need. Taking the W isn’t why my chest rises, my lungs fill, though. It’s feeling the ice melt between us for the first time in years.

I shouldn’t gamble with today. I should leave this one good thing exactly where it is. I could ride this feeling into the morning. The euphoria of knowing something has gone epically right.

Then Xander invites us back to his apartment to hang out and discuss our group presentation for Classical Mythology. Yeah, we’re presenting together and not by choice. Our professor chose groups depending on seat arrangements, and we were all sitting side by side by side.

I’m torn on being around him for longer.

The desire to hang out with Xander overrides the fear. Maybe because Harriet is with me. So I take the risk.