Page 7 of Burn Bright (Cobalt Empire #1)

BEN COBALT

“ I ’ll sleep on the couch,” I tell Beckett directly even though I’m facing all four older brothers. I’m the only one even sitting on the couch right now. He’s in the matching blue chair beside Charlie.

“It’s not a pull-out,” Beckett says with a mountain of confusion knitting his features—features that can only be described as angelic.

It’s weird that he shares that in common with Charlie when A.) Charlie is a demon and B.) they’re fraternal twins.

They don’t look that alike, really. Beckett has much darker brown hair, and he’s a couple inches shorter at six-one.

They do have the same penetrating yellow-green eyes and lean builds.

But Beckett is ripped.

His body could probably be studied in art and humanities courses.

He shrugs off his leather jacket, and I notice the floral tattoos crawling up his arm. He has the reputation of being “the bad boy of ballet” at his company, which I’ve never completely understood how it could be true. Not until the past few years.

“The couch is long enough to fit me,” I tell him. “I can just throw some blankets on it.”

“You’d rather take the couch than a king-sized bed?” Beckett is very confused. He slips a look to Charlie like how much did I miss? They share short glances. Talking through their eyes.

They do that a lot.

“Maybe Eliot’s room has a funk that we’re nose-blind to,” Tom says, straddling a kitchen chair backward. He dragged it over here.

“Bronwyn would’ve said something,” Eliot replies, the only one standing. His bare foot is on the glass coffee table which has to be bothering Beckett because it sure as hell would bother our mom. “She was here two nights ago.”

“Bronwyn?” I ask, the girl totally unfamiliar, and I’m fairly good with names.

He presses his tongue against the inside of his cheek and jerks the air. Miming a blow job.

He fucked her. Probably a casual hookup. Eliot isn’t quiet about how he sleeps around.

“You’ll change the sheets?” Beckett asks Eliot.

“I already told Ben I would.”

“It’s not about that,” I jump in. “Okay, I just think the couch is better.” I’m doing a piss-poor job at reasoning with them.

In their minds, my request is absurd.

I make no sense.

The logical thing is to sleep on a bed.

“There’s no privacy out here,” Beckett reminds me.

I shrug. “I don’t care.”

I don’t plan to be here for long.

I’ll be out of your hair soon.

Don’t worry.

“We could get a pull-out,” Tom suggests, opening and closing a Zippo lighter. The click, click fills the tense silence.

Charlie stares at me like he’s mid-excavation from five feet away. Digging through my insides.

I’m burning up.

Eliot rests his forearm on his bent knee, bowing toward me as he asks, “Is there something wrong with my room, Ben?”

I smash my ballcap in my hands. “Can we not act like we’re on the set of Clue and you’re Mr. Green?”

“We can because I’d only play Colonel Mustard.”

I open my mouth to respond, but I end up laughing. The lively sound dies too fast, and I lean farther back and try to look anywhere but at the brothers I sincerely love, which leaves me glancing at Charlie. I blink a few times, then say, “Nothing is wrong with your room, Eliot.”

He nods once. “I detect no lies.”

“When has he ever lied?” Charlie says like it’s just another shortcoming.

“Because you know me so well,” I snap at him.

“Because you’re so complicated.”

“Because you’re the only one who can be,” I retort.

Charlie laughs dryly, his annoyance contorting his face, and he shoots to his feet like he’s done with me. I don’t know why that hurts. It’s what I want, isn’t it?

For him to stop digging into me.

“Charlie,” Beckett pleads, then looks to me. “We just want you to be comfortable here, Ben.”

I watch Charlie lower back down.

Tension never leaves my body. “I could sleep on the floor and I’d be fine. I can make up the couch every night, and I’ll put the blankets up every morning. You won’t even notice I’m here.”

Beckett scrunches his face in a physical manifestation of the phrase, what the fuck . “That’s not the point of you living with us.”

I scrape a rough hand through my hair. My eyes sear as one of the worst nights of my life tries to tunnel back into me. Anger amasses in my chest that I can’t throw off.

Then fear.

Because I left Audrey.

I left Audrey.

Maybe I shouldn’t have left her this soon. I could’ve stayed in Philly until she graduated from prep school. She’s only sixteen.

“Pip,” Beckett says so softly, so gently. He’s one of the few people who call me Pip. Our older sister is the only one who calls me Pippy.

I swallow a boulder to tell him, “This isn’t permanent.”

Charlie arches his brows. “Somewhere else you have to be?”

Anywhere but here with you.

On-campus housing would’ve been my first choice. Second would be an apartment not with Charlie. Both cost money that I don’t have right now, and I’d rather cut out my tongue than advertise I’m broke to him.

“What do you care?” I sling back. “You don’t even want me here.”

Beckett slips him a look I can’t read.

Charlie sweeps the length of me. “What I want doesn’t matter. You need to be here.”

“I need to be here,” I echo and nod a few times. “Je vais bien. Vraiment.” I’m fine. Really.

“Tu ne vas pas bien,” Beckett says so smoothly. You’re not.

I love hearing him speak French the most, not just because his cadence is beautiful—but because his silky voice is practically a morphine drip.

It reminds me of our dad, how he can calm me with a few words.

I hang on to that and not how my muscles are on fire like I need to escape my entire body.

I rub at my brow and scrub a hand down the side of my face.

“Je vais bien,” I repeat. “Je vais bien.”

I hate how they’re staring at me.

Like I’m a malfunctioning nuclear reactor. And my brothers are confident enough to house one. They are prepared to be blown into smithereens because they know they can’t be injured.

Cobalts are invincible, haven’t you heard?

All but me, apparently.

Beckett comes over and sits next to me. His arm slides over my back with such familiarity. He holds my shoulders, and I breathe out deeper at his consoling touch. I’m four, five, seven—and he’s wrapping his arm around me while I’m crying over something seemingly dumb.

A bird fell out of a nest in our backyard and wheezed painfully on the grass.

Tom and Eliot lit a rosemary bush on fire.

A girl scraped her knees at Disneyland and her dad was being an ass to her. I didn’t understand why.

Beckett was there when we were kids. Before he left for his dream. I’m nineteen, and he’s here again. Right beside me.

This feels like my dream—like I am dreaming. Because it can’t last. I have to wake up.

“You need to be in the city with us,” Beckett says quietly to me, drawing my gaze to his. “New York is where you get to live , and I mean truly live. This is your time to be selfish, follow your ambitions, fuck the night away, let it all go—and we’ll be with you. You aren’t alone here, Pip.”

I nod a few times, trying to cool the simmer in my blood.

“Have you talked to Dad?” Tom wonders. “About what happened that night?”

That night.

I can barely see what I did. Rage tore through me. I think I blacked out for half of it. I smashed a Porsche in with a bat. Then I knocked out the guy who owned it. I assaulted him on his front lawn, and I think I would’ve killed him if I wasn’t pulled off.

So have I talked to our dad? Who relates almost 100% with Charlie? Who would never rage like an unhinged ape? Yeah, no. “I’m not looking for Dad to psychoanalyze me,” I mutter quietly.

“Then Mom?”

I shake my head. “Not really.” She’s already told me she would’ve skewered that guy with her high heel. She is a proponent of revenge. But it didn’t make me feel much better.

My brothers wanted me to come to New York almost immediately after I lost control. After they heard I did all of this alone. I don’t think anyone expected it.

“Something’s going on with you,” Jane had said. “Pippy? Just talk to us. We’re all here.”

She’s number one.

Jane Eleanor—the best of us. And for once, no one would disagree.

I try to breathe.

I relax more when they concede to the couch idea. Beckett says they’ll get a pull-out. I offer to pay. I’ll put it on my credit card.

They get weird when I bring up the cost. It’s August, and less than three months ago our trust funds were replenished with a jaw-dropping amount. We should all be beyond flush.

All trust funds are different, depending on who sets them up. Ours isn’t free money raining down from cobalt-blue skies.

I don’t have access to the billions my family is worth either. My inherited and gifted stock from my family’s companies is unattainable until a specific date. Years from now.

I don’t make dividends. I can’t sell stock for cash. It’s all inherited wealth locked behind pearly gates that only means something when someone Googles my net worth. I’m only nineteen. I’m not hurting enough that I’d need to cash out pots of gold at the end of a rainbow.

My trust fund, though—that is more accessible.

Our parents planned all our trust funds the same in an effort for us to learn fiscal responsibility.

A hard lesson for kids born of billions.

On May 15 th of every year—starting at whatever age (within reason)—we could draw a lump sum from our trust. A portion had to be used for education, but the rest, we could do whatever we wanted with it.

Spend, splurge, invest. Doesn’t matter.

It’s up to us, and if we fuck it all away, then we suffer the consequences of those actions. They won’t bail us out or offer us more money.

We have to wait for the next May 15 th .

The sum we receive every year—it’s far, far beyond the median annual income. Enough to start a new business, enough to secure our futures, and there are no rules. My parents have given us the opportunity to sink or swim, and currently, I’m an anchor at the bottom of the Atlantic.

My savings account is a whopping zero.