Page 97 of Burn Bright (Cobalt Empire #1)

BEN COBALT

H arriet flings open the door right as a timer goes off.

“Shit, come in!” She races into her kitchen where she left her phone.

I shut the door behind me, my stomach tightening when I notice Netflix popped on the TV, my favorite fig bars plated on the coffee table, along with bowls of corn chips and homemade guac.

“Having a party, Fisher?” I try to keep my voice lighthearted. This is the first time we’ve seen each other since last night—the night of the frat.

“With a microscopic invite list. Just me and you, Friend.” Her back faces me while she opens the oven. She has on a flowy, red plaid mini-dress over a black long-sleeve top. Everything about her, I find beautiful.

Of course, tonight is no different. Being around Harriet, I ache to curve my arms around her small frame, lift her in my arms, clasp her head and kiss her breathless.

“I’m working on convincing Eden to spend the night at her boyfriend’s place. She’s there now,” Harriet says, pulling out a baking sheet of pizza bites, likely the vegan kind I keep in the freezer at my brothers’ apartment. “If I succeed, then you can stay over until like nine in the morning.”

I rest my canvas duffel on the ground. She hasn’t seen it yet. “Did you go to the bodega for party supplies or did you write your paper?” I tease.

“I did both.” Harriet dumps the pizza bites into a bowl. “I figure if you’re not up for talking, we can do an animated movie.”

I come closer. “I thought you hate animated movies.”

“I find them cheesy, which is low on the hate scale. You said The Wild Robot is good, right?”

I slide a hand along her back. “Yeah, I like that one.” A knot forms in my chest. How am I going to get through this? How am I going to get her through this? “Harriet…”

She sets the baking sheet aside, then tugs off the daisy-patterned oven-mitt. Concern cinches her face into a darker scowl. “We don’t have to even stay here. If you need to go outside, we can do a walk or…what do you need, Ben?”

I push my fingers through my hair. “I need you to be okay.”

“I am . I have been. I’m concerned about you .”

“I’ll be okay knowing you are.”

“That’s so not true.” She threads her arms, more on guard like she’s prepared to battle my demons. “I can see it all over you right now. Something is really fucked up.”

“That would be me,” I mutter. “I am fucked up. I think I’ve been the real fucked up one this whole time.” I try to smile, but it hurts. My eyes are raw, likely bloodshot, as I restrain emotion.

“Let’s just sit down.” Harriet grasps my hand, carting me toward the lime-green sofa. “The Hello Kitty blanket has your name on it tonight, Cobalt boy.”

I laugh a little, but the sound just dies inside my lungs. I squeeze her hand, then let go as she plops down on the cushions.

Instead of joining her on the sofa, I push aside the guac and chips. Taking a seat on the coffee table.

Her confusion narrows her eyes. She moves to the edge of the couch, our legs knocking together. “Ben?—”

“I can’t stay for a movie.”

She freezes.

“I want to,” I add deeply.

“Animated movies are an hour and thirty minutes tops.”

I feel like I’m being crushed alive. “I have thirty minutes.”

Alarm springs her brows into her blonde bangs. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m leaving New York tonight.”

She slides backward like I pushed her. “No, no. You can’t leave. You said…the holidays? What happened to staying for the holidays?” Her pinpointed gaze drifts around the apartment. She intakes a sharp breath when she spots my canvas duffel in the entryway.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I really thought I was going to stay for Christmas. I was even planning on staying indefinitely, but…”

“But what?” Her eyes grow wider. Not in anger. She’s confused, distressed, worried. “What changed?”

I stare up at the whirling fan. “My sister almost died last night, and it was my fault, Harriet.” I meet her gaze. “I can’t be here.”

“You didn’t give her fentanyl. Those Kappa dickheads did that. Okay, fuck them. They should go rot away in the woods. Not you.”

“I’m not going to rot away. I’m the sun, remember?”

She’s unblinking. “I remember you telling me you aren’t the sun. Do you…do you feel like you’re decaying, Ben?”

“No,” I reach out and clasp her small hand between both of mine.

“I’m not suffering from depression. I am very fucking torn up about leaving you right now, but I haven’t been over here masking my sorrow with joy.

Every time I laughed with you, that was always real.

It wasn’t to hide sadness. I was never sad when I was with you, Harriet.

You’ve made me so unbelievably happy.” My voice chokes as emotion balls in my throat.

She opens her mouth to speak, but more confusion twists her features.

“I know it makes no sense,” I breathe.

“You’re right…it doesn’t,” she says slowly in thought. “If you’re worried about that happening again, then never step foot on Douche Row. You don’t have to drop out of college. You definitely don’t need to leave New York or me…” Her voice fades.

I lace our hands together. I can’t figure out how to explain this. My brain is just saying, calm her down. Make sure she’s okay before you go. “What’s in there?” I nod to the paper bag on the sofa beside her. “Party favors?”

She chews her lip. “You really want to make this a Going-Away Party? Don’t you think we should invite your brothers?”

“I like this party of two.” I reach out to grab the bag.

She’s so fast to snatch it away, rolling the paper so I can’t see inside. “It’s just junk food.”

Okay. Is she hiding something from me? I nod tensely. “We could start the movie?” I suggest.

“I can’t watch a movie right now.” She places the paper bag aside, then scoots forward again. “You can’t leave. Because look around, nature boy.”

It’s very difficult to follow her whirling finger when I want to engrain her determined, hostile expression in my head forever. I try to take stock of all the potted plants. Ferns, ponytail palms, eucalyptus, devil’s ivy, weeping fig. All around us is vibrant green.

“They will die without you,” Harriet says so sternly. “I have a black thumb. Okay, they will die in this fucking apartment, Friend . They need you.”

“I put the watering schedule on the fridge.”

She purses her lips, like she forgot about that. “It’ll slip off the magnet,” she contends. “It’s a super old Minnie Mouse one from my only family vacation. It’s practically ancient.”

“Disney World or Land?” I wonder.

“Land, and stop trying to make me smile.” I know she’s serious, but her finger at my face is just making my lips rise more, which is causing her smile to fight through. “Eden will find the watering schedule on the floor, Ben. She will trash it. Then the plants will die.”

“Every plant has a popsicle stick in the soil with its label. I have full faith that you’ll do the Harriet Fisher thing and research them and make an Excel spreadsheet that can’t be trashed. You’ll take great care of them.”

“What about the End of the World?”

“Literally or figuratively? Because I don’t think doomsday is happening anytime soon.”

“Are we sure? This feels catastrophic to me.”

That warps my thoughts, a sledgehammer to the brain. Because if I stay, that feels like the real disaster.

She takes a pained breath. “And literally?”

“I talked to Gavin. He said it’s fine if you keep bartending without me. You don’t have to worry about losing your job.”

“But what if there’s another asshole sports fan?”

My muscles flame. “You and your coworker kick them out of the bar. If they won’t go, you call the cops. Or you call my brothers. They’ll always have security with them.”

She buries her face in her palms.

“Harriet—”

“Your child ,” she says so emphatically.

“Son of Ben?”

“You can’t abandon him.” She springs hotly to her feet. I don’t follow suit. I let her tower over me. “He might be a stuffed animal, but it’s the principle of the matter. You are not a deadbeat father. Stay for your son.”

It guts me in this second—that she might believe I’d stay for a stuffed lion over her. “If I could stay, Harriet, it would’ve always been for you. You’re the reason why it’s been almost impossible to leave.”

“Almost impossible,” she echoes. “But not impossible .” She breathes harder like she’s scaling a cliffside. “How do I make it impossible for you to go?”

“Please don’t.” A hot tear slides down my jaw. I smear it away with the side of my fist.

She kneels at my feet, holds on to my knees, seeing this is torture for me. Her breath is weighted. “I don’t think letting you go is what’s best for you, Ben.”

“You need to.”

Her chin quakes. “What if I need you? Okay, forget the plants, forget your son—what if I need you? There’s a feeling inside of me I’ve never felt with anyone but you, and I may never feel it again.

” She presses closer. “It’s love so deep, I can never be empty.

It’s love so hot, I can never be cold. Love like this is a star you wish upon, Ben.

It’s fairytales and make-believe, but you made it real. I don’t want to give it back.”

My entire body swells and collapses at once. The paradox of me. The tragedy of me.

The end of me.

I hold her warm cheeks. “I will never stop loving you. There will never be one moment where I don’t, wherever I am.”

Her tears slip down my hands. She takes a staggered breath, clutching my arms, then she kisses me.

It’s not an ordinary kiss. This kiss screams I love you with her entire soul.

It bellows please don’t leave me. It beseeches pick me up and love me back.

It ignites the balled-up pain in my chest, and I crush my lips against hers, desperate for these seconds to last forever.

I am burning alive. My blood is on fire. Standing, I haul Harriet in my arms. Her legs wrap around my waist. Our lips weld and tongues wrestle in a heart-wrenching tug-and-pull. I curve my arm so tight around her while she holds fiercely on to me.

Don’t let her go. Don’t fucking let her go. What are you doing? I bring her to the kitchen, set her gently on the counter. My fingers clench her hair as our panting, hot breaths intermix with gripping, yearning, distraught kiss after kiss.

She fists my shirt, keeping me close. We’re lip-locked for minutes upon minutes, and I slip my hand against her leg, up her dress, sliding along the soft, warmth of her thigh.

Her hands don’t roam, they pull, they wrench.

The fraught need to connect, to fuse, is pummeling my senses.

A tormented groan rakes through my throat. “ Harriet .”

“Come inside me,” she rasps.

I force myself to grab the cabinet above her head. The more I touch her, the more I want inside her. “I can’t have sex with you.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t live with myself knowing I fucked you and left you.”

She presses her forehead to my collar, and I scrunch the back of her hair, kissing the blonde strands, listening as she catches her breath. I see the time on the oven clock, and my stomach overturns.

This is it.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I have to go.” I kiss her temple, her cheek, then I draw back, and she releases her grip.

“Wait. You’ll be hungry. Just let me give you some of this stuff.” She sprints around the apartment, shoving the fig bars back in the box. Then she grabs a baggie for the pizza bites.

While she packs away the snacks, I sling my duffel on my shoulder and unzip the main pocket. I pull out Son of Ben and place him on the kitchen counter. Along with my worn blue ballcap.

She hands me the sealed pizza bites, the fig bars, and barely glances at the stuffed lion or the hat. Her ocean blue eyes are crashing waves, and I stare down into them.

“Thanks for all of this.” I can’t even tear my gaze off hers. “If you need anything, call my family,” I remind her. “They’ll be there for you.”

“I will,” she says definitively.

I breathe in a stronger breath. “I’ll write to you as soon as I can. It might be a week.” My return address on the mail I send will be a P.O. Box in Philly that I’ve set up. Any letters sent to me will be forwarded from there. So no one will ever have my actual address.

Not even Harriet.

I can’t give it to her. The risk of my family finding me is too high.

She nods.

Another kiss to her cheek, and I back away. Each step is a wrench cranking inside my body. Then I reach for the doorknob.

“This isn’t how we end, Friend,” she says suddenly. It stops me.

Those are the same words I said to her months ago in the back of her Honda. I rotate to Harriet. My pulse pounding. My heart skidding.

She’s several feet from me, her narrowed eyes drilling into me with powerful resolve.

“You said Cobalts carve out futures they want. I don’t believe this is really what you want, Ben, and it’s not what your brothers will want either.

It’s not what I want.” She points at her chest. “So if I were to make some grand prediction, I’d say this isn’t how we end.

This isn’t over. You’re in my future for so much longer than this. ”

I want to believe her, but my gut says I will let her down. Because I have to let her down. There is no way out.

“Do amazing things, Fisher.” I give her one last smile.

Then I go.

I leave my entire world behind me.