Series: Cobalt Empire Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 220
Estimated words: 215301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 861(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 861(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
A sign is perched against her violin case. Tips appreciated! Happy New Year!! There’s a QR code and a glass mason jar. I dig five bucks out of my pocket and slip it into the jar.
When the sun sets over the hazy winter sky, I circle back toward Gillies.
They haven’t put away their Christmas lights yet. Red and green bulbs dangle from the ceiling, and garland wraps around the barstools. I’m drinking a beer and jotting in a journal when I see the clock hanging on the wall. My stomach overturns.
It’s 10 p.m.
My phone has been in airplane mode for almost twenty-four hours.
Reality crashes back into me, and I take out my cell. As soon as I turn on data, my phone is a bomb. It buzzes hysterically with notifications. My heart thrashes against my chest, and I silently pray my parents have been busy all day and forgot about me.
When I see the screen, I rub at my eyes. No, I’m not seeing things.
I have fifteen missed calls from my brother.
Five missed texts—also from him.
Surprisingly, my parents haven’t reached out, which is the only bright spot in this whole mess I created.
I click into the texts.
BIRDIE
HELLO? ARE YOU ALIVE? ANSWER YOUR PHONE!
So you’re not going to believe this, but you’re an idiot.
Actually you will believe this.
You were supposed to fill in for Stewie today, asshole. You no-showed. And guess who’s your emergency contact?
The most recent text he sent was just two hours ago.
BIRDIE
The Nutcracker is my bitch. You’re welcome.
Fuck.
I stuff my journal in my back pocket. Then I grab my black moto jacket off the stool and my helmet off the bar and walk out into the frigid January air.
4
PHOENIX ST. PIERRE
The Whitney Theater is right next to The Manhattan Symphony Hall, and that’s where I find my brother, deep in the belly of the orchestra pit.
I’m hustling down the first row. Paid the usher twenty dollars to let me in to talk to my brother. I don’t know if he believed me even after I gave him the cash. But what am I going to do in here? Eat popcorn off the floor?
The orchestral musicians are all gone except for Birdie. Only people left are stagehands removing Clara’s living room backdrop and some remaining ballet dancers stretching and goofing around on stage.
Yeah, I missed the final performance of the New York Ballet Company’s The Nutcracker.
It’s bad.
I splay my arms over the pit rail, which is a short wall that separates the orchestra pit from the audience. The look Birdie is giving me would eviscerate just about anyone else, but I’m too used to his acidic nature.
He’s wearing concert blacks: black dress shirt, black pants, black shoes and socks. He rips out his earplugs by the cord they’re attached to.
“The dick better have been good, man,” he snaps. The dancers on stage stop leaping like they’ve just found their new source of entertainment. I glance warily at them, and they make no sign of being discreet.
One blonde girl stares directly at me and whispers in the other’s ear.
“Fucking A,” I mutter and stake a dark glare on her to fuck off. She hoists her chin in defiance. Ballerinas.
I’ve subbed in for musicians plenty of times at the ballet to know a literal and metaphorical divide sits between orchestral musicians and dancers.
Barely any of us are on a first-name basis. Dancers interact mostly with Giulia Carabello, the seasoned, regimented conductor, and the rare occasion when someone crosses the line between the pit and stage, it’s major gossip.
Most of the time, I just hear about dancers having meltdowns or bitching about the live tempo being off and screwing up their “perfect” variation.
I lean farther over the pit rail and lower my voice. “I wasn’t having sex,” I growl out to my brother.
Birdie’s brows rise as he stuffs a timpani mallet into my black mallet bag, which he must’ve grabbed from my room. “Really? Because I was happy to fill in for you knowing you were at least getting laid. Now I’m feeling used. Like a dirty old sock.”
“It’s not like that.” I gesture to him. “I appreciate this.”
“Appreciation means shit. You owe me.” He zips up the bag and follows my gaze toward the stage. The girls are giggling.
Birdie grins.
I grit down on my molars and nail him with a vicious look. Don’t do it.
“Man, I know you have a twelve-inch dick,” he says loudly while making direct eye contact with me. “But there are worse problems in the world. Wars. Famine—”
“Birdie—” I’m hustling to the end of the aisle where stairs descend into the orchestra pit.
“—World hunger. We all can’t be worried about your big…”
I’m in the pit.
“Fat…”
Feet away.
“Co—”
I place my hand over his mouth. The laughter from the stage echoes shrilly. I can feel Birdie’s shit-eating grin underneath my palm. I’d like to say this is an unusual occurrence, but Birdie making me the butt of a joke is practically his way of saying I love you. Probably because he knows I can take it.