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)
His stone-cold features aren’t melting into surprise. “Yeah. Aware.”
Cool. Cool.
He’s quiet to the point of annoyance. I wave him on in irritation. “Now it’s your turn, Saint Asshole.”
He’s unamused. “You are beyond generic.”
“Saint Prick was taken.”
“By who?”
“Your brother.”
His jaw twitches.
Strange. “He stole your name and you’re mad at me for calling him a prick?”
“He didn’t steal my name,” Phoenix says. “I told him to take it as a stage name.” He puts a hand on the wall beside my doorframe. “Let’s not get into this. We should work on—”
“No way,” I interject. “I can’t concentrate on a song when there are now several hundred questions floating in my brain. Explain, dude.”
“Fine.” He pushes off the wall. “Birdie and I used to be in a band together called Sophomore Summer.”
“And that’s not generic?” I laugh. “Let me guess, you formed it your sophomore year of high school.”
“College. Birdie’s second year at Berklee.”
Berklee. “Don’t fucking tell me your brother is in the orchestra too?”
“Then I won’t,” he says dryly.
I groan. “So he is a classically trained drummer?”
“No, he played cello at Berklee. Guitar in Sophomore Summer. I’m the one who has always played the drums.”
Okay, so maybe I lucked out and have the better drummer of the St. Pierres. Could I honestly be that fortunate?
Phoenix continues, “After Sophomore Summer broke up, our parents suggested that if Birdie wanted to join another band, he should keep his rock music separate from his career in classical music. Mainly to protect his reputation he’d been building as Birdie St. Pierre in the orchestra world. I’m sure they were hoping he’d drop the St. Pierre for rock music, but he didn’t.”
Confusion contorts my face. “There are literally thousands of names he could’ve made up. And he agreed to take his older brother’s name?”
Phoenix huffs out a hard breath. “I urged him to use it because I didn’t want it anymore.”
“What?”
“I promised myself after Sophomore Summer fell apart that I’d never join another band. Having Birdie take my name was basically my way to make this”—he motions between me and him—“more taxing and difficult. I was never supposed to be in a band again.”
“But you are in one,” I accuse. “You’re right here, so why do you suddenly want to be in a band now?”
He latches onto my gaze. “Because nothing in life has hurt more than a broken dream. It’s like putting shattered glass under my pillow every time I try to sleep. I’m sick of bleeding out.”
His words flow deep through me, and for the first time, I hear the songwriter in him. His eyes redden the longer our gazes grip and fist. Neither of us look away. I’m staring at someone who’s come out of my worst fear.
The implosion of a dream. Feeling the end to what you wanted to last forever.
Standing inside the lifeless wasteland of your hopes and determination and thinking all the hard work led to a place where nothing grows. Where there’s no tree to climb toward the sky you so desperately want to kiss.
You are in the cold.
On the ground.
And I don’t want to be there any more than I want him there.
“You’re going to need a name for The Carraways,” I remind him. He can’t be referred to as Phoenix if everyone knows that’s the drummer for Nothing Personal.
“You want to name me?” he asks less hostilely.
I frown. “Are you offering?”
“Sure.” His eyes dart down me again. “You pick.”
“How do you feel about your middle name?”
“Indifferent.” He squints at me. “What’s your obsession with middle names?”
“Makes a person more unique, Wolfgang St. Pierre.” I swear his lips tic up just slightly. “Made you smile.” I grin.
“It’s not an achievement, nepo baby. I smile all the time.”
“That is a flat-out exaggeration. You barely smile, dude.”
“Maybe I just don’t smile around you.” Ouch. He tilts his head at me, and I do my best to exhale the tension in my chest. He catches my gaze. “Did that one puncture?”
“Not at all. I’m a Cobalt. I’m invulnerable,” I say seriously. “You can’t hurt me.”
“I could definitely hurt you.”
Why is my heart still racing?
He tears his headphones off his neck. “But I’m not going to maim and murder my singer.”
His singer. That should not stroke any part of me. It feels like you could fry an egg on my body. I comb my fingers through my hair. “Your bullets for eyes say otherwise.”
Phoenix lets out a sudden laugh.
My lungs feel full of helium. His slow-rising smile on me isn’t overly bright, but the dark edges of him are entrancing.
My lips curve upward. Until I remember our earlier conversation about me being gay, and I dig out my Zippo lighter. “Okay, let’s backtrack.”
He’s not excited.
“We’re doing that a lot. You like reversing?” he asks. I blame Eliot for that sounding sexual in my head.