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)
I get the bird on my fingers and bring him over to his cage. He flies half of the way there himself, enticed by the hanging rope which he bites onto.
Perfect. I latch the cage closed with him inside. “Have a good workout. Do not hurt yourself.” Last thing Ben needs is to blame himself for this little maniac’s broken wing.
I spin around and see Phoenix has sunk down on my bed like he’s already been here five thousand times.
“Make yourself at home,” I tell him with a wave.
“Thanks. I will.” He grabs the book off my nightstand and flips through the yellowed pages. My well-worn copy of Catcher in the Rye holds his attention for half a second before he tosses it aside on my mattress. His eyes roam my darker side of the room from the guitars displayed on my wall to the rock posters to the amps and my tall dresser.
He doesn’t glance back at Ben’s side.
I’m on edge wondering what’s coursing through his head.
“Ho!” the cockatoo squawks. “Ho! Ho!” He nibbles at his enclosure. I almost feel badly locking him back up. I’m the one who let him roam the room after Ben left. Because I, too, would not want to be caged.
Then again, he flew in there himself, so…it’s his fault.
Phoenix grimaces. “Does it have a name?”
“Not yet. Ben and Harriet are still workshopping names for him.”
“Harriet?”
“Ben’s girlfriend.”
His brows hike. “You share a room with your brother and his girlfriend?”
I cringe. “Whoa, no.” I hold up my hands. “Hell fucking no. She lives on MVU’s campus at some prestigious thing called the Honors House. She does not live here. I would not share a room with her, believe me.”
“You a big ho!” the cockatoo suddenly chirps. “Ho! Ho! Ho!”
What in the fuck?
Phoenix tilts his head at me like I am the one to blame for the dirty language. As much as I would love to take credit for the obvious prank, it wasn’t me.
“I did not teach him that,” I say. “I’m almost positive Harriet must have. To taunt me. She’s not my biggest fan.”
Phoenix has the audacity to smile. “You don’t say?”
I roll my eyes. “Dude, some people hate my guts. I think that’s their character flaw. Not mine.”
And just like that—smile gone. I’m the one grinning now.
He takes out a folded journal from his pocket. “So when your brother and his girlfriend come over, do they kick you out?”
“No, I voluntarily leave when they get…you know. We have a pull-out couch.” I grab my Martin off the wall and find a guitar pick in my nightstand drawer.
“So where are they now? Ben and Harriet?” He slides a pen out from the spine of the journal.
“Does it matter?”
“It’s Friday night, and your brother is nineteen, right? Just wondering how much time we have until they get back. Unless they’re spending the night at her place.”
I shake my head. “The Honors House doesn’t allow guests past ten p.m., but you don’t have to worry. Ben said they’re planning to hang out at my cousin’s apartment after their board game club thing.”
“What cousin?” Phoenix asks.
“Xander Hale. He goes to college with Ben. They’re about the same age, and Xander lives in this high-rise too—three floors below ours. Same floor as my best friend, Luna Hale. That’s Xander’s older sister.”
I expect Phoenix to make a comment about the puzzling lineage, but he’s not expressing confusion.
“Do you know of the Hales?” I sound accusatory because what the fuck?
“I know who they are, yeah. The whole world does. I think Luna Hale is the one who wrote some kind of tentacle sci-fi smut that was getting reposted everywhere.” Now he gives me a look. “Why is that dropping your jaw?”
“Because you barely know anything about my family, but you know the fucking Hales?”
He laughs hard. “It should not be that easy to bruise your massive ego.”
“It’s not bruised. It’s confused.”
“The Hales are more popular than the Cobalts for not great reasons. There’s like always stuff online where some shitty news site claims one of them is an alcoholic or sex addict just because their parents are.” His eyes flit over me. “That’s how all your families became famous, right? Your aunt was a sex addict and the daughter of the guy who created Fizzle?”
I blink a few times. “Yeah. The scandal heard ’round the world.” One I wasn’t even born for.
“Big ho!” the cockatoo chirps while looking directly at me. I don’t know how Harriet did it, but I’d put money on her training this bird in one day.
Phoenix is seated in the center of my black bedspread. One of his legs outstretched, the other tucked toward him. He rests his journal on the inside of his thigh, then flips to a blank page.
I grip the guitar and step onto the bed. Standing on the mattress. It draws his gaze up the length of my body, and my pulse skips, especially as he tears his eyes away and his cheeks redden. I think this might be the first time I’ve seen him blush.