Page 120 of Burn Bright
Once he starts the coffee machine, he rotates to face me fully while it brews. “There’s a reason I tend to keep my flings short-lived.”
“Yeah,” I nod. “You get bored.” Once he’s figured someone out, the interest wanes and Eliot moves on.
“True.” His grin softens. “But that’s not all. I’m not in the occupation of breaking hearts, and the longer you keep them around, the more attached they inevitably are. Not just to you.”
Now I want to argue with him. Tell him he’s full of himself. He’s wrong. But the words glue to the back of my throat. Sometimes I forget that the whole “Cobalts are gods” saying isn’t much of a joke. Not to some people. It has nothing to do with our wealth, our fame, or our limitlessness.
It’s the love.
The loyalty.
The unfailing, undying, unblistered power of family. It’s how there’s light in each of my siblings so bright that it’s not a question of whether they can illuminate the night sky. They just do. Being around them is like finding a way out of darkness, a way home.
“The gates to our family rarely open,” Eliot warns. “You bring them closer and closer, they start seeing what’s inside and believe they’ll have it one day. It’ll break them knowing they can’t.”
“Could the gates open for her?” I ask him.
My family’s fierce devotion—it’s everything she’s never had growing up, and I want her to experience love that never leaves you cold. To not just look up and see a constellation, but to be among those eternal stars.
He casts a glance toward the couch, the coffee machine gurgling softly behind him, then looks me over. “Oh, to be nineteen again.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
He picks up a mug, tossing it in his palm. “Girls will come and go out of your life, little brother.”
His words stab me. “She’s different,” I say, my voice hostile. “She’s not coming or going. She’s here, andshe’s staying.” I say this from my absolute core. I want her to stay. I want them to be there for her. I need them to let her through those gates without trouble, and it’s asking a lot.
I know it is.
He lets out a weighted breath, and his gaze no longer pins to the pull-out. He’s staring at me.Throughme. He processes for a long moment, squinting in the dark. All I can hope is he can see how much I care for her. How much she means to me.
Then he breathes out, “Well, shit.”
“What?” I frown.
“I’ll have to put her on myfuck with her and dielist.”
I start to smile. It’s very much what I want. “Tu promets?”You promise?
“De tout mon être.”With my whole soul.He comes closer and curves an arm around my head, bringing our foreheads together before messing my hair and letting go.
I smile even wider. Promises from Eliot carry the most weight in my family. He’d choose death over breaking one he made to us.
He’s grinning off my happiness. “It’s not too long of a list, just so you know. One cannot go to battle for every soul.”
I nod strongly. “Thanks, Eliot,” I tell him with depth.
He nods back, holding my gaze for another beat, as if seeing there is something deeper at play. But the coffee machine beeps. He spins around and pours himself a cup, then raises the mug to me. “Off for round three.”
27
BEN COBALT
My mind keeps whirling back to that night. The couch. The “friendly” sleepover. After I cooled off and climbed back into bed, I thought about turning away from her. Letting a pillow separate our bodies. But I couldn’t resist shifting closer.
Harriet naturally reached for me when I brought my arm over her. She curled up into my biceps that I tucked around her frame. She let me hold her while we slept, and it’s those innocent hours underneath the blankets that I’ve replayed over and over just as much as the volatile quakes of her climax.
She left in the morning before my brothers even woke.
